Zealot - The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

seriously.
    Oddly, Luke refers to the two crucified on either side of Jesus not as
lestai
but as
kakourgoi
, or “evildoers” (Luke 23:32).
CHAPTER SEVEN: THE VOICE CRYING OUT IN THE WILDERNESS
    All four gospels give varying accounts of John the Baptist (Matthew 3:1–17; Mark 1:2–15;
     Luke 3:1–22; John 1:19–42). It is generally agreed that much of this gospel material,
     including John’s infancy narrative in Luke, was derived from independent “Baptist
     traditions” preserved by John’s followers. On this, see Charles Scobie,
John the Baptist
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1964), 50–51, and Walter Wink,
John the Baptist in the Gospel Tradition
(Eugene, Ore.: Wipf and Stock, 2001), 59–60. However, Wink thinks only some of this
     material came from John’s unique sources. He argues that the infancy narratives of
     John and Jesus were likely developed concurrently. See also Catherine Murphy,
John the Baptist: Prophet of Purity for a New Age
(Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2003).
    Although, according to Matthew, John warns the Jews of the coming of the“kingdom of heaven,” that is merely Matthew’s circumlocution for Kingdom of God. In
     fact, Matthew uses the phrase “Kingdom of Heaven” throughout his gospel, even in those
     passages in which he has borrowed from Mark. In other words, we can be fairly certain
     that “Kingdom of God” and “Kingdom of Heaven” mean the same thing and that both derived
     in some part from the teachings of John the Baptist.
    There are many inaccuracies in the gospel account of John’s execution (Mark 6:17–29;
     Matthew 14:1–12; Luke 9:7–9). For one, the evangelists refer to Herodias as the wife
     of Philip, when she was actually the wife of Herod. It was Salome who was Philip’s
     wife. Any attempt by conservative Christian commentators to make up for this blatant
     error—for instance, by referring to Antipas’s half brother as “Herod Philip” (a name
     that does not appear in any records)—falls flat. The gospels also seem to confuse
     the place of John’s execution (the fortress of Machaerus) with Antipas’s court, which
     at the time would have been in Tiberias. Finally, it should be mentioned that it is
     inconceivable that a royal princess would have performed for Antipas’s guests, considering
     the strictures of the day for Jewish women of any status. There are, of course, many
     apologetic attempts to rescue the gospel story of John’s beheading and to argue for
     its historicity (for example, Geza Vermes,
Who’s Who in the Age of Jesus
, 49), but I agree with Rudolf Bultmann,
History of the Synoptic Tradition
(San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1968), 301–2, and Lester L. Grabbe,
Judaism from Cyrus to Hadrian
, vol. 2, 427–28, both of whom argue that the gospel story is far too fanciful and
     riddled with too many errors to be taken as historical.
    For parallels between Mark’s account of John’s execution and the book of Esther, see
     Roger Aus,
Water into Wine and the Beheading of John the Baptist
(Providence: Brown Judaic Studies, 1988). The story also echoes Elijah’s conflict
     with Jezebel, the wife of King Ahab (1 Kings 19–22).
    Josephus’s account of John the Baptist’s life and death can be found in
Antiquities
18.116–19. King Aretas IV was the father of Antipas’s first wife, Phasaelis, whom
     Antipas divorced in order to marry Herodias. It is unclear whether Antipas was exiled
     to Spain, as Josephus states in
The Jewish War
2.183, or to Gaul, as he alleges in
Antiquities
18.252.
    A catalogue of ablutions and water rituals in Jewish scripture and practice can be
     found in R. L. Webb,
John the Baptizer and Prophet: A Socio-Historical Study
(Sheffield, U.K.: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991), 95–132. For more on the use of
     water in Jewish conversion rituals, see Shaye J. D. Cohen, “The Rabbinic Conversion
     Ceremony,”
Journal of Jewish Studies
41 (1990): 177–203. There were a few notable individuals in first-century Palestine
     who practiced ritual acts of immersion, most famously the ascetic known as Bannus,
     who lived as a hermit in the desert and who bathed himself morning and night in cold
     water as a means of ritual purification; see Josephus,
Life
2.11–12.
    Josephus writes at length about the Essenes in both the
Antiquities
and
The Jewish War
, but the earliest evidence about the Essenes comes via Philo of Alexandria’s
Hypothetica
, written between 35 and 45 C.E . Pliny the Elder