Peace to you,
quote="
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 think you have misunderstood his argument (I watched the video to be sure). He is saying the baptism would have been embarrassing so it likely to have happened, historically speaking, but those words and reasons for the baptism (from Matt) were later added.
I am not agreeing, but that was his argument.
He also stated that the baptism fits the historical criteria of having multiple independent attestation (Mark and "John"), which is another means by which historians conclude whether something is likely historical.
(It was an interesting video; there were some subjective things, especially at the end, but he also made clear what I understood myself: that historical "Jesus" scholars cannot tell us what is TRUE about Him - they cannot give us a true and new 'Jesus'; they are not denying the miracles or resurrections; they just cannot speak to those things using the historical method, etc. That being said, he also went on to say that early Christians probably re-created the trial scene according to what they thought probably happened - which scholars consider to not be historical. I found this amusing because of course he and other historical "jesus" scholars are doing that very thing, lol.)
I'd like to make two points. The first is that almost everything in the New Testament suffers from being unlikely to be historical.
I don't see how you come to that point, especially about the baptism (which is your topic). Baptism seems like a pretty simple thing to have been done and to get reported. Lots of people were being baptized, so I don't see how you determine that it was unlikely to have been historical.
The second point is that Bible scholars seem unable to tell!
Well, you misunderstood his argument and he gave more than one reason why they accept that as historical.
Why trust such sloppy scholarship?
Scholars (those who are for
as well as those who are against the existence of "Jesus") can and do make mistakes (and their methods are not based upon concrete evidence). I do not put my trust in any of them (I put my faith in Christ). But if I am going to hear them out, then I would examine (and test) their claims, their methods, etc.
Peace again to you!
