And, if Jesus first traveled in the company of the Baptist, the Gospel accounts are anxious to make clear the difference between John’s and Jesus’ or his disciples’ baptism. In Mark, John announces that he baptizes “with water,” whereas Jesus will baptize “with the Holy Spirit” (Mark 1:7). In Matthew the Baptist initially resists Jesus’ request to be baptized, stating that the reverse needs doing (Matthew 3:14, and in Luke’s Gospel, he will baptize “with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Luke 3:16). In John, the Baptist speaks of his being outranked by the one who follows him. The evangelist next records a dialogue between the Baptist and his questioners containing a curious reference. Priests and Levites arrive from Jerusalem and ask John “who are you?” to which he replies that he is not the Messiah. His questioners continue their interrogation, asking whether or not he is Elijah, to which he replies that he is not. Again, they ask if he is “the prophet,” that unidentified figure whom Moses said God would raise up (Deuteronomy 18:15, 18–19), and which he promptly denies. The delegation then demands that John identify himself for the sake of its dispatchers. John answers in the words of Isaiah 40: “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness,” 1:23). The evangelist then notes that the delegation had been sent by the Pharisees, the only instance in the Gospels in which priests and Levites (members of the Sanhedrin?) are at the beck and call of the Pharisees. Still not satisfied with John’s answer his interrogators ask “Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?” The usual interpretation of the question is that since Judaism required baptism only of proselytes whereas John baptized all and sundry, he would have required authorization from on high to engage in such a radical change, thus had to have been Elijah, or the prophet, or the Messiah himself. The syntax or shape of the question allows for a reading which assumes that when the Messiah, or Elijah, or the prophet comes, he will initiate a baptism. Such a reading is lacking in the literature of Judaism, and an argument from silence is notoriously weak, but given the emphasis on washings in the sects round about Judaism, whether or not the Fourth evangelist has allowed for it John’s questioners could have entertained the idea of a radical change occurring with the advent of Messiah, Elijah, or the prophet, moreover, a change signaled in a washing or baptism.
In sight of Jesus, John declares “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:27, 29, 36). Later, John describes Jesus as baptizing (John 3:26), a reference later corrected to read “not Jesus himself but his disciples” (John 4:2). The Baptist further distances himself from Jesus by titling himself “friend of the bridegroom,” sent on ahead of the Messiah (John 3:28–29). From Mark to John something of a progression can be seen in the distinction drawn between the Baptist and Jesus, suggesting a challenge to the earliest Christian community from a sect surrounding the Baptist.7 For example, the Gnostic sect of the Mandaeans, located in Iraq, though decimated by war, as well as in Iran, views the course of the world as a conflict between good and evil powers seeking to tempt humans through false religions—above all, through Judaism and Christianity. The sect, sometimes called “Followers of the Baptist,” practices baptism in flowing water as an initiation rite and as a rite of purification.
Since the line between John and Jesus is less clearly drawn in Mark than in the other Gospels, the competition between John and Jesus may have been less keen in the period in which Mark wrote. Still, the attempt to move from a written text to its possible life prior to its being written down is an extremely hazardous business. In all four Gospels John confesses that he relates to the one who “comes after” as less than a slave to a master (Mark 1:7: “Not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals;” cf. Matthew 3:11; Luke 3:16; John 1:27). On the other hand, set within that Christological context by Mark, he is raised to a height he will never reach again.
The Baptism of Jesus
All the Gospels record Jesus’ baptism at the hands of the Baptist, though their narratives vary widely. In Mark and Matthew Jesus alone is witness to the events connected with his baptism. Luke records that while Jesus was praying, “the heaven was opened,” presumably in sight of all who had been baptized, and in John the Baptist is witness to the Spirit’s descent and remaining on him. In Mark the verb used to describe what occurs at Jesus’ emergence from the water is suggestive of a violent event. He writes that the heavens are “torn apart,” whereas in Matthew and Luke they are merely “opened.” Mark uses the same verb for the tearing of the temple curtain at Jesus’ death (Mark 15:38). In view of the voice from heaven at his baptism (“You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased,” Mark 1:11: cf. Matthew 3:17; Luke 3:22), and the confession of the centurion at Jesus’ breathing his last, “Truly this man was God’s Son!” Mark 15:39), a revelation out of the ordinary suggests itself, as if a revelation were not such, in any case something abrupt, sudden, bursting from above and thrusting below, a rending or tearing, eliminating the distance between above and below. As noted earlier, in Matthew’s account, the Baptist demurs at Jesus’ coming to him to be baptized, and hears the reply, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15). The meaning is obscure, unless Matthew intends to portray Jesus as shouldering human destiny, thus “sav[ing] his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21), and for this act gaining approval from the torn heaven. This might suit a Gospel often described as oriented toward obedience to commandment.
From earliest times, and by some of the most celebrated scholars such as Peter Abelard (1079—April 21, 1142), it has been argued that Jesus was adopted by the Son of God at his baptism, resurrection, or ascension. The view has been part of a long series of attempts at explaining the relationship between Jesus of Nazareth, Man and God, and God the Father. Some scholars see adoptionist tendencies in Mark and Paul. For example, they argue that though Mark refers to Jesus as Son of God, references occurring at 1:1 (“The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” but not in all versions); at 5:7 (“What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?”) and at 15:39 (“Surely this man was the Son of God!”), are adoptionist in tone. Others suggest that while some early manuscripts of Mark 1:1 do not contain the title “Son of God,” neither do they contain the phrase, “Today I have begotten you,” allowing for the conclusion that Mark contains less adoptionist tendencies than supposed. Notably, the Gospel of the Hebrews, a Jewish-Christian gospel all but equal to Matthew in size, widely known to the early Church Fathers, but preserved only in citations or summaries, and like others of its kind relegated to the periphery by the canonical Gospels, displays distinctly adoptionist tendencies. One fragment referring to Jesus’ baptism as an event for which the Spirit waited in vain through all the prophets, but who now in Jesus the Son finds rest, reads:
And it came to pass when the Lord was come out of the water, the whole fount of the Holy Spirit descended upon him and rested on him and said to him: My Son, in all the prophets was I waiting for thee that thou shouldest come and I might rest in thee. For thou art my rest; thou art my first-begotten Son that reignest for ever.8
Though the view has long been abandoned, of the two contesting parties in earliest Christianity which Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792–1860) thought he detected, that is, the Ebionitic, adoptionistic, legalistic Jewish Christian party, and the Pauline law-free gospel party open to the Gentiles, he regarded Matthew’s Gospel as least affected by either faction and thus the best support for a life of Jesus. One thing is certain: from the historical perspective, an adoptionist interpretation of the vision and voice at Jesus’ baptism represents a challenge to what may be the one and only doctrine with which all Christian communities laying claim to the name agree: the doctrine of the Trinity, implicit in the doxologies of the New Testament epistles, heralded in the Fourth Gospel’s affirmation of the Word’s having become flesh (1: 14), and at Nicaea (AD 325) and afterwards made touchstone of Christian confession. From this point of view it is not because the Spirit descended on Jesus like a dove or a voice was heard from heaven that he became the Son of God, but rather because he was the Son of God the