1992 - John P. Meier - John the Baptist in Josephus. Philology and Exegesis

8/13/2019 1992 - John P. Meier - John the Baptist in Josephus. Philology and Exegesis

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JBL lll/2 (1992) 225-237

JOHN THE BAPTIST IN JOSEPHUS:PHILOLOGY AND EXEGESIS

JOHN P. MEIERThe Catholic University of America, Washington, DC 20064

Unlike the Testimonium Flavianum (A nt . 18.3.3 $63-64), which pu rpo rtsto give a sum mary of th e ministry an d de ath of Jesus of Nazareth,' Josephus'saccount of John the Baptist2 in Ant. 18.5.2 gll6-1g3 does not require alengthy d efense of its auth enticity . T he basic text is witn essed in all relevantmanuscripts of the Jewish Antiquities: and the vocabulary and style areFor a defense of the authenticity of the "core text" of the Testimonium Flavianum, once the

three clearly Christian interpolations are removed, see John P. Meier, "Jesus in Josephus: AModest Proposal," CBQ 52 (1990) 76-103.

For basic treatments of John the Baptist (pages dealing with Josephus's text are noted inbrackets), see Martin Dibelius, Die urchristliche ~b erl ief eru ng von Johannes dem Tiufer(FRLANT 15; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck Ruprecht, 19ll ) [123-291; Maurice Goguel, Au seuilde l'ivangile: Jean-Baptiste (Paris: Payot, 1928); Ernst Lohmeyer, Das Urchristen tum: Buch,Johannes de r Taufer (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck Ruprecht, 1932) [31-361; Carl H. Kraeling, Johnthe Baptist (New York: Scribner, 1951); Charles H. H. Scobie, John the B aptist (London: SCM,1964) [17-221; Roland Schutz,Johannes de r Taufer (ATANT 50; ZurichlStuttgart: Zwingli, 1967)[13-27; Walter Wink, John the Baptist in the Gospel Tradition (SNTSMS 7; Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press, 1968); Jurgen Becker, Johannes der Taufer und Jesus von Nazareth(Neukirchen-Vlupn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1972); Etienne Nodet, "Jesus et Jean-Baptiste selonJosephe," RB 92 (1985) 320-48, 497-524; Josef Ernst, Johannes der Taufer: Interpretation-Geschichte-Wirkungsgeschichte (BZNW 53; BerlinINew York: de Grupter, 1989) [253-631;Robert L. Webb,John the Baptizer and Prophet: A Socio-Historical S tudy (JSNTSup 62; Sheffield:JSOT Press, 1991) [31-431; Knut Backhaus, Die Jungerkreise es Taufers Johannes: Eine Studiesu den religionsgeschichtlichen Ursprungen des Christentums (Paderborner TheologischeStudien 19; Paderborn: Schoningh, 1991) [266-741. For further bibliography on the Baptist inJosephus, see Louis H. Feldman,Josephus and M odern Scholarship 1937-1980 (BerlinINew York:de Gruyter, 1984) 673-79, 957; idem, Josephus: A Supplementary Bibliography (New YorklLondon: Garland, 1986) 620, 675.Since almost all contemporary critics discount as later interpolations the two passages deal-ing with John in the so-called Old Slavonic (actually, Old Russian) version of the Jewish War,they will not be treated here. For a survey of the question, see, e.g., Dibelius, Die urchristliche~ber l i e ferung,127-29; Kraeling, John the Baptist, 5; Scobie, John the Baptist, 19-22; Ernst,Johannes der Taufer, 258-63; Webb, John the Baptizer, 43-44."or alternate and conjectural readings, see the notes of Louis H. Feldman on this passagein Josephus: Jewis h Antiquities: Books XVIII-XIX (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard UniversityPress; London: Heinemann, 1981 [No. 433, vol. 9 of Josephus]) 80-84; and the more detailedinformation in the editio maior of Benedict Niese, Flat;ii Josephi Opera (7 vols.; 2d ed.; Berlin:


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Journal of Biblical Literatureplainly those of Josephus, especially as evidenced in books 17 19 of theAntiquities.5 Unlike the Testimonium, Josephus's treatment of the Baptist isclearly referred to by O rigen in his Contra Celsum (1.47) as h e seeks to proveth e existence of th e Baptist: For in book 18 of th e Jewish Antiquities,Josephu s bears witness to John as the on e who becam e 'the Baptist' an d whopromised c leans ing for those who were b a p t i ~ e d . ~he whole text of Jose-phus's passage on the Baptist is given, with slight variations, by Eusebius inhis Ecclesiastical History (1.11.4-6):

Weidmann, 1955; originally 1885-95) 4. 161-62. The critically established texts of Niese andFeldman are substantially the same; some minor differences will be noted in the course of thisessay. For a recent treatment of the many text-critical problems of the Antiquities, with books1-3 used as a test case, see Etienne Nodet, Flaoius Josbphe: Les an ti qu it b uiues. Volume I LivresI a Ill. A. Introduction et tate (Paris: Cerf, 1990) xii-xxii. I use the phrase "a11 relevant manu-scripts" because, as Nodet points out (p. xiii), the manuscripts available for text-critical work arevery different for books 11-20 of the Antiquities than for books 1-10; for an extensive treatmentof these manuscripts, see Niese, Flaoii Josephi Opera, 3. 111-LVII. It should be noted thatNodet's own critical text is intended only as an editio minor I am grateful to my colleague, Prof.Christopher T. Begg, for the reference to Nodet's work.

For these and other arguments for authenticity, see Scobie,John the Baptist, 18-19; Webb,John the Baptizer, 39-41. Scobie emphasizes the lack of any eschatological andlor messianicproclamation by Josephus's John, as well as the very different presentation of John's death.Nevertheless, some authors have argued for knowledge of the Synoptic tradition on Josephus'spart; e.g., Schiitz Uohannes der Taufer, 17) argues that Josephus knew tradition found in Mark'sGospel. The idea that Josephus knew and used Luke has a venerable parentage; for examplesof the debate in the nineteenth century, see H. J. Holtzmann, "Lucas und Josephus:' ZWT 16(1873) 85-93; M . Krenkel, "Ein Nachtrag zu dem Aufsatze: Josephus und Lucas:' ZWT 16 (1873)441-44; E. Schiirer, "Lucas und Josephus:' ZU7T 19 (1876) 574-82; H. J. Holtzmann, "Noch ein-ma1 Lucas und Josephus," ZWT 20 (1877) 535-49. In my view, the arguments of Scobie in favorof Josephus's independence of the four Gospels are convincing; for a similar line of argument,see Graham H . Twelftree, "Jesus in Jewish Tradition:' in Gospe l Perspectioes: The Jesus TraditionOutside the Gospels (ed. David Wenham; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1985) 5. 289-341, esp. 294-95.For the vocabulary and style of the passage as Josephan, see H. St. J. Thackeray, "Josephus andChristianity," in Josephus: The Man and the Historian (The Hilda Stich Stroock Lectures; NewYork: Jewish Institute of Religion, 1929) 132, 136.The Greek text reads: en gar to oktdkaidekat~ ~ soudaikZs archaiologias ho Idsi?pos martyr eito ldannc hds baptistc gegeni nenQ kai katharsion tois baptisamen ois ep ag ge llo m en ~. or a criticaledition, see Marcel Borret, ed. , Origbne: Contre Celse: Tome I (Liures 1 et 11) (SC 132; Paris: Cerf,1967) 198. All translations are my own. The Contra Celsum dates from ca. A D 250. It may bethat Origen does not cite Josephus verbatim because Josephus's insistence that John's baptismconfers only bodily purification and not forgiveness of sins contradicts the statement of Mark1:4: baptisma metanoias eis aphesin hamartidn.

For a critical text, see Gustave Bard ; Eusbbe de CBsarte: Histoire EcclBsiastique: Liores I-1V(SC 31; Paris: Cerf, 1952) 36-38. Although the dating of the Ecclesiastical History, which prob-ably went through various stages of redaction, is debated, book 1 was most likely completedbefore AD 303. Section 116 and part of 117 of the Baptist passage are also cited by Eusebius (withslight variations) in his De Demonstratione Evangelica Libri Decem 9.5.15; for a critical text, seeIvar A. Heikel, ed., Eusebius Werke : Sechster Band: Die Demonstratio Eoangelica (GCS 23; Leip-zig: Hinrichs, 1913) 416.


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Meier: John th e Baptist in Josephus 227T h e con ten t of the B aptist passage also argues for its authenticity. T h e

account Josephus gives of the Baptist is literarily and theologically uncon-ne cted with th e accou nt of Jesus, which occu rs earlier in book 8 and corre-spondingly lacks any reference to the Baptist. Th e passage abo ut th e Baptist,wh ich is m or e than tw ice as long as th e passage abo ut Jesus is also notablymo re laudatory. It also differs from (bu t does not formally co ntradict) th e fourGospels in its presentation both of John's ministry and of his death. Henceit is hard to imagine a Christian scribe inserting into book 8 of the Antiq-uiti s two passages ab out Jesus and t h e Baptist in which th e Baptist ap pearson the scene after Jesus dies, has no connection with Jesus, receives moreextensive treatment than Jesus, and is praised more highly than Jesus. It isnot surprising, therefore, that few contemp orary cri t ics question th e au then-ticity of the Baptist passage?While neither the authenticity nor the general thrust of the Baptistpassage is the subject of fierce debate, the nuance of certain phrases andthere fore th e precise flow of tho ug ht cre ate difficulties for a deta iled exegesisof th e G reek text. T h e purp ose of this essay is to suggest a solution to som ekey problem s of syntax and co nseq uently of interpretation. T h e basic criticaltext, as edited by Louis H. Feldman, is as follows:10l l 6 T ro i 66 r 6 v 'Iou6 aiwv k66xer dAwXLvar rbv 'HpcjGou ur pa rb v 3 zb zoii Oeoii

xa i yh Xa Grxaiw< rrvvup.Lvou xa zh .xorv+v 'Iwhvvou zoii t.xrxaXoup.Lvou/3a.xrruroii.117 xreivsr yhp 6+ zoiirov ' H p c j 6 q ~ ryaebv Gv6pa xa i TOSS IouGaio~ qxeXe6ovza

dper+v k.xauxoiiurv xai t h l xpb c drXXJIXou< 6rxaroaGvg xa i xp b< zbv OebvT h e "core text" of the Testimonium Flacianum contains 60 Greek words (including

particles) ; the passage on the Baptist, 162 words. Naturally, different judgme nts on text-criticalquestions might lead to slightly different com putations; but the overall result would rem ain thesame.

For an example of a critic who does declare t he Baptist passage to be an interpolation, seeLeon Herrmann , Chrestos: Th oi gn ag es pai ens et juqs sur le christianisme du premier sikcle(Collection Lat om us 109 ; Brussels: Latomus, 1970) 99-104. Not surprisingly, He rrm ann judgesthe Testimonium Flaeianum and even the passage on James, the brother of Jesus (Ant. 20.9.15200), to be interpolations as well. In contrast, Per Bilde readily accept s the au thenti city of theBaptist passage, although he rejects the Testimonium Flacianum as totally "a sec ondary Chris tianfabrication" (Flavius]osephus between]erusalem and Rome [Journal for the S tudy of th e P seude-pigrapha Sup plem ent 2; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 19881 223) .

o Feldman's text is cited as the o ne most readily available in th e U nited States; it is, of course,dependent on the editio maior of Niese, Flaoii Josephi O pera. Th e only differences in o ur passagear e Niese's cho ice of tinymenou instead of tinnymenou in 5U6; hesthesun instead of sr thaan andapostasei instead of stasei in 5U8; and d m a n instead of d m a in 5U 9. Th e only difference thatwould affect the meaning of the passage (and that only slightly) would be the choice ofhesthean, which is discussed below.

l T h e ta before pros allelous is curious. If it is meant to be the accusative of reference (i.e.,justice with regard to those things pertaining to one an other ), it is strange that a balancing tadoes not occur before pros ton theon. One might appeal to the variant reading found inEusebius's citation of Josephus in his De Demonstratione Ecangelica 9.5.15: te instead of ta; but


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22 8 Journ al of Biblical Literatu reed ae ~e ia pwpkvorc pax rrop @ ouvrkvar. oi j rw yhp 831 x a i r p p xrrarv no-8exr4v a d r q cpaveio0arp31kx i r rv ov bpapr bwv xaparr+ser xpwy fvwv, Mlkcp byveia 706 ahp aro c, t ire 831 x a i r+jc (Guxijc 8r xa ro dv q xposxxexa9ap-pfvqc.118 xa i r 8 v i l l w v ouorpecpopkvwv, xa i yhp ~p0r jaav12x i xXeiarov 73 xpo oer.78 v l6 yw v, 8eioac 'HphSqc r b k x i roo6v8e xr0avbv a6ro6 TOT< dlv0phxorq pjjk x i or aer r r v i cpFpor, x v ta yh p kaxeoav ou ppo uX t 73 kxeivou xp [ovrsc,x o lr j x p e ir ~ o v y e ir a r xpiv r r vehrepov k[ a6706 yevka0ar xpoXaPi)v veleivro6 yerapoX+jq yevopkvqc [y31]13 e i c xp ypa ra kpxea8v p~ra voe iv .

l l9 x a i 6 ykv 6xoc)iu rq 'Hp h8o u 8foproq eic rb v Ma xar po 6vra xeycp0eic r bxpoerpqpfvov cppo6prov raG rq xrivvura r. ro ic 8k 'Iou8aiorq 86[a k x i rr p w p iaTY kxeivou rbv 6le0pov kxi rq arpare6parr yevka0ar ro6 0eo6 xax8aar'Hph8qv 0fXovroc.As with the study of NT texts, th e first step in any analysis, after basictext criticism, is th e delimitation of the literary u nit. Josephu s seem s to havebe en at pains to make clear the beg inning an d th e en d of the Baptist passage,perh aps bec ause it was for him a minor p arenth esis in th e mu ch larger storyof Herod Antipas, Agrippa I , and other Herodians. Hence Josephus clearlypackages his aside abou t th e Baptist with an inclusio:certain key words andkey the m es o ccur in a cluster at t he very beg inning (5U.6 and th e first wordsof 5U7) and the very end (5U.9) of the passage.

tisi de ton Ioudaion tois de Ioudaiois( but to som e of th e Jews ) ( but to the Jews )edokei doxa( i t s e e m e d) ( the opinion [was] )olblenai olethron( to have perished , be destroyed ) ( destruction )ton HZrcidou straton t e strateum ati . . . HZriidZn( the army of Herod ) ( the a r m y . . H e r o d )

th is could s imply be a scribal correction. I t is noteworthy that t he E pis tle to the Hebrews usesthe phrase ta pros ton theon i n He b 2:17 hina gendtai . . . pistos archiereus ta pros ton theon; and5:1 pas gar archiereus. . . kathistatai ta pros ton theon.

l Feldm an rightly re jects th e a ltern ate reading favored by Niese (from Euseb ius) ofk s t h ~ s a n ,they enjoyed:' they took ple asu re in: they delighte d in:' T hat peo ple were extrem elystirre d up, excited, agitated, or car ried away brthbsan)by John's words m akes much b ett er senseas the ca use of Herod's fear. Moreover, h~s thdsans not witnessed universally in the m anuscriptsof Eusebius, and the manuscripts of Josephus favor drthdsan.

l 3 md is omitted by Eusebius and is put in brackets by both Niese and F eldman . It may comefrom the lingering idea of the object of Herod's fear deisas).In any case, it does not affect thesense of the passage or its translation.


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Meier: John the Baptist in Josephustou theou tou theou +("God [in genitive]) ("God [in genitive])tinnymenou kakosai . . thelontos("punishing" [Herod]) ("wishing to do evil" [to Herod])kata poindn Ioannou epi timarip t@ keinou("to avenge [what he did] to John") ("to avenge John")kteinei ktinnytai([Herod] "kills" [John]) (Dohn] "is k il le d [by Herod])

Thus, with the same or similar words, grouped in roughly the sameorder, Josephus reiterates the theme that (some) Jews thought that thedestruction of Herod's army by the Nabatean king Aretas IV was God's justpunishment inflicted on Herod Antipas to avenge his killing of John theBaptist. Since this is Josephus's own conscious framework for the pericope,it is advisable to view as the significant literary unit the whole Baptist passagefrom $ll6 to Sll9, and not simply from Sll7 to the beginning of $U9, as JosefErnst and some other commentators

$ll6 is fairly straightforward, with the only problematic phrase beingtinnymen ou kata poindn. In the middle form and with an obviously negativeconnotation, the verb must mean "avenge" or "punish and must modifytheou, the closest noun in the genitive, with Herod as the understood object.The sense is therefore: "God indeed punishing [Herod] quite justly." Thelaconic kata poindn 16annou must accordingly mean something like "toavenge what Herod had done to John." This likewise seems to be the senseof the equally compressed epi timarip t@ keinou in $U9.

In $117 things become more complicated, as Josephus begins to explainhow John's successful but apparently harmless ministry of promoting virtueled to his execution by Antipas. The basic structure of the first sentence issimple enough: Herod killed15 him, although16 he was a good man, a manwho bade the Jews join in baptism ' More troublesome are the two participles

l See Erns t , Johannes der Eufer, 253; the translat ion Ernst supplies in n. 1 unfortunatelyomits some words and introduces con cepts not prese nt in the Gre ek text. For example, ktinnytaiis t ranslated enthauptet: ' which intro duce s into Josephus th e idea of beheadin g, found only inthe Synoptic Gospels.

l 5 For th e sake of vivid narratio n, Joseph us p uts b oth referenc es to Antipas's killing of Johninto the historical pre sent tense kteinei in 117 and ktinnytai in 119). In my translation, I p u tall the verbs into the past tense.

l Th e adjec t ive agathon is pointedly separated from touton by H ~ r 6 d ~ snd is clearly in th epredicate rather than at tr ibutive posit ion; l ikewise, the part iciple keleuonta is circumstantialrather than at tr ibutive. Th e context , with i ts sharp bipolar contrast betwe en t he id ea of ki ll ingand the idea of a good man, makes the adversative sense of agathon and keleuonta obvious.

I' W h e t h e r baptism^ synienai me an s join in baptism, be united in baptism, or cometogether for a grou p baptism need no t conce rn us here. In general , comm entato rs tend to readmo re into these various phrases than the words themselves dema nd; the decision as to whethe rJohn was a leader of a nationalist or perhaps even a revolutionary movement hardly turns on


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Journal of Biblical Literaturemodifying tois loudaiois, epaskousin and chromenois. They are placed outsidethe article-noun combination and hence should be judged circumstantialrather than attributive in sense. To translate them merely as relative clauses( the Jews who cultivated virtue and practiced justice and piety )18 missesthe precise syntactical point. Distinguished scholars like Klausner, Feldman,and Ernst resolve the difficulty of rendering this convoluted sentence byusing English parataxis in place of Greek hypotaxis:19 John commanded theJews to cultivate virtue, practice justice and piety, and join in baptism. Whilethis is a common technique in dealing with periodic sentences in Latin andGreek, it may be missing a fine point here. What exactly is Josephus express-ing by these circumstantial participles?

One way to answer this question is to look ahead to the next sentence,which offers an explanation or reason (gar de kai) for what John did in termsof John's own thought (autg phaneisthai). The explanation states that, inJohn's view, his baptism of these Jews was acceptable to God (ap~dektEn)~O$and only ifthey used this rite not as a means to obtain ~ a r d o nf certainsins but as a means of purifying their bodies. This was all that his baptismneed or could do, since in fact (hate dE) their souls had already been cleansedby justice. Once again, as in the previous sentence, we find the verb chraomaithis one phrase (cf. Lohmeyer's interpretation that John was leading a national reform move-me nt of Jews who were uniting themselves as God's peop le by means of John's baptism [DasUrchristentum, 31-32]). Ernst is probably correct when he summarizes the sense of the phrasethis way: Die Juden strom ten zusamm en zu r Taufe, um sich dann wied er recht bald zuzers treuen. Die Bildung esoterischer Zirkel hat dem Taufer genauso ferngelegen wie dieSamm lung zu einem Volksaufstand Uohannes de r Taufer, 255 ). In n. 7 he observes that b aptismpsynienai may be com pared to much&synien ai, to go to war, to eng age in battle:' F or a simila rview, see Backhaus, w ho strong ly opposes any idea of the Baptist 's founding of a circle o r sectby using baptism as an initiation rite Uiingerkreise, 268-72). In this he differs from IIermannLichtenberger, w ho pr esent s a fanciful reading of Josephus's de scription of the B aptist: it is animplicit polemic against disciples of the Baptist who resided in Rome toward t he e nd of th e firstcentury A D ( Taufergem einden und friihchristliche Tauferpolemik im letzt en Dri ttel des 1.Jahr-hunderts:' ZTK 84 [I9871 36-5 7).

l This is the translation used by Scobie,]ohn the Baptist, 17; he takes it over from H . St Joh nThackeray.

l Se e Joseph Klausner, Iesu s of Nazareth: His Lqe, Times, and Teaching (Ne w York:Macm illan, 1925; Hebre w original 1922) 239; Feldm an, ]osephus: lewish A ntiquities, 81; Ernst,lohannes der Ta'ufer, 253.

2 T h e p h ra se to G o d is of co u rse n ot p re se n t in th e Greek, and th e word apodektos neednot carry this sense, even in a religious context (cf. the Epistle to Diognetus 8:3: 'And yet if anyof the se argum ents is accep table [apodektos] : ). I think, however, that Feldman and Ernst arecorrect in supplying it in the Baptist passage. It is the natural sense of the word in its context(what sense would i t make to say that John thou ght that the baptism would b e acceptab le toJohn ?), and it is supp orte d by th e two uses of apodektos in th e NT (1 Tim 2:3; 5:4 Yet on e mustremain m odest in one 's c la ims, s ince this is the only t ime that t he word appears in th e wholecorp us of Josephus's works; it never occurs in the LXX. For the disp ute over wh ethe r t he m or eacc ur ate transla tion is accep table to or pleasing to:' see Walter Bauer, Griechisch-deutschesWorterbuch zu den Schriflen des Neuen Testaments und d er friihchristlichen Li ter atu r (6th ed.;ed. K urt and Barbara Aland; Be rlinlS ew York: d e Gruyter, 1988) 179.


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23eier: John the Baptist in Josephusused as a participle in the circumstantial position describing some activityof those baptized; hence it is quite reasonable to suppose that the same noun,Ioudaiois, is understood, though now in the genitive, as the genitive absoluteconstruction demands. Given the context, which is discussing the conditionunder which John's baptism is acceptable to God, the translation if for thegenitive absolute seems most likely and is used by both Feldman and Ernst.

Now, if chraomai, used as a circumstantial participle describing theJews, is employed to express a condition for baptism in the second sentenceof SU7, it may well be that in the immediately previous sentence the sameverb (along with epaskousin , used likewise as a circumstantial participledescribing the Jews and specifying some circumstance of receiving baptism,carries the same conditional sense-especially since the second sentenceclaims to give the explanation or reason for the previous sentence. The firstsentence in $117 would therefore read: For Herod in fact killed him,although he was a good man and bade the Jews -if [or: provided that] theywere cultivating virtue and practicing justice toward one another and pietytoward God-to join in baptism:' If this translation is correct, the practice ofvirtue is not one of the direct objects of John's command but rather thenecessary precondition for obeying the one central command of the Baptist,namely, to be baptized, the only concept that is made the direct object ofkeleuonta. Only by construing the Greek in this way is the special functionof the circumstantial participles in serving Josephus's purpose fully recog-nized. Josephus is at pains to stress that John's baptism is not a magicalsubstitute for or producer of virtue, just as in the following sentence hestresses that John's baptism washes away pollution from bodies, not sins fromsouls?' Accordingly, John addresses his offer of baptism to Jews on the condi-tion that they are already practicing virtue. A proper appreciation of thecircumstantial participles, employed in a conditional sense in both sentences,is therefore of great importance for grasping the thrust of the whole passage.

This understanding of tois loudaiois in U7 as conditioned by the twocircumstantial participles helps in turn to explain the curious kai ton allfinZ Josephus seem s to be consciously combating the type of understanding of John's baptism

that w e find in Mark :4 Luke 3:3,baptism a metanoias eis aphesin ham artidn (noticea bly lack-ing in th e Matthean parallel , Matt 3:l-6). Since, in my opinion, there is no probative evidencethat Josephus knew any of the four Gospels, it is possible that he is reacting here to claims putforward by followers of John the B aptist , som e of whom con tinued to be active throughout thefirst century AD. Perhaps Josephus felt that such claims m ad e John's baptism a magical r i te thatwould not appeal to the cult ivated Greco-Roman milieu for whom Josephus was writ ing. TheBaptist is accordingly transformed from a preac her of eschatological judgment and the adm inis-trato r of an eschatological sacrament into a Greco -Rom an popu lar philoso pher exho rting hisfel low cit izens to virtue. Th e combination of exhortat ion to vir tue and con cern abou t a lustrat ionto purify th e body gives us a fittingly syncretistic image of a Stoic moralist w ith a n eo-Pyth agoreanritual. The attempt by Schiitz Uohannes der Ta'ufer, 26) to read Josephus as saying that thecleansing of both soul and body took p lace in John's bap tism goes against the obvious sense ofthe text.


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Journal of Biblical Literatureat the beginning of 9 1 W 2 At first glance, the previous concentration of thepassage on the Jews as the audience of John's preaching might conjure upthe idea that the unspecified others are Gentiles. There is no support forsuch an idea in the four Gospels, but such a double audience would parallelwhat Josephus (quite mistakenly) says about Jesus' audience in Ant. 18.3.3$63 (kai pollous men Ioudaious, pollous de kai tou Hellgnikou epggageto).

. However, if we are correct that epaskousin and chromenois in $117 expressconditions qualifying tois loudaiois, there is no need to go outside the imme-diate context to understand who the others at the beginning of $118 are. In$117 John calls to baptism only those Jews who fulfill a particular condition:they are already cultivating a life of virtue. Notice that Josephus gives noindication that this gathering of notably virtuous people around John gaveHerod cause for alarm. Indeed, why should Herod have been alarmed?Josephus makes no mention at this point of great agitation on the part of thebaptized or of their being ready to do whatever John counseled. Moreover,exceptionally virtuous persons do not usually form the vast majority ofpeople in any given society, and the peaceful gathering of such virtuouspersons merely to receive a religious rite is not usually the cause of graveconcern among politicians. But if that is the type of Jew being specified in$U7, the others in ll would seem to refer to the rest of the Jewish popula-tion, the larger group of ordinary people who, as in most other societies,neither rejected their religious heritage nor engaged in the heroic feats of vir-tue and religious observance that marked sectarians. It is not by accident thatwhen the others:' the larger general population, are introduced into thenarrative, we hear about excitement (grthdsan), John's persuasive power overpeople in general (note the generic tois anthropois), and Herod's fear that allthis could lead to r e ~ o l t ? ~osephus, however, is emphatic in attributing anyidea of revolt to the mind of Herod, not to the Baptist or the people. H e goeson to stress that Herod quite consciously undertook a preemptive strike (pro-labon) in doing away (anelein) with John. The preacher of virtue and bodilypurification might be quite harmless when addressing a religious elite; andeven when the common people flocked to him, he did not-at least for thepresent-urge revolt. But things might change (metabolds genomenes); sobetter safe than sorry (kreitton anelein tou This emphasiset~noein)?~

2 all6n obviously create d diff iculty for both a ncien t and m oder n readers: the correction ladnis found in codex an d perplurima multitude in th e Latin version, while Si es e offers the conjec-tura l emendat ion anthropon and Robert Eisler polkin (see Feldman, Josephus, 82). All theseattem pts arise from a fai lure to understa nd Josephus s own movem ent of though t.

3 This interpretat ion of tdn a&n is found in F. J. Foakes Jackson an d Kirsopp Lake, TheBeginnings of Christia nity: Part I The k t s of the Apostles (5 vols.; Grand Rapids: Baker BookHouse, 1979, originally 1920-33) 1. 102-3; bu t the re it is not based on an exp lanation of th etwo circumstantial part iciples as equivalent to condit ional clauses.

Th ere is a poignant and- on Josephus s part-u ninten ded irony in th e use of metanoed forth e deliberations of Herod that led to John s execution. Unlike the Synoptics, Josephu s saysnothing explici t about John as a preacher of metanoia


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Meier: John the Baptist in Josephuson the fact that John's death stemmed from the subjective suspicion of Herodrather than from any objective act of John is repeated at the beginning of $119by the phrase hypopsip tg HErGdou $119 then goes on to serve two functions:(1)it rounds out the pericope with the inclusio that brings us back to theopening affirmation of $U6, and (2) it connects the whole parentheticalBaptist passage with the ongoing Herodian saga, which continues in $120with the preparations for the expedition of Vitellius, the Roman governor ofSyria, to punish Aretas IV.

These philological and exegetical considerations produce the followingtranslation, in which the elements of the inclusio are set in bold print, thekey elements in the progression of thought are capitalized, and explanatorycomments supplied by the translator are put in brackets:

5U6. But to some of the Jews i t seemed that the army of Herod wasdestroyed by God -indeed, God qu i te just ly punishing [H erod] to avengewh at he had do ne to John, who was surnamed the B apti st .117.For H ero d ki lled him, al though he was a good man and [s imply] bad ethe Jews to join in bapt ism, PR OV ID ED THAT they were cul t ivating vir tueand pract icing just ice toward one another and piety toward God. FOR[ONLY] THUS, in John's op inion, would th e baptism [he adm inister ed]indeed be accep table [ to God], namely, I F they used i t to obtain n ot pardonfor som e sins bu t rath er the cleansing of their bodies, INASM UCH AS [itwas taken for granted that] their souls had already b ee n purified by justice.

gL18. And when T H E OT HE RS [namely, ordinary Jews] gathered together[around Joh n] -for their excitemen t rea che d fever pitch as they listened to[his] word s-Hero d began to FE AR z5 that John's powerful abili ty to pe r-suade P E O P L E might lead to some sort of revol t, for they seem ed l ikelyto do w hatever he co unseled. So [Herod] decided to do away with John bya PREE MPT IVE STRIKE, before he sparked a revol t. Hero d cons ideredthis a much better [course of action] than to wait until the situationcha nge d a nd [th en] to regret [his delay] wh en h e was engulfed by a crisis.5U9. And so, bec aus e of Herod's suspicion, John was sent in chains toMachaerus, the mountain fort ress previously ment ioned; there he waski lled. Bu t the Jews were of the opinion that the army was destroyed toavenge John, God wishing t infl ict harm on Herod.The movement of thought is thus clear. $116 introduces the theme of the

destruction of Herod's army by God to avenge Herod's killing of John. $117begins the flashback in which John is presented as a harmless dispenser ofa water ritual, given to Jews on the condition that they are practicing justiceand piety. In $118 the plot thickens as larger groups of ordinary Jews, asopposed to the original, select audience of the virtuous, swarm around John

5 Since this sentence is so lengthy and convoluted, I have dec ided to turn the par t ic ip ledeis s into a main verb; the causal nexus remains clear from the context . I use the phrase beganto fear s ince it is only the gathering of this secon d group, not the ini tial preaching to the morevirtuous sort, that triggers Herod's anxiet).


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234 Journal of Biblical Literatureand are so stirred up by his serm ons that they seem -at least to the m ind ofthe fearful He rod -rea dy to follow John wherever he might lead, even toinsurrection. This is the new development that determines the anxiousHerod to make a preemptive strike before it is too late. Hence in U t hesuspicions of Herod lead to John's imprisonment and death, a crime Godpunishes by th e des tructio n of Herod's army (inclusio an d transition to Vitel-lius's intervention).

It is axiomatic tha t th e portraits of John the Baptist in Josephus a nd ineac h of the four Gospels mu st be studied separately and only the n broug httogether for com parison, contrast, and possible correlation (not harmoniza-tion). Having looked at Josephus's presentation of the Baptist on its ownterms, I would ma ke thre e tentative suggestions as to how this close readingof th e vocabulary, syntax, and str uc tur e of the Baptist passage in th e Antiq-uities might contribute to the study of the Gospels:

1 Fro m th e initial stark juxtaposition of kteinei an d agathon onwards,Josephus's in ten tion in desc ribing t he Baptist is obviously apologetic. Any ideaof John's fiery eschatological procla mation of a day of judgm ent tha t will mak eirrelevant all ethn ic ties, a judg m ent to be adm inistered by a mysterious figureto come, a judgm ent that can b e avoided only by subm itting to John's baptismof repentance in sho rt, all the se strange, disruptive, o r disturbin g ideas canhave no place in Josephus's presen tation, if inde ed h e ever had any knowledgeof them. If Josephus did know these aspects of the Baptist 's message, henaturally supp ressed t he m , since he regularly plays dow n or removes e schato-logical and messianic expectations present in his sources.26O ne need onlythink of his presentation of the Essenes c om pared to the various eschatologicaland m essianic hopes expressed in the l i terature of Q um ran.Accordingly, in Joseph us John is redu ce d to a popu lar m oral philosopherin the Greco-Roman mode, with a slight hint of a neo-Pythagorean per-forming ritual lustrations. The whole point of a special baptism, to beadm inistered to Jews only by John ( hen ce his su rnam e), becom es unintelli-gible. If the Synoptic portrait of the Baptist did not exist, something like itwould have to be invented to supply the m aterial that Jose phus eithe r sup-presses or simply does n ot know. In a sense, Josephus's portra it of th e Baptistis self-transcending; it points beyond itself to some further explanationJosephus does not offer.(2) Still, even when we grant Josephus's apologetic purpose that leadsto a very slanted d epic tion of th e Baptist, the re is no reason for thinking tha tone m ajor aspect of his presentation is wrong-namely, that John's programwas a religious one without an activist political agenda and that it was only

8 Thi s observation is a com monp lace among students o f Jose phu s; see, e.g., Dibelius, Dieurchristliche ~b erl ief eru ng , 24. Klausner, Jesus ofNaza reth, 241; Sco bie,Jo hn the Baptist, 18-19;Ernst,Johannes der Eufe r, 54; Back haus, Jiingerkreise, 267- 68; E . P Sanders, Ju da ism : Practiceand Belief; 63 BCE-66 CE L on do n: S C M , 1992) 368.


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Meier: John the Baptist in Josephus 235Herod s fear and overactive instinct for survival that led him to see politicaldanger in a preacher of morality who baptized people.27This is not to denythat, unlike our experience of separation of church and state in a secularizedWestern democracy, religion permeated human life in the ancient Mediterra-nean world in general and in Palestine in particular. Yet Josephus, like someother ancient writers, is perfectly capable of distinguishing a religious leaderwith no activist political agenda from other religious leaders with just suchan agenda. As a matter of fact, both in theJewish rand in the Jewish Antiquities, Josephus does present Jewish religious figures whose actions threatenthe political establishment and who accordingly meet speedy opposition atthe establishment s hands28 Since Josephus has no personal stake in the

7 O n th e "exclusively religious preoc cupa tions of John:' se e Gog uel, Au seuil, 287. This is notto deny tha t in first-century Palestine, the religious activity of a prop hetic figure m ight be viewedby a nervous rul er as possibly having negative political con seq ue nce s. But to refuse to dis-tinguish what John intended in his preaching and ministry and what Herod feared, as Paul W.Hollenbach does ("Social Aspects of John the Baptizer's Preaching Mission in the Context ofPalestinian Judaism," NRW 11119.1 [I9791 850-75, esp. 86 3-6 4), is just as nayve as to fail to gr aspthat religious activity in first-century Palestine c ould, apar t from th e inte ntion of the ag ent, befeared by othe rs to hold political conse quences. To claim, as Hollenbach does (p. 874) that Johnwas "a social revolutionary" is to confuse our contemporary desire for instant relevance withsober exegesis and historical reconstruction. Interestingly, recasting the Baptist as a revolu-tionary brings us back to Hermann Samuel Reimarus; cf. the remarks of John Reumann, "TheQu es t for the Historical Baptist:' in U nderstanding th e Sacred Text (Morto n S. Enslin Festschrift;e d. John Re um ann; Valley Forge, PA: Judso n, 1972) 183-200, esp. 184-86. Such an a pproa ch hashad many proponents, some more hesitant than others; see, e.g., C. C. McCown, "The Sceneof John's M inistry and It s Relation to the Pu rpo se and Ou tco me of His Mission:'JBL 59 (1940)ll3-31.

28 See, e.g., Josephus's desc ription of Th eu da s in Ant. 20.5.1 997-99 (cf. th e garbled refer encein Acts 5 3 6 ) an d "the Egyp tian false proph et" in J.W 2.13.5 9261-63 (cf. Ant. 20.8.6 $169-72;Acts 21:38). For an attempt to sort out such various figures by using the categories of bandits,messiahs, prophets, the fourth philosophy, sicarii, and zealots, see Richard A. Horsley and John S.Han son, Bandits, Prophets, a nd Messiahs: Popula r Mot'ements in the Time ofJesus (Minneapolis1ChicagoiNew York: W inston , 19 85). Qu ite different from organizers of large bands of pe opl eready to act against the e stablishment is the solitary Jesus son of Ha nani ah, an oracular prop hetof jud gm en t active in Jerusalem for the last seven years of its existenc e; se e J.U 6.5.3 $300-309.Horsley and Hanson put John the Baptist into the same category as Jesus son of Hananiah andremark: "N othing in ou r texts indicates that fohn inten ded to found a sect or lead a mass move-me nt in a decisive eschatological event of deliverance. In preaching the baptism of repe ntan cehe was attempting to prepare the people, apparently even across class and sectarian lines, forthe im pen ding judgment" (Bandits, 178).Against Horsely a nd Han son, We bb uohn the Baptizer, 349-78) wh o adop ts a typology ofprophets somewhat different from theirs, places the Baptist in the same basic category as theEgyptian and Theudas, that is, "leadership popular prophets:' I think this is questionable, sincethere are s ign i f ican t d i f ferences between the Bap t is t and leaders l ike the Egpt ian andTh eu das -as LVebb himself admit s. (1) Most of those bap tized by John soon ret urn ed to the irhomes, presumably scattered throug hout Palestine. Th er e is no indication that those previouslybaptized by John ever returned at one time and as one group either to live with the Baptist orto follow him on so me ma rch. He nc e the re never was at any one time th e kind of huge massingof people around the Baptist that ther e was around, for example, the E g p ti a n. (2) The "leader-


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Journal of Biblical Literaturereputation of the Baptist, his care to distinguish John from such types prob-ably has a basis in fact. The pattern of the purely religious figure, whose grow-ing success leads the rulers of Palestine to fear his possible political influenceand whose execution is therefore considered a wise preventive measure,must therefore be taken seriously when the historical question of the trialand death of Jesus is considered.29

(3) While Josephus's depiction of the Baptist as a moral preacher con-cerned with virtue owes a great deal to the author's accommodation to hisGreco-Roman milieu, it must be granted that Josephus agrees to a certainextent with Luke's special material on the Baptist (Luke 3:lO-14). There toothe Baptist is presented as inculcating practical deeds of social justice. Thiscorrelation might simply be chalked up to two Greco-Roman writers (Jose-phus and Luke) who, independently of each other, seek to adapt a strangeJewish prophet to cultural models familiar in the wider Greco-Romanworld.30 Yet Luke's material, if traditional2l may supply further missinglinks in Josephus's narrative. Luke divides the various questioners seekingmoral catechesis into three groups: the crowds, tax collectors, and soldiers.The intriguing point here is that tax collectors and soldiers might havecounted among the others, the ordinary, not-especially-religious Jews who,

ship popular prophe ts not only gathered a large num ber of followers around themselves at onetime; they also proce eded to lead them on a march to some venerable spot of Israeli te historyin what could only app ear to the ruling authorit ies as an intentionally provocative act (e.g . , theEgyptian led his large group to the Mount of Olives, facing Jerusalem). (3) In t he c ase of theleadership popular prophets: ' the au thorit ies dee me d i t necessary to kil l or capture m any of

the prophe ts' followers. They, as well as their le aders, were see n to be a real and p res ent danger.As far as we know, nothing similar happened even to those disciples of John who lived in hisentourage, to say nothing of the larger group of followers baptized by him. Although he grantsmost of these points, Webb tries to play down their importance. Cumulatively, however, theyarg ue strongly that th e Baptist's move ment was significantly and perha ps essentially differentfrom th e moveme nts of Webb's leadership pop ular prophets.

9 It is curiou s that Josephus, w hile so detaile d in his explanation of why Joh n was executed,is to tal ly si lent on th e precise reason why t he Jewish leaders ac cused Jesus before Pilate andwhy Pilate d ecid ed to crucify him (Ant. 18.3.3 $64 ).3O Ernst notes th e similari ty betw een the presentation of Josephus a nd that of Lu ke Uohannesder Tiiufer, 257).3 Joseph A. Fitzmyer (The Gospel According to Luke [AB 28 and 28A; Garden City, NY:Doubleday, 1981, 19851 464 ) rightly refers to th es e verses as problematic wh en it come s to

the question of sources; various commentators have championed Q (A. Plummer, H. Schiir-mann) , L , or Luca n reda ction (a possibil ity Fitzmyer leaves ope n). I . Howard Marshall arguesthat , since the L source contains no other tradit ion about the Baptist , Q is the more likelysource; Marshall defends the sayings as the Baptist's teaching, shap ed by cateche tical use (TheGospel of Luke [New In ternat ional Greek Testament Comm entary ; Grand Rapids : Eerdmans,19781 142).


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Meier: John the Baptist in Josephusaccording to Josephus, formed the second wave flocking to J0hn.3~ he factthat such important props of Antipas's financial and military power as tax col-lectors and soldiers had come under the influence of John and fervently hungon his every word may have been the Realpolitik consideration that especiallyalarmed the tetrarch and moved him to his preemptive strike. He did not careif some virtuous elite listened to John; he did care if his tax collectors andsoldiers were taking orders from a different commander. While Luke is ofcourse pursuing his own theological purpose with his special material, hemay have inadvertently thrown some light on the mysterious t6n allbn of Ant.18.5.2 U and specifically on the reason why, in the mind of the fearfulHerod, the adherence of the others to John was a danger that could not betolerated.

3 Along with the problem of the source of Luke 3:lO-14 there is the further problem of theethnic makeup of the s trateumenoi ( those on military duty ) who came to John. Various com-mentators declare them Gentiles (Walter Grundmann, Das Eoangelium nach Lukas [THKNT ;7th ed.;Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 19741 104), either Gentiles or Jews (Josef Ernst, DasEoangelium nach Lukas [RNT; Regensburg: Pustet, 1977 144), or Jews enlisted in the serviceof Herod Antipas (Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke, 1. 470). While the matter is by nomeans clear, it seems likely that the army of Antipas included at least some Jewish soldiers. Afew commentators (e.g., Joachim Jeremias, N e c Testament Theology: Part One, The Proclamationof Jesus [London: SCM, 19711 48 n. 3) prefer to think of police who accompanied the tax-collectors. They would therefore have been Jews:' M.-J. Lagrange thinks these people came fromJudea rather than from the forces of Antipas in Perea Eoangile selon Saint Luc [EBib; 4th ed.;Paris: Gabalda, 1927 109-10). The whole problem exists only on the level of the historical eventandlor early tradition. As Prof. Louis H. Feldman kindly pointed out to me in a letter (Nov. 14,1990), Luke's redaction, which places 3:lO-14 almost immediately after 3:8 ( Do not begin tothink: 'We have Abraham as [our] father ') seems to presume that the entire audience listen-ing to John's exhortation is Jewish.

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1992 - John P. Meier - John the Baptist in Josephus. Philology and Exegesis