John the Baptist Preaches at the Jordan

Luke opens his account of John the Baptist with a formal date: the fifteenth year of the emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate governed Judea, Herod Antipas was tetrarch of Galilee, and Annas and Caiaphas held the high priesthood (Luke 3:1–2). Luke alone tells of John’s birth, to the elderly priest Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth, a relative of Mary, and says that he lived in the desert until he appeared in public (Luke 1:5–25, 36, 57–80).

Mark and Matthew tell that John preached in the wilderness of Judea and along the Jordan, proclaiming “the baptism of repentance for forgiveness of sins”. People came out from Jerusalem and all Judea and were baptised by him in the river, confessing their sins (Mark 1:4–5) (Matthew 3:1–6). He wore camel’s hair with a leather belt and ate locusts and wild honey (Mark 1:6), dress that recalled the prophet Elijah (2 Kings 1:8). The Gospels apply to him the “voice of one crying in the wilderness” from the book of Isaiah and Malachi’s messenger who prepares the way (Mark 1:2–3) (Isaiah 40:3) (Malachi 3:1).

Matthew and Luke give the substance of his preaching. Judgment was near, descent from Abraham would protect no one, and every tree that bore no good fruit would be cut down (Matthew 3:7–10) (Luke 3:7–9). In Luke he tells the crowds to share clothing and food, tax collectors to take no more than was due, and soldiers to extort nothing (Luke 3:10–14). In all four Gospels he points beyond himself to one who is coming, whose sandal he is not fit to untie (in Matthew, to carry) and who will baptise with the Holy Spirit; the first three call that one mightier than John (Mark 1:7–8) (Matthew 3:11–12) (Luke 3:15–17) (John 1:26–27, 33). In John’s Gospel he denies that he is the Christ, Elijah or the prophet (John 1:19–23); in Matthew, Jesus says of him, “this is Elijah, who is to come” (Matthew 11:14).

Josephus, writing about AD 93, also describes John. He calls him a good man who told the Jews to practise justice towards one another and piety towards God and so to come to baptism. The washing, Josephus explains, was not to gain pardon for sins but to purify the body once the soul had been cleansed by right conduct. Crowds gathered, and Herod Antipas feared that John’s influence might lead to an uprising (Josephus, Antiquities 18.116–119). In this passage Josephus says nothing of a message about one who was to come, and he does not connect John with Jesus.

Antipas put John in prison (Luke 3:19–20); see the Execution of John the Baptist. In Matthew, Jesus, who was baptised by him, says that no one born of women is greater than John (Matthew 11:11). His following outlived him: the book of Acts tells of disciples at Ephesus, years later, who knew only “John’s baptism” (Acts 19:1–7).