Talk:John the Baptist/Archive 2

Identity of the dancer
In the section relating to the Gospel of Mark account, there are extensive citations which show that the reading 'his daughter Herodias' is the preferred reading of many scholars, and explain why - because it is the more 'difficult reading'. This is standard and significant scholarship- anyone who considers this either off topic or of undue weight needs to explain why this information should be excluded. --Rbreen (talk) 12:04, 9 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Normally the more "difficult" reading is prefered-- if all other things are the same. You and I do not have way to know if "all other things are the same". I cannot find (yet) any commentary on Mark that prefers the 'his daughter Herodias' reading. All commentaries on Mark (that I have read) that even discuss it view it as not very important-- the text would still talking about Salome, Herod's step-daughter by another name. Also-- very few modern translation use the 'his daughter Herodias' reading. If the only WP:RS is Metzger then we quote Metzger, but we cannot pick a translation just to agree with Metzger. For all we know there are good reasons to dissagree with Metzger, and we just cannot find a WP:RS that tells us what they are. tahc chat 21:48, 10 August 2015 (UTC)


 * 1. It's easy to see if the lectio difficilior principle applies, because it will have been raised by the scholars working on it. In this case, it is a well-known example.
 * 2. I hope that by now your search of commentaries will have found that this text is a matter of scholarly controversy and the preferred scholarly reading is indeed the 'difficult' one, for the reasons explained. Essentially, there are multiple versions with both forms, but the Alexandrian Text, which is generally preferred over the more traditional Byzantine uses the 'daughter of Herod, Herodias' reading (and this is the version in the Nestle-Aland Greek text, (qv: "the standard for academic work in New Testament studies"). This text is found, for instance, in Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus, and Codex Regius.
 * 3. As support for this, please read the citations originally provided (which I have converted so you can read them online: Florence Morgan Gillman, Herodias: 'this reading is nevertheless preferred by numerous translators due to the strength of its external attestation'. Geoff R. Webb, Mark at the Threshold: 'this is the chosen text by the UBS committee, on the basis of the strength of external attestation'.
 * 4. Note that the NRSV text gives 'the daughter of Herodias' as an alternative reading, while the NIV gives 'Herod's daughter, Herodias" as an alternative reading.
 * --Rbreen (talk) 19:29, 15 August 2015 (UTC)


 * You seem to have a knach for finding works the tell us that some other work prefers the "Herod's daughter, Herodias" reading. While my preview excludes the pages cited, I presume your quotes indicate what (little) is said.
 * Anyway, none of these change the situation. None of the cites are tell us that scholarship over-all prefers "Herod's daughter, Herodias", or that translators use "the daughter of Herodias" for some bad reason, or tells us in any other way that NRSV is the one good translation. tahc chat 02:45, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, what I am trying to do is to find a source that shows what views are widespread, not individual views. The Gillman quote clearly shows this - 'numerous translators'. It also explains why: because the "Herod's daughter" text is the earlier and more difficult reading, scholars judge it more likely to be the original one. (Which Webb confirms). The fact that popular translations don't use this is obviously because they are not so concerned with textual accuracy (which is why the NIV preference is the other way round to NRSV one, though they both provide both). There's no "bad reason" for this, it's just that the NRSV (as explained above) has a particular focus on representing the original text which makes it the preferred version in NT scholarship. In any case, it's clear that the author of Mark, though originally referring to the girl as Herod's daughter, also appears to consider her the daughter of Herodias. This is the point corrected later by the Matthew Gospel. I am going to work on an edit that explains this.--Rbreen (talk) 10:12, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Name inflation
Why are there so many variations of the name of this person? My understanding is that historical figures should be known by whatever name they are commonly known by in English, plus, possibly, the version of the name they would have been known as at the time - ie in their own language. Instead we have a variety of languages, and sometimes variants within languages. On my screen, I have to go down to the sixth line before the article actually starts explaining who John is. This is confusing and unnecessary. I can see that some variants might be important - it's quite common in scholarly literature to refer to John the Baptizer, so that could be given as an alternative - and there is some dispute over the Islamic variation of the name (but that can go in the Islamic section). Apart from English, we could have his name in Aramaic, which is the language John would have spoken - except this is the one language we don't seem to have. I propose a radical cutback of this verbiage, but would like to hear opinions if anyone wants to speak up for one language or other. --Rbreen (talk) 22:12, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I notice that Jesus just has his name in English and Greek, so I suggest we stick to that (and in one variant only). --Rbreen (talk) 22:15, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
 * At the very least, we should keep the Hebrew. Unlike John the Baptist, Jesus has a huge controversy surrounding what his native name would have been, and numerous articles devoted to the subject (Yeshua (name), Jesus (name), Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament). (Despite this, I still think ישוע should be listed at the top of Jesus with a footnote.) We can be fairly certain that John's first language was not Greek (and that it was Semitic), so I think either the Hebrew or Aramaic has to be included. Anyways, I would personally include everything, as it's useful information and it doesn't really do any damage to have it up there, but at the very least we need a Semitic language up there, so we can separate John from the Gospel accounts of him. Aperiarcam (talk) 22:33, 9 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Also, at the first mention of Islam, the name يحيى (Yaḥyā) should be mentioned, given its uniquely Islamic character (only John and Jesus (عيسى) have special Islamic names, whereas other names like "Musa" for Moses and "Ibrahim" for Abraham are not Islamic in origin). Omitting it at the top of the article isn't really fair, as Islam doesn't venerate "John the Baptist" as such. Aperiarcam (talk) 22:41, 9 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't understand why the Gospel citations for the two Greek forms (Ἰωάννης ὁ βαπτιστής/ Ἰωάννης ὁ βαπτίζων) were removed and replaced with scholarly sources, and especially content from Greek Orthodox websites. Nothing wrong with including citations from the Orthodox Church, but surely the citations for John's name should come first from the Gospels (which are why we even have the Greek up there in the first place), and then from Orthodox sources. Liturgical Greek need not be included any more than ecclesiastical Latin. Aperiarcam (talk) 03:21, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Saint
The article in multiple places talks about John as a saint, the infobox lists him as a saint, and the article is categorized under "Christian saints from the New Testament" etc. Yet the lead never mentions that he is a considered a saint, or by what churches. I will guess that he is considered a saint by all Christian churches that recognize saints, but I am not sure how to determine that. --Macrakis (talk) 23:29, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

"Having baptism"
Article reads:
 * John is described as having the unique practice of baptism for the forgiveness of sins.(Crossan, p. 146)

The cited reference (Crossan, p. 146) talks about John the Baptist but says nothing about baptism or forgiveness of sins, let alone that the practice of baptism was unique. It isn't even clear what this sentence is supposed to mean: what does it mean to "have" baptism? Assuming it means to practice baptism, does it mean that he was the only one to practice baptism? that he was the only one to practice baptism for the forgiveness of sins? I will delete this sentence and replace it with the following well-supported text from baptism:
 * John the Baptist, who is considered a forerunner to Christianity, used baptism as the central sacrament of his messianic movement.

--Macrakis (talk) 23:29, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Last of the Prophets?
Mt11:9 and Lk7:26 says Jesus said John was higher than the prophets. Jesus is called a Prophet: Mt21:11,Lk7:16,39;13:33;24:19,Jn7:52 ... John in 6:14 ... calls Jesus "The Prophet" and has John the Baptist in 1:21 disclaim the title. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.78.19.55 (talk) 22:22, 21 June 2005‎

When we read "the Prophet" in texts such as John 1.21; 6.14; 7.40, it is not referring to just any prophet; this is why the word has a capital "P". The term is a reference to the promise of Deuteronomy 18.15: "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, . . ." Every Jew knew about that promise, and they waited, and waited with eagerness because this would be a prophet who would be the greatest of all prophets. This title belongs only to Jesus and to him alone. This is why John the Baptist denied the title; he knew it didn't belong to him. Jews still await the arrival of "the Prophet".

New Testament and John
According to the canonical gospels John died during Jesus' ministry. As the last possible date for Jesus' death is 33 the dating by Josephus as presented in the article is clearly different from the Biblical sources. The difference should be noted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.224.251.78 (talk) 02:09, 17 September 2006‎

"Gnostic and anthroposophic views"
The section Gnostic and anthroposophic views must be false, some POVvy invention by some passer-by anthroposopher. The flaws in the section are: My opinion is: remove the section! Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 08:12, 28 June 2016 (UTC)
 * only one non-primary source, and only by an anthroposophist,
 * theosophy and anthroposophy regards this universe as alive, even stones are alive, while Gnosticism regards this universe as corrupt and dead,
 * if John the Baptist was a reincarnation of Elijah according to the Gnostics, why is the Gospel that is regarded as most Gnostic, i.e. the Gospel of John, explicitly rejecting the John–Elijah connection?

Islamic infobox
I removed the "islamic prophet infobox" from the article because I think it is redundant. It did not contain any information not already contained in the main infobox. Even the image was already present in the article.  Vanjagenije  (talk)  09:18, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

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 * .  Vanjagenije  (talk)  10:00, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

Quotation from Josephus
The quotation is garbled. ("for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded the Jews irate, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God, and so to come to baptism"). Experts are invited to look at it and see what's gone wrong. If no expert turns up, I'll try myself. Thanks.Campolongo (talk) 12:17, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

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Another question concerning Josephus
The article states: "Josephus states that the end of Herod's marriage with Aretas' daughter (after which John was killed) "

I would like to see some documentation on the parenthetical remark, or think it should stricken. It is illogical when you realize that Herod and Aretas became enemies after the divorce. So, why would Aretus kill Herod's enemy? The execution happened not long after the Baptist was sent to Aretas, while Herod and Areta were still allied.

I suspect the authors of this article want to ignore that because it conflicts with the gospel narrative. But it reflects badly on an article that is supposed to be "encyclopedic". Rantedia (talk) 20:53, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
 * John was killed by Herod, not Aretus.--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 23:48, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Zachariah
Can you explain the purpose of this and this edit? Throughout the article, John's father is calles Zechariah, and the article on him is titled Zechariah (priest). Why you keep changing the spelling in that section to "Zacharias"?  Vanjagenije  (talk)  08:44, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

I didn't realise you had been reverting the spelling. To explain, the Greek origin of his name is "Ζαχαρίας" (translit. "Zacharias"), just as it appears in the KJV and certain other translations. This is noted in the first paragraph of the article Zechariah (priest). It's a not a major issue, but "Zechariah" is not a literal rendering of the text in Luke 1, so, I used the literal rendering for the sake of accuracy. Apercuwanderer (talk) 04:39, 11 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't know which spelling is correct. But I know that we should keep consistency and use one spelling. As long as the article is titled "Zechariah (priest)", we should be using "Zechariah". If you think that spelling is wrong, feel free to make a WP:move request at Talk:Zechariah (priest). But, it's not a good solution to change spelling in other articles while the main article is still titled "Zechariah (priest)". Now, can you revert your edits?  Vanjagenije  (talk)  07:55, 11 August 2017 (UTC)
 * , Vanjagenije is correct. We should use the spelling used in the main article. But if you think that your spelling meets WP:COMMONNAME then ask for a move request. Doug Weller  talk 11:09, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

Gentlemen, as previously stated, the intention of using this spelling was to preserve accuracy to the source of which this information was derived from. Again, the first paragraph of Zechariah (priest) states that "Ζαχαρίας" is the source's spelling, which is rendered as "Zacharias" in Latin orthography. The ultimate point of staying true to the text in this paragraph is because the text in Luke 1 says he was named "Zacharias", not "Zechariah". This is clearly not an attempt to change the figure's identity but to emphasise what exactly John the Baptist was plan to be named, according to the actual source and not according to interpretations of the source, as using "Zechariah" here would be doing. I added citations to each of these edits in order to verify their accuracy. To retain this objective integrity to the information's source material while also attempting to better meet the consistency standards of Wikipedia, I have added a bit stating that Zacharias is also known as Zechariah (priest). Again, please understand that I don't think this is a major issue and that it is not worthy of conflict between us. So, if any of my alterations to the edits in question is still not satisfactory for either of you, please feel free to edit them as you prefer. I request that you please stop bullying me about this. Apercuwanderer (talk) 01:55, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

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life and death
I suggest A Life Section and a Death Section. The differing religious interpretations and renditions could be held in these sections. I feel it would aid those using the page for research and reference. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.205.240.189 (talk) 00:33, 14 April 2018 (UTC)


 * It would help if people would stop changing John the Baptist's death range to 31 - 32 CE when we have a reference, already used in the article, that gives a date of 35 CE: "35 CE – death of John the Baptist" Lang, Bernhard (2009) International Review of Biblical Studies Brill Academic Pub ISBN 9004172548 p. 380. Heck the Encyclopædia Britannica online listing for John the Baptist clearly states "died 28–36 CE" The clear violations of WP:NPOV in the altering of such important information shows the POV pushing that is going on with this article.--2606:A000:7D44:100:7195:701E:6EB0:BDC1 (talk) 00:26, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Other scholarship
here is a section entitled "Other scholarship " which to add after the "Unification Church" paragraphs if there are no scholarly objections I shall check back here and add the piece to the article (as well as removing the added section from the talk page to avoid cluttering it): SteamWiki (talk) 00:05, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
 * EDIT Migrated to main article "Other scholarship" section

SteamWiki (talk) 20:53, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

John the Baptist was born on November 12, 7 BC / 12.11.747 AUC / 20 Heshvan 3755 HC
I tried to add the birthday of John the Baptist. 2601:580:10C:AF9:FDDE:DC6B:3E83:A155 (talk) 05:02, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
 * You will need to first provide a reliable source for your changes.--Chewings72 (talk) 05:42, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

"Elijah who is to come"
This expression is misunderstood. Jesus used Elijah in the plural sense when he said "Elijah to come". It means that John acted like Elijah. He was the Elijah on earth (Elijah of the dead). Elijah of the Old Testament makes his coming in the times of the end (Elijah of the living). John accordingly behaved like Elijah.. 86.80.22.172 (talk) 19:54, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Well, it is odd that in the lead it states "which some biblical scholars interpret to mean that Jesus believed that John was the reincarnation of the Old Testament prophet Elijah.... "    which is likely a minority view  because the traditional Christian view (which overall denies reincarnation) is found further down in the article  "many Christian theologians have taken this to mean that John was Elijah's successor,"  which is the view that the link you provided appears to be overall conveying.  I suppose the lead should be redone to convey both and of course include "... although John the Baptist in the Gospel of John explicitly denies being linked to Elijah.  "

SteamWiki (talk) 22:46, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

"Whether John himself recognized Jesus as the messiah is not clear from the New Testament." Isn't this flat-out wrong, or at best misleading?
In John 1:29-34, John gives an explicit and emphatic testimony that Jesus is "God's Chosen One", "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" And in Matthew 3:13-15, John says "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" and then consents to baptizing him.

It seems very clear from John and Matthew that he recognized Jesus as the Messiah. There is one explanation I can think of for why one might state that it's not clear, and that's Matthew 11:1-6:

"2 When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples 3 to ask him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”

4 Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: 5 The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy[b] are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. 6 Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”

So according to Matthew, at some point after John baptized Jesus he developed doubt that he was the Messiah (though the way he asks the question, it seems as though he doesn't doubt Jesus's integrity, but his own understanding of Jesus.)

This passage could be posed as an argument that "Whether John himself recognized Jesus as the messiah is not clear from the New Testament," but it seems like a very poor one, and flatly misleading in its context of the intro section with no explanation, in light of everything else the NT says about John (e.g. Luke 1:41). Senkoquartz (talk) 01:49, 9 August 2020

Senkoquartz (talk) 01:52, 9 August 2020 (UTC)


 * You do not make the call. To give you an inkling about who makes the call: https://listverse.com/2014/09/08/10-theories-about-who-really-wrote-the-bible/ Tgeorgescu (talk) 00:54, 9 August 2020 (UTC)


 * After some reflection, the sentence in question doesn't seem as bizarre and misleading as it first did, but I'm frustrated that it did in the first place. What had happened was that I had read a related article beforehand that had a skeptical historical perspective, and then going into the John the Baptist article I read the culprit sentence as a historical assertion from inference completely removed from the testimony of the author - giving the same level of deference to the New Testament as a work, as someone stating: "It is not clear from the NT that the apostles really saw the resurrected Jesus". Not to invoke a level of offense of  or incorrectness with that comparison, but it seemed like the same balance of concern for testimony against historical inference. This offense is then compounded by the fact that the statement "it is not clear" seems to be the opposite of the authorial message, even after reflection/review of what I know. So basically (from my experience) it reads as a cynical interjection of historical inference at first, and then there's no help to see it as having deference to the Work because it doesn't sound *seem  like a correct understanding anyway, or an explained one. You say I don't make the call with my basic knowledge, but I think it could be misleading to someone with less or as much knowledge as me. Senkoquartz (talk) 01:52, 9 August 2020 (UTC) : edited 09:03, 9 August 2020 (UTC)


 * I can't see where the source supports that statement. (The source, incidentally, is an article in the Britannica, and even though it seems to be written by John Strugnell, who is RS, I'd prefer a different source).Achar Sva (talk) 07:47, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
 * And what the Devil has happened to the font size? This is almost illegible!Achar Sva (talk) 07:48, 9 August 2020 (UTC)


 * The source states it in the final sentence. Senkoquartz (talk) 01:52, 9 August 2020 (UTC)


 * I see. Well, in the two passages from Matthew that you quote in this thread, John says, "are you the messiah?" not "you are the messiah!" The quotes from John are more of a problem, but it's a problem for Strugnell, and Strugnell is unfortunately deceased. You could look up some other books on John, there are plenty around. Achar Sva (talk) 11:15, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Muslim martyr?
User:IslamMyLoveMyLife added John the Baptist to categories "Islamic figures", "Muslim Saints from the Old Testament" and "Muslim martyrs." I have removed them. John the Baptist does not figure in the Old Testament, as an Islamic saint or not. Does anyone who knows more about it know if Islam really claims him as a "Muslim martyr"?Smeat75 (talk) 16:14, 7 September 2020 (UTC)


 * John is a muslim martyr in the same way Moses or Abraham are Christian figures. --Mr. 123453334 (talk) 06:14, 7 October 2020 (UTC)


 * Yup, John the Baptist wasn't Christian, either. As the old saying goes, the religion of Jesus was Judaism, Christianity is a religion about Jesus. Tgeorgescu (talk) 10:29, 7 October 2020 (UTC)


 * The user is probably technically correct, since Islam claims anyone who submits to God as a follower of Islam (because "Islam" means "to seek peace", in this case peace with God). But he should have a source.Achar Sva (talk) 22:52, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Death year: up to 36? After Jesus?! Jeez!
This needs to be dealt with. Either it's a minority theory, or even fringe theory, or it's plain out of the question. In any case, it needs to be clarified. As it is now, it contradicts all mainstream theories about the life years of Jesus calculated according to the Gospels + historical sources. Explain, and everything becomes acceptable. Don't, just copy-and-paste out of N different sources, and it turns into an illogical hodgepodge. Good luck & thanks, Arminden (talk) 18:11, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
 * hi! Sorry, but your edit cannot be left standing. Just removing inconvenient GOOD sources doesn't solve anything, even if I agree that sweeping under the carpet is an excellent solution for bachelors. (You made me smile, and I thank you for that: you're praising Metzger 1993 and removing Metzger 2004 in the same edit. Btw, he's "only" the editor, didn't write the entire two dictionaries, and things slip through.) Also, you left an orphaned Bernhard Lang source. No good :)) Anyway, the Josephus discussion (paragraph "In Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews") was still in there, as it should, with the 36 CE option. We need a discussion, here first, and then a carefully worded one in the article. I guess in the end we'll have the mainstream dates in the lead, and the discussion with the fringe theory inside the article. I suggest a "historical John" sub-paragraph inside the "Scholarship" paragraph. Can't ignore scholarship once it's out there and unrefuted :))) Let's all go back to work! Thanks and all the best, Arminden (talk) 23:47, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. Actually I just thought the whole thing was over-sourced - a single RS would do. Something like Eerdmans, perhaps? Achar Sva (talk) 03:52, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
 * And oversourced it is, but only because there's such a bug in the soup. Once the discussion of the death year gets its place in the article, the matter can be thinned out in the lead. Practically what I'd already said. If one source says 31-32, another 34, and another 36, with the 28 coming from I don't know where, this needs to be dealt with. If it were about the mayor of Capernaum, who'd care less (unless his name were Matthew or Luke by some chance), but this is J.t.B. Arminden (talk) 15:59, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Can we get rid of that stupid nude?
Referring to the painting at the top of the article (in the Infobox). It's ludicrous that John should be depicted as not fully clothed. Mksword (talk) 19:45, 25 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Not really. Mark 1:6: "And John was clothed with camel's hair, and with a girdle of a skin about his loins; and he did eat locusts and wild honey." The picture in question seems to me an accurate depiction of that description ;P. Firejuggler86 (talk) 09:20, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

Needs more accurate death date
While I was looking at the article I noticed it said "dubious" at the part where it said John's death date. Anyone can help me get good sources to change it, or can change it themselves?

Amorgos420 (talk) 22:21, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Direct descendant of Samuel
Yes, that Samuel, who annointed Saul, David, and who knows what. Luke 1.5 says: "There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zechariah, of the course of Abia". I've mapped the whole bloody genealogy of the whole bloody Bible, and guess what. There is only 1 abia, and of significance. So this instead being some random throwaway line is actualy making the connection between Samuel and John the Baptiast, re-creating the annointing of David for Jesus, of course on the sidenote proving the Bible is entirely fictional. And yes, if you use this tidbit, you have to reference ME now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:AB88:370C:1480:5523:7C6:8948:49D (talk) 19:13, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

John the Baptist did not die in 36.
I have changed it to something else, if you disagree, go ahead and revert, but please explain to me how a possible range for John the Baptist's death is 36, which is a couple of years after Jesus' death? Fringe theory, no?
 * It is not a "fringe theory" as both International Review of Biblical Studies Brill Academic and Encyclopædia Britannica online meet the Reliable sources requirements. Ironically, the Chronology of Jesus article has far better references for its AD 30 and AD 36 range (4 references) than the Jesus Christ article itself (one reference)--174.99.238.22 (talk) 22:34, 26 December 2021 (UTC)