Was the baptism of Jesus historical?

[Jagella]

Question for Debate: Was the baptism of Jesus historical?

Yale professor of religious studies, Dale Martin, answers "yes!" He reasons that John baptizing Jesus demonstrated that Jesus was inferior to John. The early Christians would never have made up such a story, so it must be historical.

But let's take a look at the passage from Matthew 3:11 (NRSV) in which John the Baptist predicts the arrival of Jesus:

“I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

So the story does clearly portray Jesus as superior to John, something that Christians would make up.

I'd like to make two points. The first is that almost everything in the New Testament suffers from being unlikely to be historical. The second point is that Bible scholars seem unable to tell! Why trust such sloppy scholarship?

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[Mithrae]

If that were meant to be an adoption - and in particular if Mark were written as a way of retconning Pauline theology of Christ's pre-existence as a divine agent - surely we should expect more clarity in what had gone on there?

I don't see Paul's Jesus as pre-existent. God's plan for Jesus was, but for Paul, Christ's power came after his death and upon his resurrection. Mark's Jesus gains his power at his baptism, which makes him a divine agent during his ministry. Paul mentions neither a ministry nor miracles of Jesus, but makes both of those the purview of the apostles.

The evolution of Christology as I see it is that Paul's Jesus was mundane until his death, Mark's was mundane until his baptism, Matthew's and Luke's were divine at conception, and John's was pre-existent "in the beginning."

What do you make of Philippians 2? To my mind that is pretty clear that Christ Jesus initially had the form or nature of God, but humbled himself and took on the form/nature of a man. Colossians 1 calls Jesus the "firstborn over all creation... all things have been created through him... he is before all things." And there's really nothing in Mark, Matthew or Luke to my knowledge which declares that Jesus was mundane up to a certain point, beyond the dubious assumption that where they began their stories must be where they believed Jesus 'became divine.' It's worth noting that while the Torah contains several precedents of God (or divine agents) appearing in human form to Abraham and Jacob, a mere human becoming divine and receiving the kind of adoration and worship offered to Jesus would seem considerably more unique and blasphemous.

Second, Mark's theophany is personal. Jesus ("he") saw the Spirit descending as a dove does. Matthew and Luke both changed the vision to make it more public. Matthew changed God's words to "...this is my Son..." and Luke changed the Spirit's descent to being like a dove "in bodily form."

The 'messianic secret' is a widely acknowledged theme in Mark, I've read, so I'm not sure anything could be made of Mark's wording there in any case. But if Mark had intended this to be an adoption scene I would have expected the opposite: A father conveying love to his son at a key moment of his life needn't warrant a big show, whereas adoption (in human terms at least) requires some kind of formal/social acknowledgement.

Third, Mark's testing in the wilderness has serious Job overtones. It is the Spirit of God that drives Jesus into the wilderness to be tested by Satan. To me, this only makes sense from the standpoint of an adoption. God has chosen Jesus as his righteous agent on Earth, but it is up to Satan to test his righteousness before his ministry begins. The other Synoptics retain (and add to) the story, but I don't think it makes sense anymore.

Surely God would have checked whether someone was worthy before adopting them? That doesn't seem to make sense.

Incidentally I've always thought the Matthew/Luke temptation story mirrors the story of Elijah following the fire from heaven and deluge on Mt. Carmel; forty days' travel through the wilderness to Horeb and then three 'false starts' of wind, earthquake and fire before finding God in the gentle whisper: By implication Jesus' temptations represent the questions of whether his service to God and role as Messiah should focus on meeting material needs (bread), on signs and wonders (throwing himself off the temple), on rulership and dominion (kingdoms of the world)... or on something else? Maybe I'm just reading into it, but to my mind it's a lovely idea (and, really not fitting in with Matthew's Jesus-as-Moses theme, is one of the reasons I suspect the Q theory has merit).

Obviously if the temptation story holds merit in those gospels which definitively treat Jesus as the Son of God long before his baptism, we can't infer from Mark's temptation story that Jesus hadn't been divine beforehand. And again, I'm not sure how Jewish Mark himself was - apparently enough to reference and explain peculiarly Jewish customs to his audience - but it seems to me that a mere human becoming divine is a lot more problematic than God or a divine agent becoming a human.

[Jagella]

[Replying to post 38 by tam]

The baptism has multiple witnesses attesting to it (including multiple independent witnesses who testify to the same event);

In that case you should have no problem presenting that verified testimony. Please do.

We both know that there are no known eyewitness accounts of Jesus.