[Revised but uncorrected version] The Chronology of John the Baptist and the Crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth: A New Approach

JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS (2019) 1-34 brill.com/jshj The Chronology of John the Baptist and the Crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth: A New Approach Tamás Visi Kurt and Ursula Schubert Centre for Jewish Studies, Palacký University, Olomouc; Thomas-Institute, University of Cologne visi.tamas@gmail.com Abstract The consensus of present-day historians that Jesus was crucified around the year 30 has been challenged by a minority of scholars who argue that the execution of John the Baptist could not take place earlier than 35 CE, and for that reason Jesus must have been crucified at the Passover of 36 CE. This paper argues that both parties have strong and convincing arguments, and for that reason we must conclude that John was probably executed after Jesus’ death. The collective memory of the early Christians did not succeed in retaining the chronological order of these events, and this circumstance allowed the synoptics to turn the Baptist into a forerunner of Christ. CE Keywords John the Baptist – chronology – crucifixion – collective memory The consensus of most of the present-day historians is that Jesus was crucified around the year 30 CE, perhaps a year earlier or a few years later, but in any case not after 33 CE. A minority of scholars have challenged the consensus. They argue that the execution of John the Baptist could not take place earlier than 35 CE, and for that reason Jesus must have been crucified at the Passover of 36 CE; the last Passover which Pontius Pilate could spend in Jerusalem as Roman governor. The present paper will argue that both parties have strong and convincing arguments: it is indeed not very likely that Jesus was crucified later than 33 CE, and it is nearly certain that John the Baptist © KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV , LEIDEN , 2019 | DOI 10.1163/17455197-2019003 2 DOI 10.1163/17455197-2019003 | VISI was not executed earlier than 35 CE. So how to solve this chronological conundrum? The plain solution is accepting both dates and abandoning the idea that John the Baptist was executed earlier than Jesus. The rules of logic dictate that at least one of the following three propositions must be false: (1) Jesus was crucified in ca. 29–33 CE. (2) John was decapitated in ca. 35–36 CE. (3) John died earlier than Jesus. This paper will argue that the last statement is the weakest of the three, because it is much less supported by primary historical evidence than the first two, and for that reason it should be considered false. In other words, we must conclude that John was probably executed after Jesus’ death. As is well-known, all the canonical gospels and virtually the entire Christian tradition venerate John the Baptist as a forerunner of Christ, a new Elijah, who prepared the way of the Messiah.1 Modern academic researchers do not necessarily subscribe to this traditional image.2 Nevertheless, the relative chronology implied by the Christian narrative, namely, that John the Baptist’s movement and death preceded that of Jesus, has been taken over by almost every modern critical scholar without any suspicion. However, if the traditional chronology proves to be false, then the narrative scheme, on which all the canonical gospels are based, should not be accepted at face value. A fresh examination of the relevant sources will show that John the Baptist was executed in 35 or 36 CE, and it is very unlikely that Jesus was crucified as late as 35 CE. It will be argued, that by the late 60s or early 70s, when the first known gospel texts were composed, people were no longer certain about the exact chronology of the events that happened in the 30s, and this circumstance created the possibility for the synoptic evangelists to turn John’s life and death into a prelude to Jesus’ mission. The thesis that John the Baptist died around 35–36 CE is not new. The key 1 On the development of this topic in the four canonical Gospels, see Josef Ernst, “Johannes der Täufer und Jesus von Nazareth in historischer Sicht,” New Testament Studies 43 (1997): 161– 183; Walter Wink, John the Baptist in the Gospel Tradition, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). 2 Cf. Joan E. Taylor, The Immerser: John the Baptist within Second Temple Judaism (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1997), 261–316; Catherine M. Murphy, John the Baptist: Prophet of Purity for a New Age (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical, 2003), 23–25; Wink, John the Baptist, 107–115. For a brief overview of the history of scholarship on the Baptist, consult Knut Backhaus, “Echoes from the Wilderness: The Historical John the Baptist,” in Tom Holmén and Stanley E. Porter (eds.) Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus, vol. 1 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011), 1747–1785 at 1748–1751. JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS (2019) 1-34 THE CHRONOLOGY OF JOHN THE BAPTIST | DOI 10.1163/17455197-2019003 3 elements of the argument proposed below were formulated by Theodor Keim in 1866, although Keim opted for a slightly earlier date than 35 CE in order to harmonize his conclusions with the relative chronology suggested by the gospels.3 Keim’s insights were endorsed or adopted with modifications by Kirsopp Lake,4 Robert Eisler,5 Hugh J. Schonfield,6 Wolfgang Schenk,7 Nikkos Kokkinos,8 and Joan E. Taylor.9 The idea that John must have died after Jesus’ execution has been advocated by Robert Eisler (1882–1949), an ingenious but eccentric scholar, whose theories cannot but seem idiosyncratic today.10 Relying heavily on the Slavonic version of Josephus’ Jewish War Eisler claimed that Pilate’s office in Judea began as early as 19 CE, that Jesus was acclaimed the king of the Jews in 21 CE and was crucified the same year after his army lost a battle against the Roman troops of Pontius Pilate.11 Eisler’s theories were heavily criticized and generally rejected by his 3 Theodor Keim, Der geschichtliche Christus: Ein Reihe von Vorträgen mit Quellenbeweis und Chronologie des Lebens Jesu, (Zurich: Druck und Verlag von Orell, Füszli und Comp., 1866), 224–240. 4 Kirsopp Lake, “The Date of Herod’s Marriage with Herodias and the Chronology of the Gospels,” The Expositor, 8th Series, 4 (1912):462–477. 5 Robert Eisler, IHΣOYΣ BAΣIΛEYΣ OY BAΣIΛEYΣAΣ: Die messianische Unabhängigkeitsbewegung vom Auftreten Johannes des Täufers bis zum Untergang Jakobs des Gerechten. Nach der neuerschlossenen Eroberung von Jerusalem des Flavius Josephus und den christlichen Quellen dargestellt (Heidelberg: 1929–30) vol. 2, 123–133. [Eng tr. The Messiah Jesus and John the Baptist, tr. Alexander Haggerty Krappe (New York: The Dial Press, 1931), 288–294] and idem, “Recherches sur la chronologie Evangélique,” Revue Archéologique, 32 (1930): 116–126. 6 Hugh J. Schonfield, The Pentecost Revolution: The Story of the Jesus Party in Israel, AD 36–66, (London: MacDonald and Jane’s: 1974), 46–54. 7 Wolfgang Schenk, “Gefangenschaft und Tod des Täufers: Erwägungen zur Chronologie und ihren Konsequenzen,” New Testament Studies 29 (1983): 453–483. 8 Nikkos Kokkinos, “Crucifixion in A.D. 36: The Keystone For Dating The Birth Of Jesus,” in Jerry Vardaman and Edwin M. Yamauchi (eds.), Chronos Kairos Christos: Nativity and Chronological Studies Presented to Jack Finegan, (Eisenbrauns: Winona Lake: 1989), 133–163. 9 Joan E. Taylor, The Immerser: John the Baptist within Second Temple Judaism (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1997), 255–258. 10 Note, however, that Jerry Vardaman also argues for 21 CE as the year of the crucifixion though on the basis of arguments different from Eisler’s and without accepting Eisler’s (and Keim’s) late dating of John’s execution. See Jerry Vardaman, “Jesus’ Life: A New Chronology,” in Vardaman and Yamauchi (eds.), Chronos Kairos Christos: Nativity And Chronological Studies Presented To Jack Finegan, 55–82. 11 On Eisler’s contribution to New Testament chronology, see Daniel R. Schwartz, Studies in the Jewish Background of Christianity, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS (2019) 1-34 4 DOI 10.1163/17455197-2019003 | VISI contemporaries: nevertheless, we shall attempt to show that his intuitions were basically correct concerning the relative chronology of Jesus’ crucifixion and John’s beheading.12 The death of John the Baptist and that of Jesus of Nazareth will be treated as two separate problems first. Each will be dated independently. After that the question of temporal precedence will be addressed. 1 The Date of John the Baptist’s Death 1.1 Dating John’s Death to 35/36 CE Two primary sources are known about the death of John the Baptist: a narrative preserved in slightly different versions in the synoptic gospels and an independent report by the Hellenistic Jewish historian, Josephus Flavius, who wrote his book at the end of the first century CE. Josephus’ account does not mention any connection between John and Jesus and thus it must be independent of mainstream Christian tradition. According to the synoptic tradition the story of John’s death can be summarized in the following way13: 1. John publicly criticized Herod Antipas for his unorthodox marriage with his brother’s former wife, Herodias. 2. Herod put John into prison to prevent him from public speech but did not dare to execute him. 3. Nevertheless, his wife, Herodias, was decided to revenge John by taking his life. She prepared a conspiracy in order to force Herod to order John’s execution. 4. Herodias’ conspiracy succeeded and John was executed. Josephus Flavius’ account is less romantic. He presents the following 60 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992), 182–184. For a brief summary and criticism of Eisler’s views on John the Baptist, consult Josef Ernst, Johannes der Täufer: Interpretation: Geschichte, Wirkungsgeschichte, Beiheft zur Zeitschrift der neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der ältern Kirche 53 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1989), 261–263. 12 Another scholar who has suggested that John the Baptist may have survived Jesus is Wolfgang Schenk; cf. Schenk, “Gefangenschaft und Tod des Täufers,” 463–464. 13 Mark 6.14–19; Matt 14.3–12; cf. Luke 3.19–20 recapitulating briefly that John was imprisoned on account of his criticizing Herod’s marrying Herodias without relating the story of his execution. JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS (2019) 1-34 THE CHRONOLOGY OF JOHN THE BAPTIST | DOI 10.1163/17455197-2019003 5 sequence of events14: 1. John gathered many followers around himself teaching them good morals. 2. Herod Antipas feared that the mob that gathered around John would eventually initiate a rebellion. (Josephus does not indicate that Herod had anything personal against John, nor that John criticized his unorthodox marriage.) 3. So John was arrested and executed in the fortress of Machaerus. 4. Soon after a war broke out between Herod and the Nabatean king, Aretas. Herod’s army was defeated and almost completely annihilated. 5. Many Jews of Herod’s realm believed that the military disaster was a divine punishment for the execution of John the Baptist.15 On the basis of the first account John the Baptist’s death must have occurred after the marriage of Herod and Herodias, since the story narrated in the synoptic gospels hardly makes any sense unless the two were married. The second account indicates that John’s death must have occurred shortly before Herod’s defeat in the Nabatean war. Thus we have two historical events that are associated with John’s execution: (1) Herod’s marrying Herodias and (2) his war against the Nabateans. These two events were closely related in fact, as we shall see soon. Our solely source is Josephus Flavius whose account is as follows (Jewish Antiquities, 18.109–115): About this time16 a quarrel, whose origin17 I shall relate, arose between Aretas, king of Petra, and Herod. The tetrarch Herod had taken the daughter of Aretas as his wife and had now been married to her for a long time. When starting out for Rome, he lodged with his half-brother Herod, who was born of a different mother, namely, the daughter of 14 Josephus Flavius, Jewish Antiquities [hereafter, AJ], 18.116–119. Josephus AJ 18.116 says “some of the Jews” (τισὶ δὲ τῶν Ἰουδαίων), while 18.119 writes that “the Jews” (without qualification) believed that God punished Herod for executing John. Thus, the text suggests that this belief was widespread among the Jewish subjects of Herod Antipas. This squares with Mark 11.32: “everyone held that John really was a prophet” (tr. NIV). 16 In the previous section, AJ 18.106–108, Josephus relates the death of the tetrarch Philip in the twentieth year of Tiberius’ reign, that is 34 CE. 17 διὰ τοιαύτην αἰτίαν, Literally: “for this reason” or “on account of this cause.” 15 JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS (2019) 1-34 6 DOI 10.1163/17455197-2019003 | VISI Simon the high priest. Falling in love with Herodias, the wife of this half-brother – she was a daughter of their brother Aristobulus and sister to Agrippa the Great – he brazenly broached to her the subject of marriage. She accepted and pledged herself to make the transfer to him as soon as he returned from Rome. It was stipulated that he must oust the daughter of Aretas. The agreement made, he set sail for Rome. On his return after transacting his business in Rome, his wife, who got wind of his compact with Herodias, before any information reached him that she had discovered everything, asked him to send her away to Machaerus, which was on the boundary between the territory of Aretas and that of Herod. She gave no hint, however, of her real purpose. Herod let her go, since he had no notion that the poor woman saw what was afoot. Some time earlier she herself had dispatched messengers to Machaerus and to the subject of her father,18 so that when she arrived all preparations for her journey had been made by the governor [stratēgos]. She was thus able to start for Arabia as soon as she arrived, being passed from one governor [stratēgos] to the next as they provided transport. So she speedily reached her father and told him what Herod planned to do. Aretas made this the start of a quarrel. There was also a dispute about boundaries in the district of Gabalis. Troops were mustered on each side and they were now at war, but they dispatched 18 Feldman’s translation is “to Machaerus which was at that time subject to her father.” This translation is based on the editio princeps (Basel, 1544) which read εἰς τὸν Mαχαιροῦντα τóτε πατρὶ αὐτῆς ὑποτελῆ (adopted also in the Loeb Classical Library edition). However, this reading is not supported by the earlier witnesses. Medieval Greek manuscripts attest a different reading: εἰς τὸν Mαχαιροῦντα τῷ τε πατρὶ αὐτῆς ὑποτελεῖ, which can be translated as “to Machaerus and to him who was the subject of her father” (cf. Feldman’s note “d” on p. 79 of the translation cited in the next footnote). The latter phrase (“subject of her father”) probably refers to the stratēgos mentioned in the same sentence, or perhaps, to a tribe subject to Aretas that camped near the border. See Emil Schürer, Geza Vermes, and Fergus Millar, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 B.C. - 135 A.D.) vol. 1 (London et al.: Bloomsbury, 1973), 345, note 20. Similarly, the ancient Latin version (sixth century CE) does not state or imply that Machaerus belonged to Aretas: illa uero premiserat enim ante multum tempus ad patrem, ut ei apud Machaerunta omnia pararentur (“much time earlier she sent [messengers] to her father so that everything should be prepared for her in the vicinity of Machaerus”); see Flavii Iosephi Antiquitatum Iudaicarum Libri xx…, ed. Desiderius Erasmus (Basel: Froben, 1540), 482. Therefore, there is no sufficient textual evidence that Machaerus was under Aretas’ rule ever, and given the strategic importance of this fortress, it is extremely unlikely that Herod would have handed it over to Aretas when the latter’s daughter was married to him. JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS (2019) 1-34 THE CHRONOLOGY OF JOHN THE BAPTIST | DOI 10.1163/17455197-2019003 7 others as commanders instead of going themselves. In the ensuing battle, the whole army of Herod was destroyed when some refugees who had come from the tetrarchy of Philip and had joined Herod’s army, played him false. Herod sent an account of these events to Tiberius. The latter was incensed to think that Aretas had begun hostilities and wrote to Vitellius to declare war and either bring Aretas to him in chains, if he should be captured alive, or, if he should be slain, to send him his head. Such were the instructions of Tiberius to his governor in Syria.19 In other words, Herod’s marriage to Herodias was the remote cause of the war with Aretas’ kingdom. Herodias agreed to marry Herod only on the condition that he divorces his former wife, who happened to be King Aretas’ daughter. Herod attempted to get rid of Aretas’ daughter in a discrete way, but his intention was revealed and was taken as an offense and a casus belli by Aretas. In the next paragraph Josephus interrupts the story with a short account of John the Baptist’s life and death, which has been summarized above.20 He points out that “to some of the Jews the destruction of Herod's army seemed to be divine vengeance, and certainly a just vengeance, for his treatment of John, surnamed the Baptist.” Returning to the main narrative Josephus relates that Vitellius began preparing the Roman attack against the Nabateans in accordance with the emperor’s order. However, the plan could not be carried out due to the emperor’s death: since Vitellius’ was Tiberius’ legate, that is, personal representative, his mandate automatically ended when Tiberius died and thus he was not entitled to carry on the military preparations. Tiberius died 16 March, 37 CE. The news of his death may have reached Vitelius in Jerusalem approximately a month later.21 The war between Herod and Aretas must have taken place several months before the emperor’s 19 Josephus, AJ 18.109–115; tr. Louis Feldman, The Works of Josephus, Loeb Classical Library, vol. 9, 76–82 (slightly modified). 20 Jerome Murphy-O’Connor argues that the fact that John was executed in the fortress of Machaerus suggests that Herod Antipas made his decision about John’s fate while he was preparing for the war against Aretas. See Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, “John the Baptist and Jesus: History and Hypotheses,” New Testament Studies 36 (1990): 359–374; here 370. 21 See Stern, Calendar and Community, 56–57. JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS (2019) 1-34 8 DOI 10.1163/17455197-2019003 | VISI death; this is why most historians date it to 36 CE. Consequently, Herod’s divorce of Aretas daughter and his marriage to Herodias must have happened slightly earlier, probably in 36 CE, or, with less probability in 35 CE. Another chronological peg is the fact that Vitellius was involved in the war. Tiberius appointed Vitellius his legate in Syria in 35 CE.22 Accordingly, most of the events related above must have taken place in 36 CE, although it cannot be excluded that Herod married Herodias already in 35 CE. Consequently, the execution of John the Baptist took place probably in 36 CE or, possibly in 35 CE, although the earlier date is less probable. This dating can be considered quite certain despite the fact that the two accounts of John’s death were composed decades after the event and we have no contemporary evidence. The two accounts, as have been mentioned above, are independent of each other and they do not harmonize in every respect. Nevertheless, both accounts presuppose that John died after Herod’s marrying Herodias. As we have seen, this marriage can be dated to 36 CE or, with lower probability, to 35 CE. Thus two independent sources corroborate that John the Baptist was executed probably in 36 CE, or in 35 CE, though the earlier date is less probable. 1.2 Hoehner’s Theory As has been mentioned above, similar chronological reconstructions have been advocated since the middle of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, despite the cohesion and the strength of the argument, the majority of the researchers have not subscribed to the conclusions. The consensus of most scholars is more represented by Harold W. Hoehner’s much-quoted study, which supposes that Herod’s marrying Herodias and breaking up with Aretas’ daughter happened seven years before the war actually started in 36 CE. This interpretation would make it possible to date John’s death to 30 or 31 CE in accordance with traditional chronology.23 Hoehner supposes that the 22 The chronological information is based on Tacitus, Annales, vi, 32. Cf. Schürer, Vermes, and Millar, The History of the Jewish People, vol. 1, 262–263. 23 Cf., Harold W. Hoehner, Herod Antipas, Society for New Testament Studies, 17 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 124–131. Some of Hoehner’s ideas were foreshadowed in Emil Schürer, Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi, vol. 1 (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1901), 443–445, cf. Schürer, Vermes, and Millar, The History of the Jewish People, vol. 1, 350 and 581. Hoehner’s interpretation of the evidence is often endorsed in monographs about the historical Jesus without any detailed discussion and sometimes without citing Hoehner’s publication. Three examples: John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (London: T & T Clark, 1991), 230; John P. Meier, A Marginal JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS (2019) 1-34 THE CHRONOLOGY OF JOHN THE BAPTIST | DOI 10.1163/17455197-2019003 9 hostilities between Herod and Aretas began in 29 CE although both parties refrained from undertaking major military operations until 36 CE. Hoehner’s theory attempts to harmonize the data mentioned earlier (see section 1.1 above) with the chronological implications of the Gospel of Luke, namely that John started his mission around 29 CE and died shortly afterwards, before the crucifixion of Jesus.24 Such a harmonization of the evidence is legitimate only if the chronological statement in Luke 3:1 is considered strong evidence. However, there is no reason to consider Luke’s statement as strong evidence for the date of the Baptist’s death. Luke 3:1 does not happen to state that John the Baptist died in 29 or 30 CE. Furthermore, it is very likely that Luke’s primary purpose was to determine the year of Jesus’ public mission; since he assumed that John the Baptist began his career earlier than Jesus, he inferred that the Baptist’s mission must have begun in the fifteenth year of Tiberius. The idea that John was executed earlier than Jesus was taken over from the Gospel of Mark. There is no reason to ascribe greater strength to Luke’s testimony than to Mark’s concerning the date of the Baptist’s death. The strength of Mark’s statement will be assessed later, in sections 3.3–3.5 below. Moreover, there is nothing in Josephus’ text or in any other sources supporting the assumption that seven years of war or “hostilities” passed without major military operations. On the contrary, the plain sense of Josephus’ words is that the events followed closely each other.25 Admittedly, Josephus does not pronounce an explicit statement that two years passed from the divorce to Tiberius’ death. Nevertheless, there is no compelling Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Volume Two (New York, London, Toronto, etc.: Doubleday, 1994), 175–176; Karl Jaroš, Jesus von Nazareth: Geschichte und Deutung (Mainz: von Zabern, 2000), 144–146. 24 Hoehner’s study has been criticized for its too “dogmatic” approach; see Meier, A Marginal Jew, vol. 2, 227 note 248. 25 Hoehner, Herod Antipas, 125–126 argues that AJ 18.113 ὁ δὲ ἀρχὴν ἔχθρας ταύτην ποιησάμενος (tr. Feldman: “[Aretas] made this the start of a quarrel”) implies that the divorce was only the beginning of a longer process of hostilities. However, as Schenk objects, AJ 18.109 states clearly and explicitly that the divorce was the main reason of the war. In light of this it is very unlikely that Josephus’ phrasing of AJ 18.113 intended to point out a longer timespan of deteriorating relations and hostilities before the actual military clash in 36. Since the divorce was the casus belli, one has to assume that the war broke out soon after the divorce, unless there is strong evidence to the contrary. And there is no evidence to the contrary. Cf. Schenk, “Gefangenschaft und Tod des Täufers,” 480, note 46. JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS (2019) 1-34 10 DOI 10.1163/17455197-2019003 | VISI proof that a timespan longer than two years is needed to accommodate all the events. Furthermore, Josephus inserts this narrative after his account of Philip’s death in 34 CE (AJ 18.106–108) and mentions Vitellius as the governor of Syria, who was appointed in 35 CE.26 These circumstances indicate that AJ 18.109–115 was meant to relate events that took place in 35–36 CE.27 Yet another weakness of this theory is that assuming five to seven years to have passed between John’s death and Herod’s military defeat it is difficult to understand why pious Jews saw the latter as a punishment for the former.28 The military disaster must have occurred rapidly after the execution of the holy man if these otherwise totally unrelated events could be perceived as ‘cause’ and ‘effect’ by contemporaries. Moreover, both Josephus and the gospels indicate that John the Baptist was believed to have been innocent, and this fact also needs to be explained. John’s execution could have been perceived as a divine punishment by religious Jews: perhaps, John committed some sin secretly and that is why God allowed him to be executed?29 However, as Wolfgang Schenk argues, a quick and robust divine punishment of the monarch, who was responsible for the execution, rehabilitated John in the eyes of the religious public: God must have approved John’s deeds if He retaliated for his death. Had the punishment come several years later, it would have failed to rehabilitate John.30 Therefore, it is very difficult to assume with Hoehner that John was executed in 30 or 31 CE and Herod’s defeat took place in 36 CE. F. F. Bruce has challenged this last point by referring to Psalms of Solomon 26 Although it is often assumed in secondary literature that Josephus tends to disregard chronological order, Daniel R. Schwartz has shown the opposite by a detailed overview of the content of AJ 18–20; see Schwartz, Studies in the Jewish Background of Christianity, 185– 198. 27 For further objections against Hoehner’s solution consult Kokkinos, “Crucifixion in A. D. 36,” 135–136. 28 The fall of Pilate and Caiaphas in 36/37CE was not perceived as divine punishment for Jesus’ crucifixion by any contemporaries as far as we know. See below, section 2. 29 As a comparison, Jesus’ death on the cross was seen by many contemporaries as a sign of divine disfavor (cf. Mark 15.30–31) and according to Mark 15.34 even by Jesus himself (!). Resurrection from death rehabilitated Jesus in the eyes of the first Christians. Nevertheless, no source states about Jesus that “everybody believed that he was really a prophet” as is said about John the Baptist in Mark 11.32. 30 Schenk argues that the same narrative scheme (death or sufferings of a martyr followed by divine rehabilitation) is present in Isaiah 52.13–53.12, the Wisdom of Solomon, the Ethiopic book of Enoch, and in the gospel of Mark; cf. Schenk, “Gefangenschaft und Tod des Täufers,” 463 and 471–472. JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS (2019) 1-34 THE CHRONOLOGY OF JOHN THE BAPTIST | DOI 10.1163/17455197-2019003 11 2.26–28 which, according to a widely accepted interpretation, refers to Pompey’s death in 48 BCE. This text understands Pompey’s murder as God’s punishment, presumably, for invading Jerusalem and entering the sanctuary in 63 BCE. Thus, the divine retaliation was believed to have come fifteen years after Pompey’s sin.31 There are three problems with this argument: (1) The text does not rehabilitate the city of Jerusalem and the sanctuary at all; on the contrary, it is stated explicitly that the invasion and the humiliation of the city was God’s just punishment for the sins of the citizens (see Psalms of Solomon 2.3–18). Thus the delayed punishment did not rehabilitate the victims of the sin. As opposed to this, no sources indicate that John’s death was believed to be a just punishment for his sins: John was rehabilitated by quick divine retaliation for his death. (2) The text actually says that God acted quickly: He showed the villain’s death to the author in a prophetic vision.32 Thus, this text also attests that the divine response was expected to come quickly. (3) The Psalms of Solomon may reflect the opinion of a single author.33 There is no evidence that Jewish religious public at large saw Pompey’ death as punishment for a sin he committed fifteen years earlier. In sum, Hoehner’s theory stands only if a number of auxiliary hypotheses are accepted, which are not supported by sufficient textual evidence. These hypotheses include the assumption that seven years passed between Herod’s divorcing Aretas’ daughter and the military clash in 36 CE, that the fact that Josephus placed his account of Herod’s marrying Herodias and divorcing Aretas’ daughter after Philip’s death in 34 is irrelevant, and that religious Jews saw Herod’s defeat as John’s divine rehabilitations despite the many years that separated the two events. As opposed to this, the theory proposed above, in section 1.1, does not require such auxiliary hypotheses. 31 Cf. Frederick F. Bruce, New Testament History (Garden City: Doubleday, 1972), 30–31. Psalms of Solomon 2.26: καὶ οὐκ ἐχρόνισα ἕως ἔδειξέν μοι ὁ θεὸς τὴν ὕβριν αὐτοῦ “I did not have long to wait until God showed me his arrogance…” tr. Robert B. Wright, The Psalms of Solomon: A Critical Edition of the Greek Text, Jewish and Christian Texts in Contexts and Related Studies, 1 (London: T&T Clark, 2007), 71. 33 Cf. Benedikt Eckhardt, “The Psalms of Solomon as a Historical Source for the Late Hasmonean Period,” in Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle (eds.), The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2015), 7–30 at 25: “[The Psalms of Solomon] do not represent the theocratic zeal of the Jewish populace, but a small group of Jews alienated from the great majority.” 32 JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS (2019) 1-34 12 DOI 10.1163/17455197-2019003 | VISI 1.3 Could Josephus Be Wrong? The conclusion that John the Baptist was executed in 35/36 CE can be avoided by challenging Josephus’ narrative. This option is taken by Christiane Saulnier and some other scholars following her. Saulnier claims that Vitellius had nothing to do with the war against Aretas at all, and for that reason Herod’s marrying Herodias, the execution of John, and the war against Aretas all could take place in the 20s.34 Saulnier assumes that Herod married Herodias in 23 CE the latest; John was executed in 27 or 28 CE. Aretas’ victory over Herod took place in 29 CE. The Romans did not attempt to interfere at all, because Tiberius lived in seclusion on the island of Capri and was disinterested in such matters.35 The fact that this reconstruction is explicitly contradicted by Josephus is not considered a serious problem: Saulnier assumes that Josephus must have been misinformed about these historical events, since he had insufficient sources at his disposal. This line of reasoning has been adopted in a modified form by Bruce Chilton too.36 Admittedly, Josephus or his source could have committed mistakes in defining the chronological sequence of the events. However, in the present case, this is very unlikely. People often remember incorrectly dates, but they are much better in remembering dramas (see below, section 3.1). Josephus’ account is a carefully sewn narrative: it is not just a sequence of unrelated or loosely connected events but a chain of causes and effects. The order of the events cannot be changed without ruining the inner logic of the plot. We cannot be certain that Josephus himself was able to determine the years in which the events took place, but we have no reasons to doubt that he related the events in the correct order. Moreover, it is very difficult to detach the narrative from the death of Tiberius (which we know to have taken place in 37 CE). The unexpected death of the emperor was a dramatic turn of the unfolding narrative, since it 34 See Christiane Saulnier, “Hérode Antipas et Jean le Baptiste: Quelques remarques sur les confusions chronologiques de Flavius Josèphe,” Révue Biblique 91 (1984): 362–376. 35 Saulnier, “Hérode Antipas et Jean le Baptiste,” 375–376. The fact that Tiberius lived in “isolation” on the island of Capri in 35–36 CE too, and was nevertheless able to orchestrate a proxy war against the Parthian king Artabanus, is not taken into consideration by Saulnier. Cf. Robin Seager, Tiberius, Second Edition (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), 203–205. 36 Cf. Bruce D. Chilton, “John the Purifier: His Immersion and His Death,” Harvard Theological Review 57 (2001): 247–267 esp. 262–267, idem, “Recovering Jesus’ Mamzerut,” in James H. Charlesworth, Jesus and Archaeology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 84–110; esp. 109. Chilton dates John’s execution to 21 CE assuming that the war took place in the 20s. Cf. also Timothy Venning, A Chronology of the Roman Empire (London: Continuum, 2011), 387. JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS (2019) 1-34 THE CHRONOLOGY OF JOHN THE BAPTIST | DOI 10.1163/17455197-2019003 13 prevented Vitellius from carrying out the planned military attack against Aretas. Josephus preserves an anecdote about Aretas’ consulting a diviner before Vitelius’ attack. The diviner allegedly replied that Vitellius would never enter Petra because of the death of a ruler.37 The story might be just a folktale, but inventing such a tale makes no sense, unless the war indeed took place shortly before Tiberius’ death in 37 CE. Therefore, the relationship between the two events cannot be dismissed as a “confusion” on Josephus’ part. Saulnier attempts to overcome this difficulty by hypothesizing that Vitellius indeed prepared an attack against the Nabatean kingdom, but the raison d’être of this campaign was not Herod’s defeat but a (hypothesized) Nabatean perfidy in the Roman-Parthian conflict of 35–36 CE. Thus, in Saulnier’s opinion Josephus was simply mistaken about the real cause and purpose of Vitellius’ war preparations.38 Unfortunately, this theory is without foundations: there are no sources supporting the claim that the Nabateans sided with the Parthians in 35–36 CE, nor that Vitellius was ordered to attack them for this reason.39 Moreover, if Josephus misunderstood or was misinformed about all these events, he most have been woefully ignorant about the subject matter he wrote about, and we may wonder whether his work can be trusted as a historical source of this period at all. Therefore, this investigation leads us to the question whether Josephus could be fundamentally wrong about Herod Antipas’ divorce, second marriage, and the Nabatean war. Saulnier’s argument that Josephus had insufficient sources at his disposal is not convincing. While his sources could easily be insufficient in many other respects, Josephus was certainly well informed about the history of the Herodians. Josephus knew personally some of the members of the Herod family, especially King Agrippa II (d. 93 CE).40 37 Josephus, AJ 18.125. Saulnier, “Hérode Antipas et Jean le Baptiste,” 373–374. 39 Saulnier, “Hérode Antipas et Jean le Baptiste,” 374 refers to Tacitus, Annales vi.44 (vi.50.7) which states that the Arab troops of Tiridates (who was Rome’s ally) were the first to retreat into Mesopotamia in 36 CE. Saulnier speculates that perhaps these tribes were Nabateans and perhaps Tiberius ordered retaliation against them, presumably, because he considered them traitors. None of these speculations are supported by any textual evidence. 40 On Josephus’ attitude towards the Herodians, see Steve Mason, Josephus and the New Testament, Second Edition (Peabody, Massachusetts, 2003), 152–159. On Josephus’ attitude towards Herod Antipas, see Morten Hørning Jensen, “Josephus and Antipas : A Case Study of Josephus’ Narratives on Herod Antipas,” in Zuleika Rodgers, (ed.), Making History: Josephus 38 JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS (2019) 1-34 14 DOI 10.1163/17455197-2019003 | VISI Josephus had access to Agrippa’s correspondence and had information about the content of letters written by other members of the family too, including Herod Antipas. Thus, Josephus’ knowledge derived partly from personal acquaintances and partly from written documents. A letter of Antipas to Tiberius which reported the military clash and Tiberius’ letter to Vitellius ordering him to lead a campaign against Aretas are mentioned in AJ 18.115. We cannot know whether Josephus actually read any of those letters, but it is by no means a far-fetched hypothesis that he did have the opportunity to consult them, or that he accessed earlier written sources that utilized them.41 In any case, there is no compelling reason to believe that Josephus got the story of Antipas’ marrying Herodias and the subsequent war with Aretas all wrong. 1.4 Summary The events described in AJ 18.109–115 took place in 35–36 CE. Among these events were both Herod Antipas’ marrying Herodias and the war against Aretas. The Gospel of Mark connects John’s death to Antipas’ marrying Herodias, while Josephus associates it with the defeat of Antipas’ army. Therefore, both of the sources suggest that John the Baptist was executed in 35 or 36 CE.42 The Gospel of Mark and Josephus harmonize in this respect, despite the many differences between them in other respects.43 There are three possible ways of avoiding these conclusions. (1) One may assume that the marriage took place as early as 28 or 29 and the war between Herod Antipas and Aretas lasted for seven or eight years. This hypothesis allows the possibility that the Baptist was killed in 29 or 30 CE. (2) A slightly modified version of the previous hypothesis is that the divorce was not the real casus belli but the beginning of a period of deteriorating relations that culminated in war in 36. (3) Josephus’ narrative may be dismissed and replaced with the hypothesis that the marriage and the war took place in the and Historical Method (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2007), 289–312. Daniel R. Schwartz argues that a written source about Antipas, a sort of “Vita” of Antipas indeed existed and was utilized by Josephus in both the Jewish War and the Jewish Antiquities; see Daniel R. Schwartz, Agrippa I: The Last King of Judaea, Texte und Studien zum antiken Judentum, 23 (Tübingen 1990), 2–11 and 176–178. 42 Therefore, it is not justified to dismiss Mark’s narrative about Herodias’ involvement in the Baptist’s death as “anachronistic” as is done, for example, by Dieter Lührmann, Das Markusevangelium, Handbuch zum Neuen Testament, 3 (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1987), 115. 43 On these differences, see Meier, A Marginal Jew, vol. 2, 171–176. 41 JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS (2019) 1-34 THE CHRONOLOGY OF JOHN THE BAPTIST | DOI 10.1163/17455197-2019003 15 20s and Vitellius played no role in them. All of the alternatives are based on unsubstantiated hypotheses. The first proposal is committed to the idea that a war was fought by Herod Antipas and Aretas from ca. 29 to 36 CE. However, no source indicates that the war began in the late 20s and lasted for at least seven years. The second proposal avoids the hypothesis that the war lasted for seven years, but introduces the assumption that the divorce was not the reason of the war, just the beginning of a process that lead to the war. But Josephus AJ 18.113 says the opposite: Aretas had had border disputes with Herod before the divorce, and took the occasion to start a war when his daughter was divorced. Moreover, both of these two proposals assume that at least seven years passed from the Baptist’s death to Herod’s defeat which makes it difficult to explain why Jews believed that Herod’s defeat was a divine punishment for executing John. The third proposal simply dismisses Josephus’ narrative and replaces it with another narrative which is not supported by any historical sources. It fails to explain how Josephus could be ignorant about this important episode in the history of the Herodian dynasty while he was generally quite well-informed about the Herodians. On the other hand, the interpretation proposed above, in section 1.1, does not require such unsubstantiated hypotheses, and for that reason it is preferable to the two alternative solutions. Accordingly, John the Baptist died probably in 35 or 36 CE. 2 The Date of Jesus’ Death Jesus was crucified during Pontius Pilate’s governorship of Judea, that is, between ca. 26 CE and 36/37 CE.44 Chronological pegs in the gospels as well as the implications of Pauline chronology strongly suggest that Jesus’ mission and passion took place in the middle of this period.45 In the Gospel of John we read that once Jesus claimed in the sanctuary in 44 On the problems of interpretation of the relevant passages in Josephus, see Schwartz, Studies in the Jewish Background of Christianity, 182–217. Schwartz argues that Pilate’s mandate may have started earlier than 26 CE. 45 For a thorough discussion of the chronological problems concerning Jesus’ life, consult John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Volume One (New York, London, Toronto etc.: Doubleday, 1991), 372–433, esp. 373–375 and 380–382. JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS (2019) 1-34 16 DOI 10.1163/17455197-2019003 | VISI Jerusalem that he would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days. People hearing this claim responded: “It took forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” (John 2.20) This sentence implies that the conversation took place forty-six years after Herod the Great started to rebuild the sanctuary in Jerusalem. According to Josephus, Herod’s building project begun in the eighteenth year of his reign meaning 20–19 BCE. Although the core buildings of the temple-complex were finished during Herod’s lifetime the building project continued for eight more decades. One could say that “it took forty-six years to build this temple” around 26–28 CE. Therefore, if the chronological information assumed in the Gospel of John is correct, Jesus’ mission must have begun during the early years of Pilate’s mandate in Judea, and the crucifixion must have taken place before the middle of the period, that is to say, between 28–30 CE.46 Similar conclusion follows from the much-quoted statement in the Gospel of Luke that John the Baptist began his mission “in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar,” that is 29 CE. Historians often attempt to calculate the date of Jesus’ crucifixion on the basis of this claim: depending on one’s assumption about the length of time that must have passed between the beginning of John the Baptist’s prophetic activities and the crucifixion of Jesus, scholars usually put Jesus’ death between 30 CE and 33 CE.47 Luke may have had reliable information about the time of Jesus’ crucifixion. However, as has been pointed out in the previous section, his statement should not be considered as an evidence for the date of the Baptist’s death. The implications of Pauline chronology corroborates these conclusions too.48 Paul’s conversion certainly occurred after Jesus’ crucifixion; therefore the date of the former is a terminus ad quem of the latter. Moreover, since Paul persecuted “the church” before his conversion, the “church,” that is, the 46 Kokkinos (pp. 153–155) attempts to dismiss this evidence by claiming that the evangelist meant, in fact, not the years that passed since the building of the sanctuary began, but the age of Jesus, that is to say, the “sanctuary” which was being built for 46 years was Jesus’ body. Furthermore, Kokkinos argues, in case the sentence indeed referred to the temple of Jerusalem, then the 46 years should be counted from 12 BCE, when the reconstruction of the core-buildings were finished. Accordingly, the sentence must have been pronounced in 34 CE in accordance with Kokkinos’ late dating. However, the plain sense of John 2.20 contradicts all these interpretations and there is no reason to reject the plain sense in this case. Other “alternative” explanations also seem to be do violence to the simple meaning of the text; cf. Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology, 346–349. 47 See Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology, 362 and 366–367. 48 Cf. Meier, A Marginal Jew, vol. 1, 373. JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS (2019) 1-34 THE CHRONOLOGY OF JOHN THE BAPTIST | DOI 10.1163/17455197-2019003 17 community of the Jesus-believers, must have been visible and influential enough to provoke fierce hostility from its opponents. The relevant passages in Galatians and Acts suggest that a community of Jesus-believers had come into existence in Damascus, and perhaps in other places in the Nabatean kingdom (referred to as “Arabia” in Galatians) by the time Paul became a Jesus-believer. It is very unlikely that Jesus’ followers built up such a wide and visible network of communities in less than a year after their master’s death. We cannot tell how many years passed between Jesus’ death and Paul’s conversion, but an estimation of three to six years is fair enough. The chronology of Paul’s life is a complicated subject matter that involves chronological information contained in Paul’s letters, the Acts of Apostles, and external sources, such as Josephus Flavius and the famous Gallioinscription. A detailed reconstruction of Pauline chronology cannot be attempted in the framework of the present study. It suffices to say that most scholars date Paul’s conversion to 33–36 CE, although estimates as early as 32 CE or as late as 37 CE also occur.49 Moreover, we do have a nearly certain terminus ad quem: Since Paul was persecuted by an official of King Aretas in Damascus (2 Cor 11.32), which happened probably three (or more) years after the conversion (cf. Gal 1.18 and Acts 9.23–26), Paul must have converted at least three years before the death of Aretas IV. Since Aretas died probably in 40 CE, the latest possible date for the conversion is 37 CE.50 Accordingly, on the basis of these estimates, Jesus’ crucifixion should be placed somewhere between 28 CE and 33 CE, and in any case no later than 34 CE. An additional consideration is that the years 36/37 saw the fall of two powerful persons whose influence must have been tremendous in Judea during the previous decade: Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, and Caiaphas, the Jewish high priest. Both of them had important role in Jesus’ 49 On the chronological problems, see Jeremy Murphy O’Connor, Paul: A Critical Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 1–31. For a recent overview of opinions, consult James D. G. Dunn, Beginning from Jerusalem, Christianity in the Making, 2 (Grand Rapids, Michigan and Cambridge: 2009), 497–512. Cf. the note on chronology in James D. G. Dunn (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to St. Paul (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), xx (32/33 CE); Calvin J. Roetzel, The Letters of Paul: Conversations in Context, Sixth Edition (Lousville, Kentucky: John Knox Press, 2015), 100 (34 CE); Joshua D. Garroway, The Beginning of the Gospel: Paul, Philippi, and the Origins of Christianity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 65–67 (34/35 CE); Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology, 395 (36 CE). 50 On the chronology of Aretas, see Manfred Lindner, “Die Geschichte der Nabatäer,” in idem (ed.) Petra und das Königreich der Nabatäer (München: Delp, 1997), 74–79. JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS (2019) 1-34 18 DOI 10.1163/17455197-2019003 | VISI execution according to gospel narratives. Had Jesus been executed just before Pilate and Caiaphas lost their offices, his followers would have noticed the proximity of those events to the crucifixion and they would have interpreted them as divine punishment for their Master’s murder. Thus, all in all, the traditional dating of Jesus’ crucifixion between 30 CE and 33 CE indeed seems to be close to the truth.51 The data which can be inferred from the gospels are corroborated by the implications of Pauline chronology. Thus, we have cumulative evidence for this date: even though it is possible that some of the chronological clues in the the New Testament are misleading or inaccurate, it is extremely unlikely that all of them are wrong. Therefore, we can rule out the possibility that Jesus was crucified as late as 35 or 36 CE. 3 Jesus of Nazareth and John the Baptist: Who Preceded Whom? If the dates of Jesus’ and John’s death are examined as two separate problems one cannot but conclude that John the Baptist died no earlier than 35 CE whereas Jesus of Nazareth was executed around 28–33 CE. But can the apparently unanimous and early Christian tradition which venerates John the Baptist as a predecessor of Jesus Christ be dismissed as a chronological mistake? The main reason why scholars refrain from drawing the conclusions presented above is their tacit assumption that the answer to this question must be ‘no.’ The early Christian tradition about Jesus’ being preceded by John is itself a piece of evidence, and this evidence is considered stronger than the circumstantial proofs indicating that the chronological relationship may have been the opposite. Therefore we must assess the strength of this evidence. To put it simply, the question is whether the early Christian tradition placing John’s death before Jesus’ crucifixion can be wrong. 51 Nikkos Kokkinos argues for 36 CE by claiming that this date fits the best the “astronomical data” (by which he means somehow tenuous calculations about the possible occurrence of Passover on Shabbat in 26–36 CE) and presents even more speculative arguments about Jesus’ age and his date of birth. These arguments fail to appreciate that our knowledge is rather limited about a number of crucial issues that are involved here, for example, how the calendar was determined in those days (the rulings preserved in the Mishnah were not necessarily in force in Jesus’ time, not to mention the later Jewish calendar). JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS (2019) 1-34 THE CHRONOLOGY OF JOHN THE BAPTIST | DOI 10.1163/17455197-2019003 19 3.1 The Limitations of Collective Memory First the obvious must be stated: the gospels are not documentary sources but literary accounts which rely ultimately on the collective memory of the early followers of Jesus.52 The term “collective memory” refers to two different, though interrelated phenomena here: It can be assumed that people in Judea, the Galilee, and adjacent territories talked about the career and death of Jesus of Nazareth for several decades. It can also be assumed that certain narratives, information, and opinions circulated in more or less fixed forms. These were the things that “everybody knew” about Jesus. By “collective memory of the society at large” I mean these “fixed” pieces of public information that “everybody knew.”53 Christian preachers may have disagreed with some elements of the collective memory of the society at large, but they could hardly ignore them. But this was not the only collective memory of Jesus. The first believers had their own collective memory, a body of knowledge that “everybody knew,” which presumably contained much more information than the collective memory of the society at large. The followers of Jesus saw more, cared more, and remembered more than the rest of the society. Needless to say, differences, inconsistencies, and contradictions existed between the collective memories of the first Christians and that of the society at large, and there is no reason to believe that any of the two collective memories was monolithic; on the contrary, significant variations may have existed within both of them. All what we have said about the collective memory of Jesus of 52 There is a debate among New Testament scholars about applying “social memory theory” as an alternative to form criticism and other traditional methods. Cf. Alan Kirk, “Memory Theory and Jesus Research” in Tom Holmén and Stanley E. Porter (eds.) Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011), 809–842; idem, “Ehrman, Bauckham and Bird on Memory and the Jesus Tradition,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 15 (2017): 88–114 and the essays by Jens Schröter, Samuel Byrskog, Richard Bauckham, Ruben Zimmermann, and Anthony Le Donne in Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 16.2–3 (2018). The present paper is not meant to be a contribution to that debate. Although I use the term “collective memory,” I do not wish to endorse the “social memory theory” approach to the gospels. In particular, I do not state that the gospels can be treated as straightforward records of collective memories, and the argument presented here is not built on that premise. 53 Jan Assmann prefers the term “communicative memory” to describe this kind of social remembering; see Jan Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis: Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen, (München: C. H. Beck, 1997), 48–56. JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS (2019) 1-34 20 DOI 10.1163/17455197-2019003 | VISI Nazareth can be stated, mutatis mutandis, of the collective memory of John the Baptist too. The question is whether any of these collective memories were capable of preserving the correct chronological order of two historical events: the crucifixion of Jesus and the decapitation of John the Baptist. First of all, the limitations of the recollection capacities of collective remembering in preindustrial societies should be considered, especially in respect of chronological sequences of historical events. Pre-industrial societies lacked the technical infrastructure of modern printed and electronic media (such as newspapers, lexicons, reference books and libraries, not to mention wikipedia and google). Moreover, life was much less documented in writing than in the industrial societies that emerged since the late eighteenth century.54 Handwritten and explicitly dated records of recent historical events, if they were made at all, were accessible only to a very limited readership. Maurice Halbwachs contrasted “collective memory” with “history:” the former retains vivid and colorful memories of dramatic events, while the latter attempts to reconstruct an objective and impassioned account of the past that includes a clear and explicit chronological framework.55 Dramas are easy to remember, but the least dramatic element of a historical event is the date when it happened. For this reason, chronologies are seldom remembered spontaneously; special mnemonic devices are needed to record them. Chronology is usually learned from books.56 Halbwachs’ somehow rigid distinction of collective memory and history has often been criticized.57 Nevertheless, the particular point that an exact chronology of events is usually not retained without the help of written records is corroborated by more recent experiences about autobiographical memory, that is, remembering events of one’s own life. Gillian Cohen summarizes the results of an experiment of retrieving autobiographical memories by cues that was conducted by W. A. Wagenaar: 54 On the limitations of bureaucracy and literacy in pre-industrial societies, see Paricia Crone, Pre-Industrial Societies: Anatomy of the Premodern World (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994), 37–39, 62, 83–84; 95–96. 55 Maurice Halbwachs, La Mémoire collective (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1968), 68–79. 56 Halbwachs, La Mémoire collective, 68–79. 57 For example, Amos Funkenstein, Perceptions of Jewish History (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993), 8–10. JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS (2019) 1-34 THE CHRONOLOGY OF JOHN THE BAPTIST | DOI 10.1163/17455197-2019003 21 The order of efficacy of the retrieval cues when presented singly was what, where, who, when. What was by far the most powerful cue and when was almost useless. Chronological information was often missing from the memory of the event, and could not be used as a search criterion. Wagenaar concluded that only a few landmark events were precisely dated in memory, and events were, on the whole, not filed in memory by dates. In everyday terms, it is unlikely that you will remember if I ask you what happened on 17 July four years ago, but if I tell you that you went to watch a tennis match you would probably remember who played, where it took place, at roughly what period of the year, and what happened.58 Turning to historical memories, a rich and relatively easy-to-handle source material is provided by William Hendon’s collection of testimonies about the early life of Abraham Lincoln.59 Many examples of inaccurate remembering can be cited from this source. For example, a man called Dennis F. Hanks, who was the cousin of the president’s mother, stated with self-confidence in 1865 that Lincoln’s father, Thomas Lincoln, “died 13 y[ea]rs ago 13th December.”60 In fact, Thomas Lincoln passed away on January 17, 1851, that is to say, twenty months earlier than Hanks believed. The same informant stated that Abraham Lincoln was 9 years old when his family moved to Indiana. In fact, Lincoln was seven years old at that time.61 Another witness, a schoolmaster called Mentor Graham, testified in 1865 that he had often seen 58 Gilliam Cohen, Memory in the Real World, Second Edition (Hove: Psychology Press, 1996), 155. 59 Analogies between the early biographies of Lincoln and the gospels have been pointed out by Barry Schwartz, “Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire: Memory and History” in Tom Thatcher (ed.), Memory and Identity in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity: A Conversation with Barry Schwartz, Semeia Studies, 78 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2014), 8–9. Historians have identified significant distortions in the early Lincoln biographies and other commemorative texts, and thus, the analogy suggests that the gospels may present a seriously distorted account of Jesus’ life and death too. Cf. Thomas F. Schwartz, “«Not Even Wrong»: Herndon and His Informants,” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association, 35 (2014): 37–54, esp. 38, 43–44, 47–50. 60 Douglas Wilson and Rodney O. Davis (eds.), Herndon’s Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements about Abraham Lincoln (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998), 45. 61 Cf. Wilson and Davis. Herndon’s Informants, 27. Hank probably believed that Lincoln was born in 1807 (in fact, he was born in 1809). JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS (2019) 1-34 22 DOI 10.1163/17455197-2019003 | VISI the young Abraham Lincoln in Hardin County, Kentucky in the winter of 1819/1820, in the house where the boy lived with his family. The truth is that the Lincolns left Kentucky for Indiana in 1816. Graham may have seen Lincoln in Kentucky three or more years earlier than he believed.62 We do not have any reasons to think that people living in the first century were any better equipped for remembering dates than the contemporaries of Abraham Lincoln. On the contrary, they had fewer documents at their disposal to check their memories than Herndon’s informants. It is possible that Pontius Pilate wrote a report about Jesus’ crucifixion to Tiberius, and it is possible that some record of the Baptist’s execution was written at Herod Antipas’ court. However, the chances that disciples of Jesus or John could access such documents are negligible. Remembering Dates and Chronological Sequences in the First Century CE Uncertainties about remembering birth years are evinced by Josephus Flavius’ account of his own genealogy. In his autobiography Josephus claims that he took all the information from “public registers” of priestly genealogies.63 However, one should bear in mind that Josephus wrote these lines in Italy around 93–94 CE or later, over two decades after the demolition of Jerusalem and its priestly archives, and therefore, it is very likely that he relied on his memory rather than on written documents at his hands. In any case, Josephus names five of his paternal ancestors, each fathering the next in the following order: (1) Simon also called Psellus; (2) Matthias, known as “of Epheus;” (3) Matthias, also called Curtus; (4) Joseph; (5) Matthias, the father of Josephus. The oldest ancestor of the family, Simon Psellus is reported to have lived during the reign of the Hasmonean high priest John Hyrcanus (ruled: 135/4– 104 BCE). His grandson Matthias Curtus [number (3) in the list above] was born in the first year of John Hyrcanus, that is in 135/134 BCE. Therefore, Simon Psellus must have become a grandfather by the first year of John Hyrcan and consequently he must have lived most of his life earlier. Nevertheless, Josephus claims that Simon Psellus lived during the time of John Hyrcanus. This is the first inconsistency in Josephus’ account of his family history. 3.2 62 63 See James G. Randall, Mr Lincoln (New York: Dodd Mead, 1957), 57. Josephus, Vita 6 tr. Steve Mason, Life of Josephus (Leiden, Boston, and Köln: Brill, 2001), 10. JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS (2019) 1-34 THE CHRONOLOGY OF JOHN THE BAPTIST | DOI 10.1163/17455197-2019003 23 The next chronological information is that Joseph [number (4) on the list] was born in the ninth year of Queen Alexandra, that is, 68 BCE. This statement implies that Matthias Curtus (3) was 65–67 year old when his son was born. As for Matthias (5), Josephus’ own father, he was born in the tenth year of Archelus, that is in 6 CE. Therefore, Joseph (4) must have been 73–76 years old when he fathered Matthias (5). Steve Mason remarks: That his forebears should have sired children at sixty-five and seventysix years of age, respectively, is not impossible, but it would require back-to-back feats of Abrahamic proportions. It is especially problematic in view of the short life expectancy in Greco-Roman antiquity.64 It is possible that the text of the relevant passages of Josephus’ Vita has been corrupted by copyists, although there is no evidence for this assumption. The most likely explanation of the oddities concerning Josephus’ genealogy is that the chronological information was imperfectly remembered or, perhaps, it was constructed on the basis of much weaker recollections of the family’s past (such as Josephus’ remark that Simon Psellus lived in John Hyrcanus’ days). Most people today cannot tell in which years their grandparents and great-grandparents were born without consulting written documents; Josephus’ case suggests that the situation was similar in the first century CE too.65 Furthermore, there is evidence showing that Jewish society at large was not particularly strong in remembering dates of historical events in the early imperial period. This is demonstrated by the Megillat Ta‘anit, a Jewish 64 Steve Mason, Josephus and the New Testament, Second Edition (Peabody, Massachusetts, 2003), 38. 65 Some of the inconsistencies of Josephus’ two accounts of the Galilean war in the Bellum Judaicum and the Vita may be due to faulty memory or “shifts in memory;” see Shaye J. D. Cohen, Josephus in Galilee and Rome: His Vita and Development as a Historian, Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition, 8 (Boston and Leiden: Brill, 2002), 67 and 77–79. On the other hand, much of Josephus’ work is based on written sources which are more likely to preserve correct chronological information. The story of Herod Antipas’ marriage and war against Antipas is probably based at least partly on written sources, and the sequence of the events is determined by the inner logic of the ‘drama.’ For this reason, it is unlikely that Josephus put those events in the wrong order. See above, section 1.3. JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS (2019) 1-34 24 DOI 10.1163/17455197-2019003 | VISI Aramaic text composed during the second half of the first century CE.66 It preserves a list of days within the Jewish calendar, when voluntary fasts and eulogizing the dead were prohibited, because on those days something joyful happened in the past. This document shows that the days, when significant historical events took place, were remembered, but not the years. For example, the author(s) of the Megillat Ta‘anit knew that on the 28th of Shevat “Antiochus,” that is, a Seleucid king, had departed from Jerusalem, but there is no reason to believe that the authors of Megillat Ta‘anit or most Jews living in the first century knew the year in which that event of the Seleucid or early Hasmonean period happened. Actually, it is unclear whether they referred to Antiochus IV or V.67 The same pattern is observable in the gospels: the passion narratives recorded the day when Jesus was crucified, but not the year. Finally, we should not skip a well-known case of incorrect remembering of chronological order in the New Testament. In Acts 5.36–37 a speech attributed to Gamaliel mentions the failure of Theudas and his followers and that “after him” Judas the Galilean revolted “at the time of the census.”68 From Josephus’ historical work we know that Theudas’ movement and his violent death occurred in the years of Fadus’ governance of Judea, that is, 44– 46 CE, whereas Judas the Galilean revolted at the time of Quirinius’ census in 6 CE. No circumstances challenging the correctness of the chronological information in Josephus’ historical work are known.69 Therefore, it was Luke or his source that came to incorrect conclusions about the chronological sequence of these events. However, this example shows something more important than Luke’s personal failure to put two historical events into the correct order: There is no reason to think that Luke’s audience was any better informed than him. Consequently, Luke could afford committing such chronological mistakes. In fact, Luke’s version of the nativity story contains a similar implicit chronological inconsistency. On the one hand, Luke implies that Jesus was born during King Herod’s reign (cf. Luke 1.5). On the other hand, he connects 66 See Vered Noam, “Megillat Taanit – The Scroll of Fasting,” in Shmuel Safrai et al. (ed.), The Literature of the Sages, Second Part (Royal Van Gorcum: Fortress Press, 2006), 339–362. 67 Cf. Noam, “Megillat Taanit,” 345. 68 On the basic exegetical problems and proposed solutions concerning these verses, see C. K. Barret, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on The Acts of the Apostles, vol. 1 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994), 293–296. 69 Cf. Mason, Josephus and the New Testament, 277–280. JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS (2019) 1-34 THE CHRONOLOGY OF JOHN THE BAPTIST | DOI 10.1163/17455197-2019003 25 Jesus’ birth to the aforementioned census of Quirinius (cf. Luke 2.2), which took place a decade after Herod’s death. Luke obviously did not realize the chronological contradiction, and we can take it for granted that his audience did not spot the mistake either, because they had no clear ideas about the dates of these events. The same rule applies to the cases of Jesus’ crucifixion and John’s beheading. Probably nobody knew in which years these events took place by the last decades of the first century, when the gospels were written. If the evangelists put these events in the wrong order, their audience would not notice it. 3.3 Remembering Jesus and Remembering John the Baptist There was a single effective method of remembering the date of a historical event which was available, in principle, to both the disciples of Jesus and the disciples of John: establishing an era beginning from the year of the event. Thus, year 66 CE, when the great Jewish revolt against Rome began, was Year One in the era used on the coins minted by the rebels. Similarly, the year when the Nabatean kingdom became a Roman province was the beginning of an era used chiefly in the province of Arabia.70 Another important example is the Jewish practice of counting of years from the destruction of the Temple, which is attested in epigraphic sources from the fourth century on.71 In any case, neither the followers of Jesus nor the disciples of John the Baptist ever counted the years after the death of either Jesus or John according to our present state of knowledge. They could have chosen to do so, but they did not.72 Therefore, it is very likely that the exact dates of both events ceased to be a matter of common knowledge within a few decades after the events. 70 On these eras, see David Goodblatt, “Tannaitic Traditions and Dating Documents in Second Temple Judah,” in Albert I. Baumgarten et al. (eds.), Halakhah in Light of Epigraphy, Journal of Ancient Judaism Supplement, 3, (Göttingen and Oakvillle, CT: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011), 185–202; esp. 190–197. 71 See Stern, Calendar and Community, 87–93. 72 There is evidence suggesting that the disciples of the Buddha may have counted the years after the parinirvana [ie. death] of the Buddha. Thus, an old Buddhist chronicle records that 136 years passed from the parinirvana to the coronation of Emperor Ashoka. See Joe Cribb, “The Greek Contacts of Chandragupta Maurya and Ashoka and Their Relevance to Mauryan and Buddhist Chronology,” in Kamal Sheel, Charles Willemen, and Kenneth Zysk (eds.), Prof. A.K. Narain Commemoration Volume: From Local to Global: Papers in Asian History and Culture, vol.3 (Delhi: Buddhist World Press, 2017), 3–27; esp. 13. JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS (2019) 1-34 26 DOI 10.1163/17455197-2019003 | VISI Let us suppose that Jesus was crucified in 30 CE and John the Baptist was beheaded in 36 CE. In the year 37 CE everybody in the Galilee would know that the Baptist was executed last year, whereas Jesus was crucified several years earlier. However, by 47 CE, some people would not be able to recollect any more the exact number of the years which passed since the crucifixion of Jesus and the beheading of John, respectively, even though they would be able to relate dramatic details – real or imagined – of both events. By 57 CE the number of people who were unable to recall how many years passed since any of the two executions would increase significantly, and by that time even the relative chronological order of the two events might not be clear for many. People who remembered that Herod Antipas ordered John the Baptist’s execution and that Jesus was crucified by Roman soldiers under the command of Pontius Pilate, could easily be uncertain about which event happened first. Mark wrote his gospel, the first known document that claims that the Baptist died earlier than Jesus, sometimes in the 70s, or in the late 60s the earliest. Perhaps, there could still be some people remembering that Jesus died before John, but it could hardly be common knowledge stored in the collective memory of the Jesus-believers or of Jewish society at large by that time. If Mark had any theological motivation to reverse the chronological order of Jesus and John, he could do it without any serious risk of losing credibility. Some people may have challenged Mark’s gospel on this point – but what evidence could they bring except saying that they remember it differently? This is not to deny the possibility that there could also be people who preserved accurate chronological information: perhaps Luke acquired the information that Jesus died around 29–30 CE from such persons. But it is very unlikely that the same informants would have precise information about the date of the Baptist’s execution too. Thus, Luke hardly had a chance to realize that his source, Mark, was wrong in this question. 3.4 Theology and Chronology in the Gospels The previous sections have established that dates and chronological sequences were often remembered incorrectly, and for that reason it is possible that the gospels are wrong in placing John’s death before Jesus’ crucifixion. In this section we will have a closer look at the relevant passages of the canonical gospels. First, it has to be pointed out that main stream Christian tradition is not as unambiguous about the chronological sequence of the two executions as is usually assumed. Researchers of New Testament texts have noticed that the JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS (2019) 1-34 THE CHRONOLOGY OF JOHN THE BAPTIST | DOI 10.1163/17455197-2019003 27 Gospel of John relates a different story about the evolution of the relations between Jesus and John than the synoptic gospels.73 The synoptic evangelists state that Jesus’ mission began after the Baptist’s arrest or just slightly before, and John was actually executed before Jesus’ travel to Jerusalem.74 This narrative scheme is given a broader theological significance in a saying, which may be derived from the hypothetical Q-source: “The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John. Since that time, the good news of the kingdom of God is being preached.” (tr. NIV, Luke 16.16; cf. Matthew 11.12–13). Thus, John the Baptist is presented as the closure of a long period of Heilsgeschichte that preceded the parusia of Jesus. John is the end of the Old Covenant or Old Testament, as later Christians would say. In this theological perspective it is but logical that the death of the Baptist coincided with the beginning of Jesus’ mission. As opposed to this, the fourth gospel claims that John was not only Jesus’ forerunner, but his “witness” or “best man” / “friend of the bridegroom” (cf. John 3.29).75 Accordingly, Jesus’ mission was, at least partly, overlapping with that of John: the “witness” must see what he is witnessing. In fact, the fourth gospel relates that both John (and his disciples) and Jesus (and his disciples) were baptizing at the same time in two different places, as if they divided the territories between themselves (cf. John 3.22–23).76 And it is suggested that Jesus’ movement gradually became more popular than that of John and eventually it replaced it: “He must become greater; I must become less” comments John the Baptist on these developments (John 3.30). Although the historical value of the fourth gospel have often been questioned,77 many 73 Cf. Wink, John the Baptist, 94. Meier, A Marginal Jew, vol. 2, 116. Mary Coloe, “John as Witness and Friend,” in Paul N. Anderson, Felix Just S.J., and Tom Thatcher (eds.), John, Jesus, and History, Volume 2: Aspects of Historicity in the Fourth Gospel (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2009), 45–62,esp. 50–51. 74 Matthew 4.12 and Mark 1.14 claim explicitly that Jesus began his mission after John’s arrest. The parallel passage in Luke (4.14) does not mention this circumstance (does it reflect an earlier tradition?). Matthew 14.1–2, Mark 6.14–16, and Luke 9.7–9 all imply that John was executed before Jesus’ travel to Jerusalem. See below, section 3.5. 75 Cf. Coloe, “John as Witness and Friend,” 58–61. Clare K. Rothschild, “John the Baptist in the Fourth Gospel,” in Stanley E. Porter and Andrew W. Pitts (eds.), Christian Origins and the Early Jesus Movment, Texts and Editions for New Testament Study, 12 (Boston: Brill, 2018), 11– 31. 76 Cf. Murphy-O’Connor, “John the Baptist and Jesus,” 365–366. 77 There were, however, always dissenting voices, and since the early twenty-first century JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS (2019) 1-34 28 DOI 10.1163/17455197-2019003 | VISI scholars accept that John’s ministry indeed overlapped with that of Jesus.78 Moreover, the fourth gospel does not refer to John’s execution anywhere.79 Whereas in the synoptic tradition the mission of John and the mission of Jesus are presented as two different stages of the narrative separated quite clearly by the violent death of John, nothing of the sort is suggested in the fourth gospel. It rather makes the impression that Jesus’ movement gradually superseded that of John without a clear break between the two phases of Heilsgeschichte. The inner logic of this narrative construction does not require the execution of John the Baptist to take place before the crucifixion at all. Thus, comparing the synoptic gospels’ approach to that of John leads to the result that the belief that John’s execution preceded Jesus’ mission depended on the theological premises of the synoptic tradition. The author of the fourth gospel did not share this tradition and did not integrate the execution of John into his Heilsgeschichte.80 While the fourth gospel shares a number of traditions with the synoptics, the idea that the Baptist’s execution took place before Jesus’ execution is not among them. It is possible that the author of the Gospel of John actually did not believe that John’s execution had taken place before Jesus’ crucifixion, although the fourth gospel never claims explicitly that the Baptist survived Jesus. systematic efforts have been made to explore the Gospel of John for the purposes of the historical Jesus researches by the members of the John, Jesus, and History Group in the Society for Biblical Literature. It is out of the scope of this paper to address the historiographic and methodological issues involved, but cf. Paul N. Anderson, Felix Just S.J., and Tom Thatcher (eds.), John, Jesus, and History, Volume 1: Critical Appraisals of Critical Views (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007), especially Robert Kysar, “The Dehistoricizing of the Gospel of John,” in ibid., 75–101; Jack Verheyden, “The DeJohannification of Jesus: The Revisionist Contribution of Some Nineteenth-Century German Scholarship,” in ibid., 109–120; Mark Allan Powel, “The De-Johannification of Jesus: The Twentieth Century and Beyond,” in ibid., 121–132; D. Moody Smith, “John: A Source for Jesus Research?” in ibid. 165–178. 78 See eg. Murphy-O’Connor, “John the Baptist and Jesus,” 353, Meier, A Marginal Jew, vol. 2, 19, Clare K. Rothschild, Baptist Traditions and Q, Wissenschafliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament, 190 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 46–47. 79 This has been observed by Robert Eisler, The Messiah Jesus and John the Baptist, tr. Alexander Haggerty Krappe (New York: The Dial Press, 1931), 307–308. 80 The gospel of Luke does not include an account of the Baptist’s martyrdom either, but it refers to the latter’s death (Luke 9.7–9). As opposed to this, the fourth gospel never refers to the Baptist’s execution. JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS (2019) 1-34 THE CHRONOLOGY OF JOHN THE BAPTIST | DOI 10.1163/17455197-2019003 29 3.5 Jesus as John redivivus in Mark Broadly speaking, the synoptic gospels are committed to the idea that John’s mission and death preceded Jesus’ mission and death. But is there any particular tradition that states or implies that John was killed during Jesus’ lifetime? Strange it may seem, but there is only one passage in Mark (and its parallels in Matthew and Luke) that is unambiguously built on the presumpion that John died before Jesus. The question we shall investigate is whether this text constitutes sufficient evidence to prove the case. Mark 6.14–16 reads (tr. NIV): King Herod heard about this, for Jesus’ name had become well known. Some were saying, “John the Baptist has been raised from the dead, and that is why miraculous powers are at work in him.” Others said, “He is Elijah.” And still others claimed, “He is a prophet, like one of the prophets of long ago.” But when Herod heard this, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised from the dead!” Commentators have pointed out that Mark 8.28 preserves an important parallel: after Jesus’ having asked the disciples whom people thought he was, the disciples replied (tr. NIV): “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” Joachim Gnilka argues that the three “popular opinions” (Volksmeinungen) about Jesus had constituted a single unit of tradition that had been transmitted independently of the story about the Baptist’s martyrdom until Mark connected the former to the latter. Therefore, verses 6.14a and 6.16 stating that Herod believed that John had resurrected from death are additions by Mark according to Gnilka.81 Similar opinions have been formulated by other scholars too.82 Disagreeing with this view, Dieter Lührmann argues that it is unlikely that the three “public opinions” were transmitted within a single unit; it is more likely that they were put together by Mark himself both at Mark 6.14–16 and 8.28.83 81 Joachim Gnilka, Das Evangelium nach Markus, Evangelisch-katolischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament, 2, (Neukirchen-Vluyn and Mannheim : Neukirchener and Patmos, 2010), vol. 1, 244. 82 Cf. Eve-Marie Becker, Das Markus-Evangelium im Rahmen antiker Historiographie, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament, 194 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 231. 83 Lührmann, Das Markusevangelium, 113 and 145. Similar was Bultmann’s opinion; cf. Rudolf JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS (2019) 1-34 30 DOI 10.1163/17455197-2019003 | VISI Mark 8.28 makes perfect sense without presuming that John the Baptist had been executed, when some people mistook Jesus for him. Thus, it is possible that Mark 8.28 preserves an authentic tradition that some people misidentified Jesus as John the Baptist while the latter was still alive. This tradition may have been modified by Mark, when he attached it to the narrative about John’s execution: writing a few lines about Herod’s hearing the opinion that Jesus was John “resurrected from death” Mark succeeded in connecting the story of the Baptist’s martyrdom to the main storyline of his gospel. Thus, the text of the gospel of Mark does not prove unambiguously that an oral tradition about Jesus being thought about as John the Baptist redivivus by Herod Antipas or others indeed circulated among the early followers of Jesus. Parallel passages in the other synoptic gospels (Matthew 14.2 and Luke 9.7) are based on Mark and do not contain new elements relevant in the present context. There are no independent sources confirming Mark 6.14–16, and thus, as Catherine M. Murphy concludes, the historicity of the passage is questionable.84 In sum, Mark 6.14–16 provides weak evidence for the chronological precedence of John’s execution to Jesus’ crucifixion. The evidence is weak, because it is unclear whether it reflects an early tradition of the Jesus believers or is a creation of Mark serving his literary purposes. As opposed to this, the date of John’s execution is supported by two independent sources that contain two chronological pegs, namely Herod’s marrying Herodias and the war against Aretas, both pointing to 35–36 CE (see section 1.1 above). Taken as historical evidence, Mark 6.14–16 is not reliable enough to challenge the conclusion that John must have been beheaded in 35 or 36 CE. 3.6 John’s Baptizing Jesus A third possible objection can be formulated from the widespread opinion among historians that John’s baptizing Jesus is an unquestionable fact rather than a theologically motivated fiction.85 If John indeed baptized Jesus, then his movement must have begun before Jesus’ one, and then there is some likelihood that John was executed before Jesus. However, two counterarguments can be proposed against this view. Bultmann, Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 10th edition, (Göttigen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1995 [1931]), 329. 84 Murphy, John the Baptist, 70. 85 See eg. E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), 11 and 91–92. JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS (2019) 1-34 THE CHRONOLOGY OF JOHN THE BAPTIST | DOI 10.1163/17455197-2019003 31 First, from the fact that John baptized Jesus it does not follow necessarily that the former died earlier than the latter. Admittedly, John was probably arrested soon after his movement became popular, since the very reason for John’s arrest and execution was his popularity according to Josephus’ account.86 Therefore, if John was executed in 35 or 36 CE, he could not become popular earlier than 34 CE. However, it is a mistake to assume that John’s movement was a great success right from the beginning. It is possible that John attracted only a handful of followers at the beginning of his mission, and for this reason, he did not catch the attention of Herod Antipas and was allowed to carry on his activities for several years. It is possible that Jesus was baptized by John in these early years, and John became successful, famous, and politically dangerous only around 35–36 CE, many years after Jesus’ death.87 Thus, the following chronological reconstruction is plausible: (1) John began his activities, ca. 25 CE, (2) Jesus was baptized by John, ca. 25–29 CE, (3) Jesus was crucified, ca. 29–33 CE, (4) John became successful, was arrested and executed, ca. 35–36 CE. If this reconstruction is correct, then we can easily explain the relevant data: The collective memory of the first Jesusbelievers retained an account of Jesus’ having been baptized by John, since John indeed baptized Jesus, but the Jesus-believers soon forgot the exact date and circumstances of the event. Later, when the first Christian hagiographers turned the narrative materials about Jesus into Heilsgeschichte, they capitalized on the fact that John had became a well-known spiritual leader and martyr in the meantime, and turned him into a forerunner of Christ. The synoptics’ claim that John’s arrest preceded the beginning of Jesus’ mission was but the last step of the process of Christian appropriation of the memory of John the Baptist.88 86 Cf. Geza Vermes, Jesus the Jew: A Historian’s Reading of the Gospels, Third Edition (London: SCM Press, 2001), 32–33. 87 Murphy-O’Connor, “John the Baptist and Jesus,” 359 notes that the Jordan river was “impossible for mass baptisms” because of the difficulties of accessing the water. This observation supports the idea that John did not have many followers at the time when he baptized Jesus in the Jordan. According to John 3.23 the Baptist moved to a different place afterwards, to “Aenon near Saleim,” where there was “plenty of water.” On the current and ancient geography of the Jordan and the places where John might have been active, see Joan E. Taylor, “John the Baptist on the Jordan River: Localities and Their Significance,” Aram 29 (2017): 1–19 esp. 5–10 and 16–18. 88 An advantage of the synoptics’ relative chronology of the events was that it explained why JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS (2019) 1-34 32 DOI 10.1163/17455197-2019003 | VISI The second counterargument is that the historical accuracy of the tradition about John’s baptizing Jesus is not as self-evident as is usually assumed. The reigning view is well summarized by Mark Allan Powell: The point, quite simply, is that Christians would not have made up stories that caused problems for the church. The most oft-cited example is the fact that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. This was potentially embarrassing to Christians because (1) John’s baptism was for those who repented of their sins, and Christians claimed Jesus was sinless; and (2) by submitting to John’s baptism Jesus seems to have implied that he wanted to become the latter’s disciple.89 This argument is built on the premise that Christians of all places and times always believed that Jesus was a semi-divine or divine being incapable of sin. However, the validity of this premise is questionable: the first Christians probably believed that Jesus attained a special status as “Lord” and “Son of God” only at the resurrection.90 For them the idea that Jesus may have repented his sins committed earlier than becoming the “Son of God” was not necessarily offensive or implausible. “Why do you call me good? Noone is good except God alone” says Jesus in the Gospel of Mark and of Luke (Mark 10:18; Luke 18:19). The idea that Jesus may have repented his sins when he asked for John’s baptism is consistent with the implications of this sentence: Jesus cannot be perfectly good, because he is no god. It is interesting that the Gospel of Matthew attempts to eliminate this implication by modifying the sentence quoted above (“Why do you ask me about what is good?” – Matthew 19.17), and by making John hesitant about baptizing Jesus (“I need to be baptized by you and do you come to me?” – Matthew 3.14). Mark and Luke probably represent an earlier layer of Christian tradition which did not hold Jesus to be a semi-divine or divine being at the beginning of his ministry. In this archaic period a story about Jesus’ being baptized by John could be invented without causing any embarrassments to the followers of Jesus.91 the Baptist himself did not become one of Jesus’ followers. Mark A. Powell, Jesus as a Figure in History: How Modern Historians View the Man from Galilee (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), 47. 90 See Dunn, Beginning from Jerusalem, 212–229, esp. 216–218. 91 As a comparison, according to Muslim tradition the Prophet’s chest was opened and his heart was taken out and then washed and filled with belief by Gabriel before the famous 89 JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS (2019) 1-34 THE CHRONOLOGY OF JOHN THE BAPTIST | DOI 10.1163/17455197-2019003 33 It is out of the scope of the present study to clarify all the problems concerning the relationship between John the Baptist and Jesus.92 But it is important to underline that the possibility that the story of John’s baptizing Jesus is a theologically motivated fiction cannot be rejected out of hand. It is possible that Jesus was not a disciple of John, he did not start his career by visiting John, and he was not baptized by John. Rather than a source of embarrassment, “discipleship by John” might have been, as Clare K. Rothschild argues, “a desirable pedigree, shared by Jesus and other prominent members of the early ‘Christian’ movement.”93 Accordingly, we have to count with the possibility that early Christian storytellers exaggerated the Baptist’s role in Jesus’ biography. The famous meeting of the two Galilean charismatic masters may have taken place only in the imagination of their followers.94 4 Conclusion As has been stated at the beginning of this paper, at least one of the following three propositions must be false: 1. Jesus died ca. 29–33 CE. 2. John the Baptist died ca. 35–36 CE. 3. John the Baptist died earlier than Jesus. This paper has argued that while (1) and (2) are both supported by strong historical evidence (see sections 1 and 2 above), the evidence for (3) is weak. In particular, the Gospel of John does not state that the Baptist died earlier than Jesus, and there are further reasons to believe that this idea is a specific theological construction of the synoptic gospels (see 3.4. and 3.6 above). Moreover, since first-century Jewish society at large had difficulties in night journey (al-mi‘rāj) to heaven (see eg. Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, no. 349 and no. 3887). There is no reason to believe that this was an “embarrassing” tradition for Muslims. 92 For a very short overview of the key passages in the gospels, see Vermes, Jesus the Jew, 14–16. For a longer overview, see Backhaus, “Echoes from the Wilderness,” 1782–1785, for a long discussion, see Meier, A Marginal Jew, vol. 2, 100–233. 93 Rothschild, Baptist Traditions and Q, 52–53. See also Rothschild, “John the Baptist in the Fourth Gospel,” 12. 94 This has already been suggested on totally different grounds; see Morton S. Enslin, “John and Jesus,” Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 66 (1975): 1–18; esp. 7–9. JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS (2019) 1-34 34 DOI 10.1163/17455197-2019003 | VISI remembering dates of historical events (see 3.2), it is possible that neither the exact date nor the chronological sequence of the two executions had been remembered by the time the first extant gospels were written (see 3.3). Therefore, the synoptic gospels’ claim that John the Baptist died earlier than Jesus should be considered weak evidence (cf. 3.5). Seeing that (1) and (2) are supported by strong evidence, whereas (3) is supported by weak evidence, the idea that (1) and (2) should be considered true, whereas (3) is false, recommends itself. For these reasons a secular historian cannot but conclude that John the Baptist was executed after Jesus was crucified. JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS (2019) 1-34