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John the Baptist was a contemporary of Christ who was known for evangelization and his baptizing of Jesus Christ. John the Baptist was born through the intercession of God to Zachariah and Elizabeth, who was otherwise too old to bear children. According to scriptures, the Angel Gabriel visited ...
- Overview
- Sources of information about John
- Life and work
St. John the Baptist was an ascetic Jewish prophet known in Christianity as the forerunner of Jesus. John preached about God’s Final Judgment and baptized repentant followers in preparation for it. Jesus was among the recipients of his rite of baptism.
Who were St. John the Baptist’s parents?
St. John the Baptist was the son of Zechariah, a Jewish priest of the order of Abijah, and his wife, Elizabeth. According to the New Testament, Elizabeth was a relative of Mary the mother of Jesus.
How did St. John the Baptist die?
Sometime after baptizing Jesus, St. John the Baptist was imprisoned by Herod Antipas for denouncing his marriage, which was illegal under Jewish Law. According to Scripture, Herod’s stepdaughter Salome requested John’s head to please her mother, Herodias, and Herod was obliged to fulfill the request.
St. John the Baptist (born 1st decade bce, Judaea, Palestine, near Jerusalem—died 28–36 ce; feast day June 24) Jewish prophet of priestly origin who preached the imminence of God’s Final Judgment and baptized those who repented in self-preparation for it; he is revered in the Christian church as the forerunner of Jesus Christ. After a period of desert solitude, John the Baptist emerged as a prophet in the region of the lower Jordan River valley. He had a circle of disciples, and Jesus was among the recipients of his rite of baptism.
The primary sources for information about John’s life and activity are the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), The Acts of the Apostles, and the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus’s The Antiquities of the Jews. In using these works for historical reconstruction, allowances must be made for the known tendencies of each writer. All four Gospels recognize in John the start of the Christian era, and each in its own way tries to reconcile John’s precedence in time and Jesus’ acceptance of his message and of a baptism of repentance from his hands (elements suggesting subordination to John) with the author’s belief in Jesus as the Messiah and Son of God. The Gospel According to Mark presents Jesus as the hidden Messiah, known only to a narrow circle, and John as the one who had to “come first to restore all things” but who also remained hidden and suffered death with little acknowledgment of his true status (Mark 9).
Matthew and Luke are thought to further develop Mark’s narrative. The Gospel According to Matthew emphatically identifies John as a new or returning Elijah, herald of the kingdom of God (Matthew 3). For Matthew, John’s death, like that of Jesus, illustrates the old Israel’s hostility to God’s offer of salvation. In The Gospel According to Luke and in The Acts of the Apostles, Luke neglects the identification with Elijah but describes John as Jesus’ forerunner and as inaugurator of the time of fulfillment of prophecy. Luke’s account of the infancy of John and of Jesus uses material perhaps transmitted by former disciples of the Baptist. It depicts the coming of Jesus and John in two parallel series of scenes, each with an angelic annunciation, a conception, a marvelous birth, a circumcision, hymns greeting the child and predicting his destiny, and an infancy. Even in his mother’s womb John recognizes Jesus—also still in his mother’s womb—as his Lord.
The Gospel According to John reduces the Baptist from an Elijah to a model Christian preacher, a mere voice; it omits any description of Jesus’ baptism. Its tendency has often been labeled a polemic against a continuing group of disciples of John, but it is more plausibly explained by the evangelist’s desire that this ideal witness recognize the full character of the Christ and as a necessary consequence of the tension between the highly developed understanding of Christ in this Gospel and those details in early Christian tradition that suggested Jesus’ subordination to John. The Gospels are thus primarily interested in the relations between John and Jesus.
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Compared with the Christian accounts, that of Josephus sought to present Jewish religious phenomena in Hellenistic categories and to deemphasize any political elements unfavourable to Roman imperial control.
After allowances are made for the tendencies of each of these sources, the following items about John appear relatively trustworthy. He was born somewhere in Judaea (localized at ʿEn Kerem from at least 530 ce) to Zechariah, a priest of the order of Abijah, and his wife, Elizabeth, perhaps a relative of Mary, the mother of Jesus. His formative years were spent in the Judaean desert, where monastic communities, such as the Essenes (a strict Jewish sect that existed from about the 2nd century bce to the end of the 1st century ce), and individual hermits often educated the young in their own ideals.
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In 27/28 or 28/29 John attained prominence, not as a priest but as a prophet. He was active in the region of the lower Jordan valley, from “Aenon near Salim” (near modern Nāblus) to a point east of Jericho. His austere camel’s hair garment was the traditional garb of the prophets, and his diet of locusts and wild honey represented either strict adherence to Jewish purity laws or the ascetic conduct of a Nazirite (a Jew especially vowed to God’s service). His mission was addressed to all ranks and stations of Jewish society. His message was that God’s judgment on the world was imminent and that, to prepare for this judgment, the people should repent their sins, be baptized, and produce appropriate fruits of repentance.
Certain problems about the meaning of John’s message continue to be debated: In Matthew 3, John says, “He who is coming after me is mightier than I”; this might refer to God himself, a human messiah, or a transcendent divine being. He also says, “I baptize you with water…; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire”; this second baptism might symbolize the judgment the one coming would carry out.
John’s followers were characterized by penitent fasting, beyond the demands of Jewish Law, and special prayers. John’s ethical call for justice and charity in Luke 3 requires righteousness from everyone.
People also ask
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Jun 25, 2019 · St. John the Baptist is a famous Bible character who is also the patron saint of many different subjects, including builders, tailors, printers, baptism, conversion to faith, people dealing with storms and their effects (like hail), and people who need healing from spasms or seizures.
encyclopedia. John the Baptist, Saint. New Testament prophet, herald of the Messiah. Listen to the audio version of this content. Click to enlarge. John the Baptist, Saint.—The principal sources of information concerning the life and ministry of St. John the Baptist are the canonical Gospels.
He is also known as Saint John the Forerunner in Eastern Orthodoxy, John the Immerser in some Baptist Christian traditions, Saint John by certain Catholic churches, and Prophet Yahya in Islam. He is sometimes alternatively referred to as John the Baptiser .
Jun 21, 2022 · Saint John the Baptist is one of the few saints who have two feast days. Each year the Church celebrates the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist on June 24th as well as the date of his martyrdom which is on August 29th. How do people celebrate Saint John the Baptist’s feast day?
Jun 24, 2020 · Jimmy Akin Blogs June 24, 2020. John the Baptist is a mysterious figure in the New Testament. He was famous in his own day, even before he became the herald of Christ. We even know about him...
