John the Baptist Rewrite Essay Example for Free

hindquarters the Baptist Rewrite EssayAbstract washstand the Baptist practiced treatment and baptizing Jews in the river Jordan. He was the adept who recognized the Naz atomic number 18ne as the messiah and baptized him. This baptism was the beginning of deliverer life as a teacher. But it is his shoemakers last that is almost al commissions how caper the Baptist is remembered and studied. His teaching is the al-Qaida of Baptist today. His life is told in only the Gospels and non such(prenominal) is really kn sustain about the hu troopsity who came before saviour to preach the word of God and of Jesus coming. INTRODUCTION John the Baptist practiced prophesy and baptizing Jews in the river Jordan. He was the cardinal who recognized Jesus as the messiah and baptized him. This baptism was the beginning of Jesus life as a teacher. But it is his death that is almost al trends how John the Baptist is remembered and studied. His teaching is the basis of Baptist today. The New Testament does not supply precise information about the dates of Johns or Jesus birth. Usually John the Baptist is associated with the Advent season.His descent is celebrated on June 24th. In the third or fourth century the birthday of Jesus was assigned to Dec. 25th, around the time of the winter solstice, after what we waul the shortest day of the year, when the time of daylight begins to increase. In Johns Gospel there is a saying from John the Baptist, referring to Jesus, that he must increase I must decrease (330). And so the birth of John was assigned to June 24th, after the summer solstice, when the daylight begins to decrease, following the longest day of the year.The Scripture readings for the nativity of St. John the Baptist reflect the dynamics of slump and increase mingled with John and Jesus. Todays Old Testament reading is one of the servant songs from Second Isaiah. It was chosen for its reference to the servant having been named from his mothers womb (Luke 1 60). But the passage similarly expresses central aspects of Johns career as a vaticinator to Gods people and a light to the nations. At the same time his status as servant makes him subordinate to Jesus.The selection from capital of Minnesotas speech in Acts 13 reminds us that John played a pivotal role in Salvation history and so won a place in the early Christian proclamation. Importance is given to Johns own recognition of his subordinate status with respect to Jesus, I am not worthy to unfasten the sandals of his feet. HIS HISTORY John the Baptist was described as a man that walked among the Jews in animals hair that was not covered by his own skin and he was a savage. He came with a center that God hath sent me to show you the way of the law, by which ye shall be freed from many tyrants.And no mortal shall recover over you, but only the highest who hath sent me. He dipped them into the stream of the Jordan and let them go warning them that they should abjure evil deeds ( Harrington, 2005, p. 25). In Lukes early narrative there are many parallels and comparisons between John and Jesus, both in the announcements of their births and in the accounts of them. fleck John is great, Jesus is greater is the message given. The idea is not to critic John but rather to highlight Jesus greatness.The birth of John is presented by Luke as the fulfillment of Gods promises not only to his elderly parents but also to Gods people as a whole, Elizabeth and Zechariah, Johns parents, insists that the child be named John , a name whose Hebrew form, Yohana, celebrates Gods mercy and favor to his people . If there is any connections between Jesus ant the Dead Sea Scrolls, it is through John, who was in the vacate until the day of his manifestation to Israel The child John grew up to become a augur of Gods coming kingdom, the messiah and the mentor of Jesus.The Gospel of Luke provides some of the chronological history of John the Baptist. According to Luke, John began to preach his baptism of repentance in the fifteenth year of Tiberius. Jesus was born sometime before the death of Herod the Great. This puts him at about thirty when he began to preach and died during the reign of Pontius Pilate, whose term was all over shortly before the death of Tiberius in 37 c. e. Since in all three gospels Jesus ministry come forths to last no more than about a year, the gospel of Luke places the death of Jesus between 25 C.E. and 29 C. E. with the latter being a range that would fit with Lukes claim that John began preaching around 28 C. E. (Kraemer, 2006, p. 334). There is a period of John the Baptist life that is blank and because the gospels are the only mentioning of the man, speculation has given a contingency of where he was. They gestated that John the Baptist was a recluse who spent a great amount of time with a group of people named the Essenes. These people lived in the desert awaiting the imminent arrival of the Messiah (Miller Scelfo, 2007).The Essenes had turned its back on the Herodian temples and its worship to withdrawal to the Judean desert. Their communities were created using monastic style communities, but also to instill a religious life for families. These religious instructions included a literary center and used exclusive rituals such as baptism and prayer. This is probably where the basis of Johns beliefs was founded. In an article in Newsweek it discusses how close John the Baptist, Jesus and possibly his family were to the Essenes community.The actual ritual of Baptism, that was the Essenes belief, symbolizes the leaving behind the sinful life one has led until now and to start out on the path to a new, changed life (Ratzinger, 2007). A Professor of religious studies wrote a book in 20006 that gave a little different look at the historical life of John the Baptist. According to this author, James Tolson, Jesus with his cousin John were in partnership and precept themselves as the founders not of a new relig ion but of a worldly royal dynasty that would be fulfilling ancient prophecies.The dynasty had come down from King David and was to limit Israel and guide it through an apocalyptic upheaval that was growing in the Kingdom of God on Earth. All of this was supposed to happen not in the unconnected or metaphoric future but then and now. True their message was one of a peaceful change, but Jesus knew he had aroused suspensions of Herodian rulers of promised land as well as the Romans. So, according to Tolson, Jesus had to establish a provisional government with 12 tribal officials and named his brother James, not Paul as his successor. Later James became the leader of the early Christian movement (Tolson, 2006).HIS DEATH History remembers Archelauss brother, Herod Antipas, because of his interactions with the vaticinator John the Baptist. John would loudly condemn Antipas degenerate behavior of having stolen his brothers wife, who was also his niece. Antipas arrested and kept John in chains, unable to kill him yet unable to put him out of his mind. According to the defend of check, When Herod heard John, he was greatly puzzled yet he liked to listen to him (Mark 620). Through a trick thought up by his wife and her daughter Salome, Antipas ended up executing John.Reports then filtered in of another prophet, and Antipas, perhaps plagued by remorse tried to see Jesus who avoided him, because of what he had done to his cousin. In both Mark and Mathew, the death of John the Baptizer is told in flashbacks. Jesus activities have attracted attention, and there have been speculation as to his identity, with some proposing that Jesus could be John the Baptist. Ross S. Kraemer of Brown University wrote an essay dealing with this subject. He also wrote that, Herod Antipas too having heard the word of the prophet after Johns beheading, believes that Jesus is indeed John.Herodias, Herods wife, was the one who resents John and wishes to kill him but she was still pr until nowted by Antipas fear of Johns righteousness and holiness. In Marks account at Antipass birthday meal was when an opportunity presented itself to Herodias. Antipas became entranced by his wifes daughter dancing and offered this daughter anything she wished, even half of his kingdom. The daughter then goes and asks her mother what to request and her mother replies that she wants her to ask for the head of John the Baptizer on a platter. Antipas complies only in order to honour his oath and preserve his honor before his guests.In Matthews account there are some differences but still significant differences. Both harbour that it is Antipas who orders Johns execution, but in Mark it is only because of Herodias that he does so, because Antipas has no desire to kill John. In Matthew Antipas himself desires to be rid of John, but has reservations because he fears the people who see John as a prophet. In Matthews account Antipas thought well of John and found his speeches pleasing. In M atthew, Herodias does not appear as a player until the end where like in Mark Herodias capitalizes on Antipass offer.In Mark, Antipas has been totally manipulated by Herodias and her daughter, but in Matthew, he has merely been enabled to do what he had wished all along but was too weak to do. One more account from the book of Josephus tells that Herodias and her daughter played no role whatsoever. Josephus and Matthew actually concur in seeing Herod as always desiring Johns death, but with different motivations being that John was critical of Herodias for the way of flouting Jewish tradition by marrying Antipas and this was the motive for Herods ordering the beheading.But Josephus does cite that Antipas was fearful of Johns popularity and that could have started and uprising. HIS PROPHECIES John the Baptizer was a prophet that preached with not so much words but with life. The words of the prophet ring true only because they carry with them the sweat, tears and blood of the prophet . According to Abraham Joshua Heschel, prophets are preachers whose lives are under siege, The prophet is a man who feels fiercely. God has thrust a burden upon his soul and he is bowed and stunned at mans fierce greed. Frightful is the agony of man no human voice can convey its full terror.Prophecy is the voice that God has impart to the silent agony, a voice to the plundered poor, to the profaned riches of the world. It is a form of living a crossing point of God and man. God is angered in the prophets words. (Dube, 2002, p. 42). The ministry of John the Baptizer was to challenge, provoke and call towards holiness. Because prophets are on the cutting edge of the call for repentance, their call is to shatter the nurse zones of sin and complacency. The conditions that call fourth prophets are conditions of idolatry, moral decadence and weak spirituality.This is why strict conditions are set up for any prophet who prophesies peace. The message of the prophet is one that calls for repentance, one that threatens us with its incarnated holiness, rages at us with Gods words as with John the Baptizers words of, Repent, Gods rule is around the corner Johns whole life was directed towards one goal, one direction, to give witness to the transcendent reality of God, which now make near, our eyes can see it and our hands can handle it. In Johns own words, I did not know Him, but that He should be revealed to Israel, therefore I came baptizing with water (Dube, 2002, p.43).What this means is that, ultimately, every prophet has to let go. John the Baptizer has to let that which he has given witness to take its own shape and form. Letting go seems easy, a holy thing to do, but in its aftermath it is a very hazardous moment for the prophet. What is hazardous for the prophet is thinking about what has really taken place. The result is that this final movement of the prophetic life is bound by some kind of crisis such as doubt or a trouble in the mind. The prophet discover s that he or she is not the sound from the trumpet but just a reed.This actualisation requires a re-centering. In Johns case, the crisis is his doubts about the Messiah. But after John sends two of his disciples to ask Jesus a question if he was the one or whether they should look for another his fears were relinquished (Yancey, 2007, p. 72). In Christian faith they believe that John the Baptist was ordained by God to preach and reveal the Messiah, they believe this to be Jesus. Prophecies that were foretold by John are in Luke 117, And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest, for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways. and also Luke 175. In the Book of Malachi John the Baptist is referred to as a prophet who is to prepare the way of the Lord, Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me, and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in, behold, he shall come, saith the Lord. (31). PROOF OF EXISTENCE In recent times a cave was find not far from the traditional birthplace of John the Baptist, Ein Kerem, just west of Jerusalem on a Kibbutz.Where John the Baptist was born and also where churches and monasteries are create to commemorate his birth. The cave is of considerable size with genuinely puzzling feature such as a large amount of broken patter, some dating to the period when John was active, a pool used perhaps for ritual immersion, a stone with the imprint of a foot, apparently used for foot-anointing and pictures on the walls that could assort to John the Baptist that depicts an upraised arm with three crosses. But much speculation as to whether this is a representation of John or not is still up in the air (Scham, 2004).Caves have long been associated with John. In the bible, his mother, Elizabeth, flees with him to a cave to escape Herods massacre of male infants, and as an adult he oftentimes lives in caves, giv ing some weight to the cave findings mentioned earlier. After Johns beheadings cults formed around his memory and often held religious rituals in caves. The come in was excavated by Shimon Gibson an Israeli archaeologist in 1999 and 2000. Around the perimeter he discovered the remains of walls with large dress stones which usually is a sign of an important place in the Near East.Although Gibson isnt clear on their age, he still uses this to uphold his find. Another artifact is a unique water channeling corpse suggesting the presence of a reservoir from its earliest occupation, probably between 800 and 500 B. C. This, Gibson proposes, was used for baptism rituals. Along with these relics are thousands of pieces of pottery, dating from Hellenistic times. CONCLUSION John the Baptist was a prophet of the coming of Jesus and as elusive in history as was Jesus. Not much information can be obtained about much of his life except for what is mentioned in the Gospel.The finding of the cave and if it is indeed where John the Baptist did work his miracles would be the first evidence to his existence. In all the information I found most focused on his death and the means of his sermons towards the end of his life. If the evidence at the excavations do prove to the existence of John than evidence on Jesus life will follow. I was most interested in the essay by Ross S. Kraemer that mentioned a possibility that John and Jesus could be the same. some(prenominal) is true, it is easy to say that John the Baptist was a man that through his sermons changed the world and created a faith.Bibliography Bugge, J. (2006, April). Virginity and prophecy in the old English Daniel. English Studies. 87(2), 127-147. Dube, C. (2002). From ecstasy to ecstasies A reflection on prophetic and Pentecostal ecstasy in the light of John the Baptizer. Journal of Pentecostal Theology, 11. 1 41-52 Gibson, S. (2004). The cave of john the Baptist. New York Doubleday Harrington, D. (2007, June 18). Decr ease and increase. America, 196(21), 38-39. Kraemer, R. S. (2006). Implicating herodias and her daughter in the death of john the Baptizer A christian theological strategy?Journal of Biblical Literature, 125(2), 321-349. Miller, L. Scelfo, J. (2007, May 21). A portrait of faith. Newsweek, 14(21), n. p. Ratzinger, J. (2007, May 21). The meaning of baptism. Newsweek, 149(21), n. p. Scham, S. (2004, November). St. johns cave. Archaeology, 57(6), 52. Tolson, J. (2006, March 17). The kingdom of Christ. News World Report, 140(14), n. p. Warrington, K. (2006, April). Acts and the healing narratives Why? Journal of Pentecostal Theology. 14(2), 189-217. Yancey, P. (2007, January). A tale of five herods. Christianity Today, 72.