The Embarrassment Criterion and Jesus' Baptism.
by Vincent Sapone
The criterion of embarrassment is a basic tool utilized by historians in their reconstructions of ancient history. This tool is also, naturally, used by historians who attempt to reconstruct the historical Jesus. It is quite simple in theory. The Gospel authors were writing about their hero, Jesus. The criterion of embarrassment posits that any material that seems embarrassing to the evangelists or the early church is likely to be authentic. The reasoning being; Why would the evangelists create material that was problematic to them? Why create their own embarrassment? The rationale here is obvious. Embarrassing material was retained because it was firmly embedded tradition.
There is an obvious pitfall when using the criterion of embarrassment (CofE). It is certainly not an infallible means of arriving at truth. We have no guarantee here and the CofE needs to be used with a high degree of caution. We cannot always be certain whether something we see as embarrassing was embarrassing in the eyes of the early church. Also there is the pitfall of overlooking polemical reasons behind a text which might seem embarrassing to us. So there is no guarantee that we will arrive at truth here but rarely do we have any guarantees in the study of ancient history. We try to make as best of sense of the situation with the sources we've got.
The embarrassment criterion is commonly applied to incidents in the Gospels. For example, Peter denying Jesus three times, Judas betraying Jesus, the Baptism of Jesus by John, Mark's portrayal of Jesus closest followers as being very dense, etc. Not all of these examples have the same persuasive potential. For instance, many might argue that Mark portrayed the disciples negatively for polemical reasons. But in that list, Jesus baptism by John the Baptist is one of the surest things we can know about Jesus' life according to most critical scholars.
Some anti-baptism proponents have been skeptical and posited that we have no certainty of Jesus' baptism because of a number of suggested reasons: 1) It seems Mark has no problems with the baptism of Jesus. 2) It could have been written for polemical reasons such as defending the basic Christian tradition of baptism by having Jesus himself be baptized. This would be projecting the later Christian baptismal experience back onto Jesus himself. 3). It may be the later church that found the idea of a sinless Jesus being baptized by John problematic while early Christians may have had no problem with this and invented the story. We have no proof the early church would have found this embarrassing.
Others views against the authenticity of Jesus' baptism may be similar to this comment written by Michael Turton on the Secular Web: 4) "We do not know if it was embarrassing for Mark, because we know nothing about the writer of that gospel. For all we know, Mark invented that story to cover up something even more embarrassing, like JtB rejecting Jesus out of hand." In this view both Luke and Matthew, who copied off Mark, redact the account in their own divergent ways because they found it embarrassing..
We will examine each of these four positions and see how they hold up under scrutiny.
1. Is it true that Mark has no problems with Jesus' baptism by John the Baptist? Mark seems quite to content to tell of the baptism itself without any defensive statement but the answer appears to be in the negative. Mark does record the baptism without much defensive commentary but what Mark states before and after the baptism of Jesus by John seems to certainly be enough to overshadow the account. I urge you to read the part of Mark one where this is found now so you have a better grasp and fresh knowledge of the text I am discussing.
JBap is started off as being a precursor to Jesus or one who prepares the way. Right before Mark moves on to the baptism he has JBap state: "After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit." The same general theme (the thongs of whose sandals I am not fit to untie) is followed by Luke in his infancy narrative whose parallels seem to have one purpose in mind: prioritizing Jesus over JBap. Mark even says that the quote above was JBap's message as he was baptizing "the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem". Fredriksen (Jesus of Nazareth p. 189) states that "Such pronouncements flatly fail a claim to authenticity based on the criterion of dissimilarity, for they present John enunciating precisely the later Christian community's own beliefs about him, and about Jesus' superiority to him."
Mark sets it up that JBap went around preaching the coming of Jesus or rather, more accurately, the coming Messiah. Mark's point is clear: Elijah reincarnated is here preparing the way for Jesus.
Then Mark moves on to the actual baptism: "At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan."
This seems simple enough but that's not the end of it though as Mark proceeds to tell us that when Jesus was coming up out of the water the heavens tore apart and the spirit descended on Jesus and let's not forget about the voice that came from heaven declaring Jesus to be God's Son, the Beloved with whom God is pleased much by.
As John Dominic Crossan notes in Jesus A Revolutionary Biography (p. 44) "Mark 1:9 tells about the baptism without any defensive commentary, but immediately overshadows it with the heavenly voice in 1:10-11.
In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased."
That would seem quite adequately to exalt revelation over baptism and Jesus over John."
The author of Mark seems fine NOT with "the baptism" but with "the baptism and the epiphany" in the context of John being the precursor and returned Elijah preparing the way for Jesus. The author of the account immediately overshadows the baptism with the epiphany and precedes it with (or has it in the context of) JBap's prophetic announcements of Jesus. I don't think it can be established that the author of Mark would not or did not find the idea of an "apparently sinful" Jesus being baptized by JBAP embarrassing or slightly embarrassing or as raising theological issues. Mark's account is already "apologized" to a fair degree. It gets apologized even further by those who copy off of Mark.
2. Could it have been written for polemical reasons such as defending the basic Christian tradition or rite of baptism by having Jesus himself be baptized? Could this be a case of projecting the later Christian baptismal experience back onto Jesus himself?
John Meier addresses this issue in A Marginal Jew_, Vol. II, on pp100-105 and this is a citation of his work:
"As for the criterion of discontinuity, I do not think that it necessarily casts doubt on the historicity of Jesus' baptism. The surprising thing about all of the NT statements concerning Christian baptism is that no NT author ever directly and explicitly links Christian baptism with Jesus' baptism, and the latter is never explicitly presented as the cause, archetype, or model of the former. This is in marked contrast to the treatment of Christian baptism in the Church Fathers. In the NT, Christian baptism is regularly connected with or seen as a share in Christ's death and resurrection (e.g., Rom 6:3-11). Starting with Ignatius of Antioch, John's baptism o fJesus begins to be seen as the model, even the source of efficacy, of Christian baptism: "...he [Jesus] was baptied in order that he3. Could it be that the later church found the idea of a sinless Jesus being baptized by John problematic while earlier Christians may have had no problem with this and could have concievably invented this pericope? is there any evidence the early church would have found this material embarrassing?
It is "possible" but unlikely as Mark and everyone else we have actually have any evidence of all show signs that they were embarrassed by it. Hence, all the theological apologetics.
We have independent extra-canonical evidencethat John had a ministry of baptism. Whether it was for the remission of sin or proceeded after repentance has been disputed by scholars. According to Josesphus in Jewish Antiquities, 18.116-119, John's baptism "was not a magic rite effecting the forgiveness of sins but the physical symbol of a spiritual reality already established before, without, and apart from it."(Crossan The Historical Jesus p. 231) and Mark has John "preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins." Many interpreters feel Josephus fudges the data here (see Meier-marginal Vol II. p.21, Crossan, Historical Jesus, p. 231) and others might have slightly different views (see Fredriksen, Jesus of Nazareth pp. 184-191). This argument is irrelevant to my point here because either way John would be presented as superior to Jesus, baptizing him and the baptism rite entailed that a sinner repent even if it was not a magic rite itself. This would render Jesus as a sinner in need of repentence either way.
To add to the above, we not that Paul refers to the sinlessness of Jesus probably before 60 CE and most likely in 57 CE. In the undisputed 2nd letter to the Corinthians, in verse 5:21 Paul remarks that "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." We seem to have no way of knowing precisely how widespread this tradition was at the time and whether Mark's audience would be aware of it for certain but we do know the tradition predates Mark's Gospel by at least 10 to 15 years and possibly many more as we cannot assume Paul created the tradition. Meier (ibid), in his section on the Historicity of Jesus' baptism (pp.100-105 ) puts it lucidly:
"After all, the story of the baptism presents
the church's Lord being put in a position of inferiority to John by accepting
from him a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The narrative
runs counter to the desire of all Four Gospels to make the historically independent
John merely the forerunner, proclaimer, prophet, or witness of Jesus. More
to the point, the idea of Jesus, whom early Christianityconsidered sinless
and the source of forgiveness of sins for humanity, should be associated with
sinners by undergoing a "baptism of repentance for
the forgiveness of sins" is hardly a fiction created by the church, unless
the church enjoyed multiplying difficulties for itself. Significantly, in
this case we are not simply projecting the embarrassment *we* may feel back
onto the early church, which in theory might have different sensitivities
on the subject. As a matter of plain fact, the Gospels do evince embarrassment
at the story of Jesus' baptism and try to "control the damage" as
best they
can."
All the evidence we have is indicative of the fact that this would have been just as embarrassing to earlier Christians as it was to the authors of the synoptic Gospels.
4). Could it be that we do not know if it was embarrassing for Mark, because we know nothing about the writer of that gospel? Is it possible that Mark invented that story to cover up something even more embarrassing, like JtB rejecting Jesus out of hand?
As I noted above Mark's portrayal has its fair share of theological apologetics associated with it. The indication is that mark found it unsettling or embarrassing. Add to that my commentary on objection three just before this one and the first half of objection number four is rendered obsolete.
Does the second half of it fare any better? It seems to bypass this by arguing that Mark invented something that was highly embarrassing, to cover up something even more embarrassing like Jesus being rejected by JtB.First, the notion that Mark invented the story cannot be established. It is possible that the Gospel of the Hebrews and/or Q presents us with an earlier reference or references. Even if not earlier, if the tradition is multiply attested this is usually indicative of the fact that the tradition is earlier than the two sources. In this case I think this applies as the baptism by Jesus is multiply attested so it seems highly unlikely that Mark invented the story. Even if it is not multiply attested there is absolutely no evidence Mark invented this pericope from whole cloth.
It is "possible" Mark created this for such a reason but if the account is multiply attested and contains embarrassing material then this should render Jesus's baptism by John historical. That is part of the basic methodology history works under. If we think about it couldn't we raise "what if" questions that can't be answered given our partial sources about a ton of historical "facts"? This type of speculation and skepticism seems to lack any kind of methodological control that sober historical research follows. This is my biggest problem with arguments of this nature. The multiple attestation and embarrassment of this tradition, when coupled together, should serve to render it historical. If either of these two (multiple attestation and embarrassment) could be shown false I think the argument for historicity of the event would lose much of its force but not all of it. On the flipside if both can be established it doesn't leave us with much choice but to accep the alleged occurence as an established historcal fact.
The Event was Embarassing
We already touched on the aspects of Mark that show clear signs of finding the tradition embarrassing and alluded the the Lukan infancy narrative which prioritizes Jesus over JBap. We should also note: the alleged account of John the baptist, while in jail, sending his disciples to question Jesus about whether he was the Messiah or not.Throwing in Matthew 11:2-4:
2When John heard in prison what Christ was doing, he sent his disciples 3to ask him, "Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?" 4Jesus replied, "Go back and report to John what you hear and see
This is very strange to me since JBap seems to already have said (according to the author of Matthew! in verse 3:14) "But John tried to deter him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" Also the author of the Gospel of Johh has JBap flat out proclaiming Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Something obviosuly does not add up in all of this..
The Christian tradition is clearly uneasy all across the board with the relationship between Jesus and John. Mark precedes the baptismal account with, as Fredriksen (Jesus of Nazereth p. 189) notes, "John subordinate[ing] himself" by speaking of a mightier one who comes. Immediately after the baptism itself Mark overshadows it with the epiphany. I think Crossan (The Historical Jesus, pp. 233-234) does a good job showing the apologetical progression across the various texts in this area so I turn to him now. Make sure to pay extra attention to the text in bold:
"And it came to pass when the Lord was coming up 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 I was waiting for thee that thou shouldest come and I might rest in thee. For thou art my rest; thou are my first begotten Son that reignest for ever. (Gospel of the Hebrews 2; NTA 1.163-164; Cameron 1982:85)
I presume that, to make sense of "coming up out of the water," some account of John's baptism must have preceded that section, but the power of its mythological presentation would have negated any problems about superiority or inferiority.
Similarly, at the start of the second set of texts, Mark 1:9-11 was quite content to tell of the baptism in 1:9 and then conclude with the epiphany in 1:10-11. But those twin elements furnished problem and solution for texts dependent upon Mark: one could negate or deny the baptism; one could emphasize or underline the epiphany. Watch the apologetic process across these texts.
Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying…(Luke 3:21a)
Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" but Jesus answered him, "Let it be so for now; for thus it is fitting to fulfill all righteousness." Then he consented. (Matthew 3:13-15)
John fell down before him and said: "I beseech thee, Lord, baptize thou me." But he prevented him and sad, "Suffer it; for thus it is fitting that everything should be fulfilled." (Gospel of the Ebionites 4; NTA 1.157-158; Cameron 1982:105)
Behold, the mother of the lord and his brethren said to him: John the Baptist baptizes unto the remission of sins, let us go and be baptized him. But he said to them: Wherein have I sinned that I should go and be baptized by him. Unless what I have said is ignorance (a sin of ignorance). (Gospel of the Nazoreans 2; NTA 1.146-147; Cameron 1982:99)
And John bore witness, "I saw the Spirit descend as a dove from heave and remained on him. I myself did not know him; but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, 'He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the holy Spirit.' And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God." (John 1:32-34)
Notice to begin with that the Sayings Gospel Q, which is much more interested in John's preaching than John's baptizing, has apparently no mention at all of Jesus' baptism (Kloppenborg 1988:16). Luke barely mentions Jesus' baptism in a syntactical rush toward prayer and the epiphany. Matthew and the Gospel of the Ebionites face the problem and declare its divine necessity. The Gospel of the Nazoreans denies it ever happened. But John, probably dependent on the synoptics for his Baptist traditions, never mentions a word about Jesus' baptism in all of 1:19-34 and emphasizes instead John's witness concerning Jesus. With John, then, the baptism of Jesus is gone forever, and only the revelation about Jesus remains.
Finally, there are the two units in the letters of Ignatius of Antioch, both of semicredal character, giving, as William Schoedel put it, "lists of the events of salvation in the ministry of Jesus" (8).
Our Lord . . . is truly of the family of David according to the flesh, Son of God according to the will and power of God, truly born of a virgin, baptized by John that all righteousness might be fulfilled by him . . . (Ignatius, To the Smyrnaeans 1:1)
For our God, Jesus the Christ, was carried in the womb by Mary according to God's plan-of the seed of David and of the holy Spirit-who was born and baptized that by his suffering he might purify the water. (Ignatius, To the Ephesians 18:2)
Those texts give two divergent explanations for Jesus' acceptance of John's baptism. The one in the first text has to be dependent on Matthew since it uses "righteousness," a redactional emphasis concerning John in both Matthew 3:14-15 and 21:32. But since, as Helmut Koester has argued, there are no other equally clear indications that Ignatius had read Matthew, it is best to consider this an indirect dependency on which the creed used by Ignatius was already influenced by Matthew's apologetic gloss (1957:59). The explanation in the second text is, in William Schroedel's words, "closer to Ignatius' own theological world" (222). It links Jesus' baptism and passion together mythologically in that Jesus purifies the depths of the water by his baptism and the depths of the earth by his burial.
One conclusion emerges from the texts in that first unit. Jesus' baptism by John is one of the surest things we know about them both.
As Crossan notes, there is a lot of theological damage control going on with
Jesus and John the Baptist. Many would posit that Jesus started off as a follower
of John the Baptist but a discussion of that notion is superfluous to my purposes
here. Down below we will see meier argue against Crossan's view that Q, apparently
has no mention of a baptismal account.
Multiple Attestation of the Baptismal Account
John Dominic Crossan argues that this tradition is multiply attested on the
basis of the Gospel of the Hebrews which he dates around 50 A.D. and catalogues
as independent of the canonical Gospels. Though the Gospel of the Hebrews
is lost to us and survives only in quotations all the data that we do have
(7 patristic citations) indicates that there was no direct dependence on the
canonical Gospels. The earliest possibly date for this document is the mid-first
century and, as Ron Cameron notes in The Other Gospels, "the
latest possible date would be in the middle of the second century, shortly
before the first reference to this gospel by Hegesippus and the quotations
of it by Clement and Origen. Based on the parallels in the morphology of the
tradition, an earlier date of composition is more likely than a later one.
Internal evidence and external attestation indicate that Egypt was its place
of origin."
Another argument for multiple attestation comes from John Meier (ibid, Marginal Jew, vol II Historicity of Jesus' Baptism pp. 100-105)
While Matthew and Luke are patently dependant on Mark
for the substance of their narratives of the baptism-plus-theophany (Mark
1:9-11 = Matt 3:13,16-17 // Luke 3:21-22), there are some curious "minor
agreements" of Matthew and Luke against Mark that might come from their
use of a Q version of the baptism. These include
the use of the aorist passive participle for the actual event of Jesus' baptism
(Matthew: *baptistheis*, Luke: *baptisthentos*) as opposed to Mark'smain verb
*ebaptisthe*; the statement that the heavens were "opened"
(Matthew: *eneqchthesan*, Luke: *aneqchthenai*) instead of Mark's statement
that they were "rent asunder" or "split" (*schizomenous*);
a modifier that is added to Mark's simple "spirit" (Matthew: the
spirit of God, Luke: the
holy spirit); the statement that the spirit descended "upon him [Jesus]"
(*ep' auton*) instead of Mark's "into him" (*eis auton*).
By themselves, these small agreements hardly prove
a Q version of Jesus' baptism. There is, though, a second consideration. The
Q document clearly begins with the preaching and baptizing acitivity of John,
culminating in his prophecy of the coming of the stronger one who will baptize
with the holy spirit (Matt 3:11-12 // Luke 3:16-17). The next Q pericope that
we can be sure of is the Q version of the temptation of Jesus, in which Jesus
is led by the *spirit* into the *desert* to be tempted by the devil (Matt
4:1-11 // Luke 4:1-13). Was there nothing in between these two pericopes in
Q? Do the motifs of the spirit acitng on Jesus, the desert, and the title
"Son of God" (used by the devil in his temptations) suddenly materialize
without any explanation or preparation? That some story intervened in Q between
John's preaching and the temptation of Jesus is especially suggested
by the way the devil introduces his first two temptations: "If you are
God's son..." (Matt 4:3,6 par.). In the Gospels of Matthew and Luke,
this clearly picks up the voice of God at the end of the baptismal narrative:
"You are
[Matthew: This is] my son..." That may have been true of the Q document
as well. That the Q version of the temptation both presents the *spirit* as
acting on Jesus and describes the testing of Jesus *as Son of God* argues
for a connection of the Q temptation narrative with a Q version of the baptismal
story such as we find in Mark (i.e., with the motifs of the spirit descending
on Jesus as Son of God). Granted, such arguments are not
strictly probative and leave much room for doubt. Still, if forced to choose
between probabilities, I think it more likely that some form of a baptismal
story stood in Q between the Baptist's promise of the stronger one
(Matt 3:11-12 par.) and Jesus' temptation in the desert (Matt 4:1-11 par.).
Meier also argues that the Johannine tradition may also supply an indirect argument for multiple attestation and I refer you to his work for a discussion of that. It seems there are valid arguments and solid grounds for claiming that the tradition was multiply attested (and this usually implies it was widespread and early), and accompanied by theological apologetics in the first century all across the board. This is why, in the eyes of the majority of critical scholars, the baptism of Jesus by John is a bedrock fact of his life that must be a component orf any reconstruction.
Copyright, 2002, Vincent Sapone Email me laurie.vailonis@snet.net
I put up another argument before in favor of the historicity of Jesus and I reccomend reading that in addition to this..