Was Jesus Baptized by John the Baptist?

I think Jesus' baptism by John the Baptist is one of the things we can say with a high, high probability about Jesus. It's testified in both Mark and John (criterion of multiple attestation), and was not likely to have been made up by early Christians since it's somewhat embarassing and troublesome to have a mentor above the Lord and Jesus talking about his sins (criterion of embarassment).

of course He was. please dont buy into all that textual criticism rubbish.

jckstraw72 said:

of course He was. please dont buy into all that textual criticism rubbish.

Click to expand...

I'm bracketing my belief in the authority of Scripture for the sake of dialogue with others.

Now, holding Scripture to the same historical criteria as any other primary source documents, what can we say about Jesus?

And I definitely think that Jesus' baptism by John is historically verifiable.

John the Baptist's ministry was Jesus launching pad for His ministry. Several times, Jesus refered to John this way...because it was the lanching pad Jesus submitted to how John the Baptist launched it...through baptism

I read once that baptism in NT times was self emmersion. The person walked into the pool naked and lowered themselves under the water.

They didn't do as we do by having a minister lower us into the water.

Anyone know anything about this?

dayhiker

Mikvah, or baptism in Greek, was performed by a person to become ceremonially clean again or to signify a new beginning of some sort, as of/from a vow. In that sense, yes, it was done alone by immersion and usually in moving water.

dayhiker said:

I read once that baptism in NT times was self emmersion. The person walked into the pool naked and lowered themselves under the water.

They didn't do as we do by having a minister lower us into the water.

Anyone know anything about this?

dayhiker

Click to expand...

That self immersion was one form of baptism practiced by the Jews, certainly not the only one. Matter of fact we aren't really that sure just how big that was a part of the practice since we do not see it referenced in the Bible and the earliest references we have to it come from the third century. We do not believe early Christians self baptized that way. It was important in that the baptism was in part to show whom you were a disciple of, baptizing yourself did not show that. This is what John misunderstood at first when Jesus came to him to be baptized. That it would be Jesus becoming a disciple of John, but it wasn't for that. Jesus was not baptized for repentance or for the remission of sins, he was being installed to the priesthood by another priest, John.

When you take the baptism of priests, it was done using the water in the basins that was normally used for washing the feet and hands, the priests did not climb into the basins or immerse themselves. So when one priest was baptized by another priest, the water was probably poured or sprinkled.

Since Jesus' baptism was part of the installation of him into the priesthood it was probably similar.

Paintings of early Christian baptisms are pretty well all baptism through pouring, with the person standing in water and having water poured over them. I'm not aware of any early pictures of immersion and certainly not self immersion. There are certainly no pictures of naked Christians self baptizing.

Marv

Who care who was baptised. It's just a bath. It doesn't really do anything except make you look like a fool.

Pow!

J

BigNorsk said:

This is what John misunderstood at first when Jesus came to him to be baptized. That it would be Jesus becoming a disciple of John, but it wasn't for that. Jesus was not baptized for repentance or for the remission of sins, he was being installed to the priesthood by another priest, John.

Click to expand...

This is how i understood it as well.

When you take the baptism of priests, it was done using the water in the basins that was normally used for washing the feet and hands, the priests did not climb into the basins or immerse themselves. So when one priest was baptized by another priest, the water was probably poured or sprinkled.

Click to expand...

Interesting, thank you.

Yes the Bible is very clear about the people in it and their roll.

Lotsa witnesses to the baptism of Jesus....ask them!