The Holy Dunk

Dan McClellan Hey, everybody. I'm Dan McClellan. And

Dan Beecher I'm Dan Beecher.

Dan McClellan And this is Data Over Dogma, where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion, and we combat the spread of misinformation about the same. How are things today, Dan?

Dan Beecher Things are good. Things are good. Good. We, uh, this is a, this is gonna be a fun little episode. We're, uh, we're dipping our toes in, uh, in the water. We're- ... about to get immersed in some- Immersed, yes. Um- ... in some talk of-

Dan McClellan Di- dipping the toe is not quite immersed, so.

Dan Beecher That's not enough. It's insufficient. Uh, we're gonna have to, we're gonna have to go all in. You're right.

Dan McClellan It's not a sprinkling. We're going to be fully- ... immersed under the-

Dan Beecher That's right ... surface of the water. That's right. So we're g- I, I, I hope it's obvious that we are going to be, uh, for our what's at, What's That, or WhatsApp. I don't know. What's- Whatever we're, whatever it ends up being. For our What's That, we're gonna be talking about the baptism of Jesus. So, uh, let's dive in with What's That. All right. So last week, Dan, we talked about John the Baptist's death.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher And, uh, and we dealt, we dealt with, uh, old John and, uh, and how controversial he was and- Mm-hmm ... how he was a big figure, uh, in the area at the time- Yeah ... that Jesus was, uh, starting his ministry.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher Um, and so, so, so, uh, it makes sense, I think, for us to talk also about the, uh, the baptism itself, the, the, the big the big handover of power- Yeah ... from John the Baptist to Jesus.

Dan McClellan Which is, which is something that we see in, in all four Gospels, and this is really the main point of contact between Jesus and John the Baptist in the Gospels. And it is interesting that being baptized by somebody else is, to some degree, kind of a performance of subordination to them or to their authority. So there is- Yeah ... there is a degree to which Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist is a little bit of an embarrassment. And so-

Dan Beecher It's a, it's a bit of a problem, and, uh, a few of the gospel writers, um, try to, uh, soften that blow or try to work their way around it or something. So that's a, it's, it's an interesting thing. Yeah.

Dan McClellan We're gonna talk about the development of that, and, and I think it marks an interesting contrast where the theology of the baptism kind of grows, whereas the, uh, significance of, of John the Baptist's death kind of effaces, goes away as we- Yeah ... progress through, through time in the composition of the Gospels as, as it becomes more important to have Jesus actually being the one who's, who's in charge when it comes to this baptism. But, um-

Dan Beecher Maybe may- maybe one of the things that we should do before we dive into the, uh, the actual accounts of the baptism is talk- Mm-hmm ... a little bit about what baptism is and what it's for and, like- ... when did it start happening. I don't-

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher I, it's a weird, it's, I mean, it's, it's a very interesting ritual, and I don't, s- did it start in the Hebrew Bible, or is it new?

Dan McClellan Well, it's, we-

Dan Beecher New to the New Testament, sort of.

Dan McClellan Yeah. We, we talked a bit about this when James McGrath was on the show-

Dan Beecher That's right ...

Dan McClellan um, talking about his biography of John the Baptist. And I think, and we talked a bit there about how baptism seems to have been kind of an incremental elaboration on the mikvah, which was a purification bath. That was something that Second Temple Jewish folks, uh, did quite frequently. And y- we even have examples of this at Qumran among the Essene community that occupied that area and seems to have been responsible for gathering, uh, most of the Dead Sea Scroll manuscripts. And this was, this was a way to, uh, ritually purify yourself. Mm. And the e- the elaboration, the change, uh, it, w- that we talked with, uh, James about was that it was not so much a matter of ritual purification so much as a, a means of receiving forgiveness for sins. So that's the main contribution that John the Baptist maybe made. It might be John the Baptist who actually was like, "We're gonna do it like this from now on," and introduced this new way of thinking about the significance of immersion within water. Uh, but it seems to have built on the foundation of the mikvah. Um-

Dan Beecher Sort of a, a, yeah, like a ritual cleanliness sort of thing.

Dan McClellan Yeah, where rather than just ridding yourselves of, of temporary impurities that you may have accumulated through the course of your day, uh, or in preparation for doing something that requires ritual purity, now it is this kind of liminal ritual between a period of, of sinfulness, pur- uh, you know, purification from your sins, forgiveness f- for your sins, and now you are a new person moving forward. So it, it almost kind of becomes a rebirth kind of thing, and that gets picked up later on by, by later Christian authors. But a lot of scholars think this is, this is probably historical. We've got that embarrassment criterion that why would, why else would they have Jesus subordinating himself to, uh, another claimant to, uh, this messenger-from-God role, and then the, the gospel authors kind of struggling to make it not seem like Jesus is subordinating himself, if it was not something that, that goes back to the very origins of the story-

Dan Beecher I mean, if it- ...

Dan McClellan meaning it's probably historical.

Dan Beecher Okay. That's interesting. There, the other thing that I, that sort of blows my mind is, like, that, that I think is along those same lines, this embarrassment line, is, like, you know, the Jesus that we are introduced to in, you know, that, that you hear about in church- There, there aren't supposed to be any sins for him to have forgiven. Like, if that is the primary idea of baptism, um, b- b- b- b- I don't, that means- Z- z- we, we might have a little bit of a theological issue if, if we're supposing that Jesus was pure and clean from the jump.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And, and you get, uh, at least Matthew is trying to account for that.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan Not Mark, but Matthew is like, "We gotta address this."

Dan Beecher Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right, 'cause Mark-

Dan McClellan The, the elephant in the room.

Dan Beecher And, and, and I, we, we remember that Mark is, Mark is probably-

Dan McClellan Prior

Dan Beecher ... previous to Matthew.

Dan McClellan Yes, yes. Markan priority is the, is the technical term for that.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Yes, that Mark comes first. And, and it's just three verses.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan We can go ahead and read the, the Mark's account of the baptism and Jesus as, as is our wont from the NRSVue.

Dan Beecher Yes, indeed.

Dan McClellan Um, which by the way, now is approved by the LDS church-

Dan Beecher Yeah. Yeah

Dan McClellan ... uh, for use in meetings and in, uh, in classes, so.

Dan Beecher Oh, you, you're gonna make some Mormons mad, you- ... in your, in your ward when you go in and start using the NRSVue.

Dan McClellan No, they, they have me ferreted away in Primary. So I never see, I never see the inside of a Gospel Doctrine classroom, even though this coming Sunday will be the start of, uh, the Old Testament year. But-

Dan Beecher The big, scary Old Testament.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher All right. Go on.

Dan McClellan Um, so Mark 1:9 is where it starts. "In those days, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan." And that's the, the account of the actual act of the baptism.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan "And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove upon him, and a voice came from the heavens, 'You are my son, the beloved. With you I am well pleased.'" And all kinds of stuff-

Dan Beecher Yeah

Dan McClellan ... to, uh, to talk about here. Um-

Dan Beecher Yeah, I mean, I, can, can I just point out a few thing- Can I flag a couple things that I, that, that stood out to me as I read-

Dan McClellan Yes, you may

Dan Beecher ... the different things?

Dan McClellan Absolutely.

Dan Beecher Uh, I, I want... So, A, yes, uh, as we talked about, no i- no need in this one. Mark feels no need, the author of Mark feels no need to worry about why Jesus is being baptized or if, like, Jesus needs baptism. It's just so normal. It's just like-

Dan McClellan Yeah

Dan Beecher ... "Oh, so Jesus went through the process as you do." Um-

Dan McClellan And, and this is preceded by setting the stage by describing John as the forerunner of the, uh, of the, you know, the chosen one, the anointed one.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Uh, so this, and, and specif- and more directly, like, the forerunner of God, not because Jesus is God, but because Jesus is God's representative and the bearer of God's authority and presence on Earth. So we, we already have a, a, a backdrop for this.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And so Mark just cruises right on by the uncomfortable part.

Dan Beecher Right. Um, I think it's interesting in verse 10 that Jesus sa- that it says that Jesus, it says, "He saw the heavens torn apart-

Dan McClellan Right

Dan Beecher ... and the Spirit descending." It d- it, it, you know, it, it almost seems like maybe this is a thing that's exclusive to Jesus.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Like, Jesus is having this experience, "And then a voice came from the heavens, 'You...'" addressing just Jesus, "'You are my son, the beloved. With you I am well pleased.'" Like-

Dan McClellan Yes

Dan Beecher ... that could all have just been Jesus had a moment with this, uh... Also, descending like a dove.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher I'm going to point out that it's like, that it's a, that it's a simile here.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Uh, because it stops being a simile by the time we get to Mark.

Dan McClellan Yeah. He says, uh, doo, doo, doo, and, uh, hos peristeran katabainon. Yes, so, um, it is, it is a simile. It does seem to be Jesus, uh, perceiving all of this. And the, the address is directly to you.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan So this is s- uh, a second person, uh, speech in Mark's account. And what we have here is a, uh, a paraphrase or a, a bit of a quotation from, uh, Psalm 2. And I don't know if you looked up Psalm 2, but this is widely considered to be a royal coronation event.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So, uh, in Psalm 2, starting in verse four, "He who sits in the heavens laughs. The Lord has them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath and terrify them in his fury saying, 'I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill. I will tell the decree of the Lord.' He said to me," the king, "'You are my son. Today I have begotten you.'" And this is kind of an adoption motif.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Uh, "Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." So this is basically the coronation of a king who's going to, uh, go out and, and run the world basically.

Dan Beecher Right, right, right.

Dan McClellan And so what we have with, with God saying this to Jesus is reflecting this idea that Jesus has been, um, uh, this is the coronation of Jesus as King of Israel, but even more so as the Messiah.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Uh, the Anointed One. And there, and there's a secondary reference as well. Um, actually, there, there are a handful of references from Isaiah.

Dan Beecher Oh, okay.

Dan McClellan 'Cause I, uh, Mark is, uh, Mark loves Isaiah. And, uh, we have the very first servant song. We're familiar with Isaiah 53, where people say, "Oh, it's a, it's a prophecy about Jesus," even though it's talking about a servant.

Dan Beecher Uh-huh.

Dan McClellan And the servant is explicitly identified numerous times in Deutero-Isaiah as Israel. But the very first servant song is in Isaiah 42. And, uh, verse one, "Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen in whom my soul delights. I have put my spirit upon him." "He will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry out or lift up his voice or make it heard in the street. A bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench. He will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth, and the coastlands wait for his teaching." So the whole, "The Spirit has descended on Jesus," combined with the, uh, "You are my son," kind of brings these two ideas together of Jesus as the anointed one and the coronated, crowned, uh, king of Israel. So as, as I've mentioned many times, Jesus is really the grab bag-

Dan Beecher Mm-hmm

Dan McClellan ... of all of the imagery from the Hebrew Bible. You just toss it all in there and, and you get Jesus.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And there's one other place I wanna bring up. Uh, Isaiah 11.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Uh, uh, uh, verse one, "A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of its r- his roots. The Spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord." And so we've got another, uh, case of this all being prophesied. And so the baptism represents the fulfillment of these prophetic ideas about what the, um, the Messiah is going to do.

Dan Beecher And this stump of Jesse stuff plays into the sort of the, the idea that Jesus was from the lineage of David, and David was Jesse's son.

Dan McClellan Lineage of David. Yeah. And this is actually one of- ... uh, the, well, it's the main scripture that people will go to when you have Matthew saying that, uh, they went up to a town in Galilee, Nazareth, and settled there-

Dan Beecher Hmm

Dan McClellan ... so that it might be fulfilled, which said, "He shall be called a Nazarene." And there's no such prophecy anywhere in the Hebrew Bible. However, Isaiah 11, uh, does have the, the branch that shall grow out. Branch is netser in Hebrew. And so people are like, "Netser, Nazarene. Eh? Eh? Eh? Eh?" So maybe they, they imagine that, uh, Ma- what Matthew is doing is kind of squinting at a Greek translation, or a transliteration at least, of Isaiah 11:1 and saying, "I can get behind that." Maybe that's where Jesus of Nazareth is to be found, uh, foreshadowed in, in the Hebrew Bible.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So yeah, Isaiah, very important to everything that's going on here.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Um-

Dan McClellan Let, yeah, l- shall we move on to Matthew?

Dan Beecher Yeah, let's get to Matthew.

Dan McClellan Okay.

Dan Beecher Uh, this is, this is Matthew 3. The, the first thing, Mark d- launches in with this stuff. Mar- this is all Mark 1, 'cause Mark doesn't handle, doesn't deal with the birth-

Dan McClellan Correct

Dan Beecher ... of Jesus.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher So now we're, now we're in Matthew 3.

Dan McClellan And this, and this, that's an important point to make because for a lot of scholars, Jesus was just a regular old dude until his ministry begins. And so the baptism could be, like, the, the moment of adoption where God says, "You are now my Messiah." And so-

Dan Beecher That's definitely the sense you get from Mark.

Dan McClellan Yeah, the, the-

Dan Beecher That is 100% what you get from him.

Dan McClellan You get no background.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan But once Mark's in circulation, then you start to get questions about, "Well, wait a minute, he came from Nazareth? Don't you know Micah says the Messiah's gonna come from Bethlehem?" And then Matthew- ... was like, "Oh, I gotcha." Um- But yeah, we're in Matthew 3:13, "Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, 'I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?'"

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan "But Jesus answered him, 'Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.' Then he consented."

Dan Beecher You, you came really close to doing, like, a Bill and Ted voice- ... on that part, which I love the, "For it is proper for us in this way-

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher ... to fulfill all righteousness." There's just something great about that. Anyway, yeah.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Um, we're gonna fail most egregiously. Um- "And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him, and he saw God's Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from the heavens said, 'This is my Son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.'"

Dan Beecher Yeah, so-

Dan McClellan So we got lots of changes here. Yeah,

Dan Beecher yeah, yeah.

Dan McClellan Yeah, Matthew was getting real, uh, artisticy licensey- ... um, where he's, one, addresses, uh, the elephant in the room. Wait a minute, why would Jesus go subordinate himself to this dude?

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And has, has John the Baptist recognize, "Whoa, I don't hold a candle to you."

Dan Beecher Yeah, yeah.

Dan McClellan "Why would I need to baptize you? I need to be baptized by you." And Jesus says, "Just do the thing." And it's to fulfill all righteousness, which what does that mean? Well-

Dan Beecher Right

Dan McClellan ... maybe it just means, uh, as an example to everybody else, you have to get baptized. None of you have any excuse because look, Jesus, who had no sins, got baptized.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And he, he even recognized, "I got to. I don't need it, but I gotta do it anyway." So-

Dan Beecher Right

Dan McClellan ... um, so Ma- Matthew has thought of everything.

Dan Beecher Noth- nothing more important than jumping through all the hoops.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher He-

Dan McClellan Yes. This is just-

Dan Beecher You literally have to do the bureaucracy.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher You gotta fill it out in triplicate.

Dan McClellan Yeah, look-

Dan Beecher You gotta send one half to HR.

Dan McClellan Look, if the gospel's not a checklist, what is it? Um-

Dan Beecher What are we even doing here?

Dan McClellan Yeah, yeah. Um, and then we do have, uh, uh, Jesus is the one who sees God's Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him.

Dan Beecher Yes.

Dan McClellan And here we're, we're kind of inching a little closer to actually seeing a dove. Um-

Dan Beecher Yeah

Dan McClellan ... 'cause it, like, it lands on- And, and li- a light's on him.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And then the, the vo-

Dan Beecher It does say, it does still s- keep it simile. It says, "Like a dove."

Dan McClellan Right.

Dan Beecher Uh.

Dan McClellan And then the vo-

Dan Beecher Hinting that-

Dan McClellan And then the voice changes, though. It does not say-

Dan Beecher Yeah

Dan McClellan ... "You are my beloved Son."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan This is... So now we, we have to understand this voice being heard by others.

Dan Beecher Right, yeah.

Dan McClellan This voice is a sign to others, uh, an identification of Jesus to others as Hi- God's Son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased. Again, Psalm 2, again, Isaiah 11, Isaiah 42.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan All of this is still in the background, but Matthew's like, "Oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna juice this up. We're gonna-"

Dan Beecher Yeah, Matthew's ex-

Dan McClellan ... we're gonna spice it up

Dan Beecher ... and, and yeah, it is explicit that, like, God is now talking to the crowd. God's-

Dan McClellan Yes

Dan Beecher ... God's now working the audience-

Dan McClellan Yes

Dan Beecher ... uh, on this one.

Dan McClellan Doing some crowd work.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Which is, you know, is- it's necessary. If you're gonna get up on stage, you gotta do some crowd work. Um, I don't know anything about comedy, a- as most of y'all know. Now, um, Luke, once we get-

Dan Beecher Yeah

Dan McClellan ... to, uh, to Luke, who is, who is working with, uh, Matthew and Mark, we, uh, we kind of pull it back a little bit. We still have, uh, Luke actually, I think, wants to go back to some Markan stuff.

Dan Beecher Hmm.

Dan McClellan So Luke doesn't care about Matthew's rationalization of why, uh, why Jesus needs to be baptized. We just have two verses. Luke 3:21, "Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove." Like a dove. Yes. "And a voice came from heaven, 'You are my Son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased.'" So, uh-

Dan Beecher Again, so again, the voice addresses Jesus again.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher But there is a bird. There's like... It's-

Dan McClellan Yeah

Dan Beecher ... it seems like there's an actual physical bird now.

Dan McClellan Yes. So the Greek here is somatiko eide, which would be, uh, bodily appearance. Uh, this, the, the Spirit, the Holy one, bodily, uh, as the bodily appearance of a dove. So now it actually, it, it is a dove that is in view.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And, uh, and now it descends upon him. And, and, and Luke doesn't actually n- narrate the actual baptism itself. It says, "When Jesus also had been baptized and was praying-

Dan Beecher Yeah

Dan McClellan ... the heaven was open."

Dan Beecher And, and can I point out something about that? Because-

Dan McClellan Yeah

Dan Beecher ... the verse before this-

Dan McClellan Uh-huh

Dan Beecher ... is John getting shut into, getting imprisoned by-

Dan McClellan Yeah

Dan Beecher ... Herod.

Dan McClellan So we're-

Dan Beecher Which feels-

Dan McClellan ... we're kind of having to go back and forth narratively, chronologically.

Dan Beecher It fe- yeah, I mean, or some other dude baptized Jesus, 'cause it doesn't say that John baptizes Jesus here. Uh, it's confusing-

Dan McClellan Oh, yeah

Dan Beecher ... is all I'm saying.

Dan McClellan Oh, yeah.

Dan Beecher It makes it-

Dan McClellan Look at that, it doesn't say John's name in, in these two verses. Zechariah the priest.

Dan Beecher So, so, like, I don't know. Like, that, that- I, I read that and I was like, "Uh, wait, wait, John's in prison? What's happening? Why is John in prison?" "Ja- Jesus isn't baptized yet. What are we doing?"

Dan McClellan Um, yeah, John is, is baptizing, and yeah, he's denying being the, uh, uh, the Messiah.

Dan Beecher Yeah, if you go back to-

Dan McClellan And, yeah

Dan Beecher ... to verse, uh, 15 through 17, John is talking plenty about how good Jesus is and, like-

Dan McClellan Yeah

Dan Beecher ... is John-

Dan McClellan Oh, and, and even, even says, 'cause, 'cause Luke is gonna touch a little bit on their, their, uh, relative, uh, power.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan "John answered all of them by saying, 'I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I is coming. And I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.'" So, um, so yeah, John the Baptist is even more prophetic-

Dan Beecher Right

Dan McClellan ... uh, in, in Luke. And an interesting thing to note here as well, these, the Gospels are all coming well after, uh, like the, the letters of Paul. And we have some interesting things in the letters of Paul that suggest to some scholars that the story is being crafted-

Dan Beecher Hmm

Dan McClellan ... with, uh, with this notion of, uh, baptism being an adoption. Uh, because you've got, uh, let's see, Romans 8:14, "For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption when we cry, 'Abba, Father.' It is that very spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs. Heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if we in fact suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him." And then also in Galatians 4, uh, doo, doo, doo, doo, "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, and in order to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba, Father.' So you are no longer a slave, but a child, and if a child, then also an heir through God." So we, in the baptism, we got the same thing. Spirit sent, "You are my son." And so maybe this, the, the whole baptism story is intended to reflect or, or kind of resonate with people who have understood their own, uh, reception of the Spirit as their own adoption into the family of God, and, and now they are joint heirs with Jesus. Oh, and now the story of Jesus being baptized says the same thing. So it, it might be an attempt on the Gospel authors to try to appeal to that conceptualization of, of adoption into the family of God. So, so there are levels to all of this.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan There are, there are lots of levels. Um, anything else you wanted to say about Luke?

Dan Beecher I, I, not, not particularly other than just, um, this seems to be the, the last time... Yeah, I don't know. I- We, we get, we get back to, "You are my son," so I, you know, the, the, the, the voice is now addressing Jesus again instead of the crowd.

Dan McClellan Yeah, yeah.

Dan Beecher It's just a, yeah, it's just a very interesting, uh, sort of refinement or, or just everybody's got their own thing that they're doing with this story.

Dan McClellan Yeah, and this is what-

Dan Beecher I'm still, I'm still mystified by the fact that John's in prison. I just, like, that didn't- I, I, it's funny to me because, uh, what... I guess you're right that, like, the, the probable, uh, th- way that we're meant to look at that is that John's in prison, but m- when we look at now when all the people were baptized and when Jesus had also been baptized, that refers to before John went to prison. But it's just-

Dan McClellan Yeah, yeah. Luke's like, "Wait a minute. Back it up." "I gotta talk about something that, that happened before."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Um, and, and immediately after that, it's, "Jesus was about 30 years old when he began his work." Um-

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan So this, the, the it's, it's kind of like, uh, Luke is, is rushing through the recap on Netflix.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Right.

Dan McClellan Um, and doing this and then this, "But wait, we gotta go back to this and then this." Um, and, and that brings us to John, which is, which is a peculiar one because-

Dan Beecher Mm

Dan McClellan ... whereas, uh, Luke has, has John the Baptist kind of more prophetically announce all of this stuff, John seems to take the baptism out altogether, at least in, in the verses that are usually cordoned off as, uh, as the story of the baptism. Uh, John 1:29, "The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, 'Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.'" So he got a very developed, uh, kind of soteriological framework going on here.

Dan Beecher And this, this, uh, the, the he here is, uh, is John the Baptist.

Dan McClellan John the Baptist, yes. "This is he of whom I said, 'After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.' I myself did not know him, but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel. And John testified, 'I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, "He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit." And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Chosen One.'" And so we, we've got the, the baptism again isn't narrated at all, but here the whole point of baptism is kind of reconfigured-

Dan Beecher Yeah

Dan McClellan ... to be a means of identifying Jesus. It's, it's, uh, it's kind of like God, uh, you know, we could go to the, the Gethsemane scene where, where Judas was like, "The one I kiss, that's, that's Jesus." And here John, God is like, "Hey, go dunk people in water-" "... uh, so that I can use that as a mechanism for pointing out to you who the Chosen One is." And-

Dan Beecher Look for a guy with a bird.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And it won't have anything to do with the actual process of dunking this person. It will have to do with the bird landing on him. And that's, and, and it's all symbolic because he's going to baptize with the Holy Spirit.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan So we've got a very, very literarily creative reconfiguration of the purpose of baptism here. Um, and then-

Dan Beecher Can you help me understand one thing real quick?

Dan McClellan No. Yes. What?

Dan Beecher Probably not.

Dan McClellan Maybe.

Dan Beecher Uh, verse 30, "This is he of whom I said, 'After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me-

Dan McClellan Yes

Dan Beecher ... because he was before me.'"

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher How was he before him? I don't, I, I-

Dan McClellan How? Jes-

Dan Beecher I, I-

Dan McClellan ... Jesus was before him?

Dan Beecher Jesus, yeah. He says-

Dan McClellan Yes

Dan Beecher ... "After me comes a guy who's ahead of me because he was before me." That's a lot of prepositions, and I don't know-

Dan McClellan Yeah

Dan Beecher ... what, what they mean.

Dan McClellan So, so John, and the, the-

Dan Beecher I-

Dan McClellan There are 10 verses before these-

Dan Beecher Uh-huh

Dan McClellan ... which are usu- are labeled in the NRSVue the testimony of John, where John-

Dan Beecher Right

Dan McClellan ... is kind of out there going, "Everybody listen." And, um, and he says, they come to him and say, "Who are you?" He confessed and did not deny it, but he had confessed, "I am not the Messiah." And they asked him, "What then? Are you Elijah?" And he said, "I am not." "Are you the prophet?" He answered, "No." Then they said to him, "Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?" And then he, he quotes, uh, the passages from the Hebrew Bible, like Isaiah and Malachi, that, that are in Mark. Um, "I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way of the Lord,'" as the prophet Isaiah said. And, um, then they're asking, "Why are you baptizing?" He says, "I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me. I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandal." This took place in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing. So, um, so we set this up a little bit.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan But the idea is I'm, I have a public ministry now. Someone's going to enter into a public ministry after me, but that person came before me in the sense that Jesus is the Logos, the Word that was at the very beginning. So John knows that Jesus is an eternal being-

Dan Beecher Okay

Dan McClellan ... who is, um, who is divine, and so long predates John's existence or his mission. However, Jesus' mission will not start until after John's has been ongoing. So this, this is a, a more theologically complex and rich way of having John, um, defer to-

Dan Beecher Right. Okay

Dan McClellan ... the authority of Jesus. And-

Dan Beecher I just knew that John was, like, a c- a few months older than Jesus, so I was like, "He didn't come before. John came before."

Dan McClellan Yeah. Yeah, John was born-

Dan Beecher I know, I know who's older. John-

Dan McClellan Yeah, yeah

Dan Beecher ... I know who jumped in the womb. I've, I've, I've had to argue with people who say that abortion's not okay.

Dan McClellan And, um, and, and again, that kind of reaffirms the purpose of John baptizing is precisely as a mechanism for identifying the Messiah, the Chosen One.

Dan Beecher Right. Yeah.

Dan McClellan Um, and, and what's, what's interesting is John could be presenting Jesus as... 'Cause they ask him, "Are you the Messiah? Are you Elijah? Are you that prophet?" And that probably refers to Deuteronomy 18, the prophet like unto Moses. Um, Jesus could be argued to be all three of those things. Again, he's a grab bag of all of the- Right ... uh, the imagery from the Hebrew Bible. But- Wh-

Dan Beecher what do you need? He can be it. Well ma-

Dan McClellan Yeah, yeah. He's the utility savior. But Billy, what about this?

Dan Beecher It's a, it's a Swiss Army Messiah. Yeah,

Dan McClellan yeah. But wait, there's more. Um, so, so yeah, Jesus, and this is how Jesus can be all things to all people.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And, um, and I'm very excited to write my chapter on that for my forthcoming trade book- Yeah ... God's Biography of Biblical History, because I'm gonna talk about that, about how, um, you have the accumulation of all these different ideologies and all these different notions of divine mediation, and for Jesus, they're just like, "We'll take them all. Just throw them in the back."

Dan Beecher Just, just put them in there.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Um, and, and the same is true of Satan.

Dan Beecher Sure.

Dan McClellan All the bad things, we'll take them all. Just, he's the, he's the grab bag of everything that's bad.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Um, so, so those are the four accounts of, uh, kind of accounts of Jesus's baptism. That's kind of the focus of them. But really, they're about, uh, John the Baptist kind of handing the keys over to Jesus- Yeah ... and getting out of the way, uh, willfully or, or, or not so much, uh, in some of the accounts.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Um-

Dan Beecher Well, yeah, I mean, in all of these accounts, it makes it seem very much like this guy was super on board with Jesus. He was definitely like, "Oh, he's not even worthy to unstrap his sandal," blah, blah, blah.

Dan McClellan Yeah, yeah.

Dan Beecher Uh, whether that was actually, like, how stuff went-

Dan McClellan Historically the case? Yeah.

Dan Beecher How it went down, uh- Yeah ... that's definitely what these authors want us to think. Yeah,

Dan McClellan I, I, I can ima- You can imagine some people coming to John being like, "Hey, man, this Jesus guy is kinda taking off." And he's like, "How dare he?"

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan "I baptized him." Um, "You're not gonna like this text that, uh, that is going around."

Dan Beecher Yeah. Yeah.

Dan McClellan Uh, it says that you said he was greater than you. How very dare he? That little punk. Yeah. Um, and then it's only a little bit later that, that John, in, in the Gospel of John, John the Baptist says, "He must increase, and I must decrease," uh, to, to again, uh, perform that, uh, deference to, to Jesus's authority and divinity. So yeah, the baptism is... And, and this is kind of, it's the coronation. It's, uh, in, some scholars argue it's the point of the act of, uh, divinization. Uh, it is the endowment of Jesus with the Messiahship, and it does, it appeals to a lot of Jewish themes, but also the idea of the heavens cracking open and all this kind of stuff. That also has some Greco-Roman theophanic, uh, resonances as well. So- Yeah ... it is something that's going to appeal to Greco-Roman period Jewish listeners, and also for folks who are not in the Jewish community but know some of these traditions. They're gonna be like, "That sounds familiar. I'm gonna, I'm gonna go see what's going on here. Do you have some literature I can take with me?" And, uh, and that's... So it's, it's, uh, it's checking off a lot of boxes. And again, if the gospel is not a checklist, what on earth is it? So, uh, so there we have, uh, the baptism of Jesus in a, in a rather irreverent, uh, retelling.

Dan Beecher Well, that was fascinating. Uh, thanks for that, and also thanks to all of our patrons. If you would like to become a patron, get access to early and ad-free versions of every episode, and also, uh, access to our bonus content every week, please head over to patreon.com/dataoverdogma. We really appreciate that. We also really appreciate Roger Gowdy for editing the show, and we'll talk to you again next week. Bye, everybody.