JOHN THE BAPTIST ACCORDING TO FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS, AND HIS INCORPORATION IN THE CHRISTIAN TRADITION

Johannes Tromp

In Jewish Antiquities 18.116-119, Flavius Josephus includes a section on John the Baptist. His reason for including it was that it contained a widely circulating explanation for the victory of the Nabatean king Aretas over the tetrarch Herod Antipas. 1 In my translation, it reads as follows:

116. Some Jews believed that the army of Herod was destroyed by God, who quite rightly avenged the fate of John, surnamed the Baptist. 117. For Herod had John killed, although he had been a good man. He had asked the Jews to lead a virtuous life and to come together for baptism,2 while practising righteousness towards each other, and piety towards God. In this way, it seemed to him, was baptism acceptable: they should not use it to obtain forgiveness for the sins they had committed, but as a purification of the body, inasmuch as their soul had already been cleansed beforehand by righteousness. 118. When others joined them-for they became highly agitated by his preaching-Herod feared his influence on people to be so great that it might lead to some uprising; for they seemed to be doing everything according to his advice. Therefore Herod decided that it would be much better to take the initiative to have him killed before he was able to cause some revolution, than to get involved in matters once the revolt had begun, and then be sorry. 119. Because of Herod's apprehension,John was sent in chains to the aforementioned fortress of Machaerus and killed there. Among the Jews, however, the opinion prevailed that Herod's army was destroyed as a revenge on John's behalf, because God wished to harm Herod. According to this passage, Herod Antipas had John the Baptist executed before the latter's successful preaching could lead to a rebellion. John's baptism, according to Josephus, was not a mechanical device to be redeemed from the burden of sin, but a purification of the body, as a

1 The passage has no parallel in Josephus' Jewish War. 2 K. Backhaus, Die 'Jiingerkreise'des Tiiufers Johannes: Eine Studie zu den religionsgeschichtlichen Urspriingen des Christentums (PaThSt 19), Paderborn/etc. 1991, 268-72. 136 JOHANNES TROMP symbol of people's having already cleansed their souls through a life of righteousness.3 To judge from Josephus' rendering of it, John's definition of virtue was quite simple: he called upon people to practise the Golden Rule, that is, to be righteous in their dealings with other people, and pious in their dealings with God.4 It is unlikely that such a mild message could be expected to arouse a spirit of rebellion in Herod's tetrarchy, so there must have been more to it. 5 It is probable that the essence of John's proclamation was eschatological. Josephus mentions many other preachers who spoke about redemption, who had a following of some substance, and who were killed by the authorities because they were suspected of inciting a rebellion. It is communis opinio in the schol• arly community, that these prophets were announcing the imminent breakthrough of the kingdom of God, and that this was considered, by Romans and Jewish establishment alike, a dangerous kind of sedition, punishable by death. It is almost certain that John the Baptist was one such herald of the Day of Judgement.6 The evidence in the New Testament supports this conclusion. 7 Although it does not explicitly describe John as an eschatological preacher, it does place him in the immediate vicinity of Jesus of Nazareth, of whom it is said that he continued John's proclamation (c£ Mark 1:4 with 1: 14--15), and there is no doubt that at least the

3 See e.g.J.P. Meier, John the Baptist in Josephus: Philology and Exegesis',JBL III (1992), 225-37, at 231; R.L. Webb, John the Baptizer and Prophet: A Socio-Historical Stutfy (JSNTSup 62), Sheffield 1991, 35, 186-96. 4 A. Dihle, Die Goldene Regel: Eine EirifUhrung in die Geschichte der antiken und friihchristlichen Vulgiirethik, Gottingen 1962; Idem, 'Goldene Regel', in: T. Klauser et alii (eds), RAC XI, Leipzig/Stuttgart 1981, cols. 930-940. 5 Cf Webb, John the Baptizer, 36-37. 6 J. Ernst, Johannes der Tii1ffir: Interpretation, Geschichte, Wirkungsgeschichte (BZNW 53), Berlin/New York 1989, esp. chapter 2; also E. Rivkin, 'Locating John the Baptizer in Palestinian Judaism: The Political Dimension', in: K.H. Richards (ed.), Sociery if Biblical Literature 1983 Seminar Papers, Chico 1983, 79-85. 7 I shall not discuss the extent to which the Gospels may have 'Christianized' the image of John; see on this, e.g., R. Uro, John the Baptist and theJesus Movement: What Does Q Tell Us?', in: R.A. Piper (ed.), The Gospel Behind the Gospels: Current Studies in Q. (NovT.S 75), Leiden 1995,231-57; but already the history of scholarship as reviewed by S. von Dobbeler, Das Gericht und das Erbarmen Gottes: Die Botschrift Johannes des Tii1ffirs und ihre Rezeption bei den Johannesjiingern im Rahmen der Theologiegeschichte des Friihjudentums (BBB 70), Frankfurt 1988, 16-26. For the purpose of the present discussion it suffices to note that Josephus' report alone makes the eschatological character of John's message probable, and that this concords with the oudines given in the Gospel tradition.