Sometimes, Josephus’ comment about the telos of the baptisms performed by John the Baptist support a symbolic understanding thereof:
. . . . not in order to the
putting away [or the remission] of some sins [only], but for the purification
of the body: supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand
by righteousness (Antiquities 18:117)
However, it appears that Josephus was imputing to the theology of
John’s baptism the theology of the Essenes, and in reality, a “baptismal
regeneration” understanding of John’s baptisms should be accepted. Note the
following from Frederick C. Grant and Adolf Būchler:
The problems set by Josephus’s
account of the baptism of John the Baptist (Antiquities 18.5.2 = §117)
is a real difficulty form the rabbinical point of view. Josephus says that as
practiced by John, baptism (immersion) followed the cleansing of the soul. It
was a consecration (hagneia) of the body, the soul being already
cleansed by uprightness of life. This may very probably follow the Essene rule:
repentance, confession, forgiveness—this is the order, borrowed form the
sin-offering; and the Essenes seem to have declared their daily immersion to
have the same atoning effect as the daily atoning sin-offering in the Temple (see
p. 369 [RB: quoted below]). The view (as in Judaism generally and also
in the early church) was public, not private, and certainly not silent—such “confession”
can readily drift into a mere feeling of sinfulness or inadequacy. But it must
be acknowledged that in rabbinic literature there is no explicit reference to
external means of cleansing, such as baptism. The cleansing of the proselyte
from his contamination with the pollutions of idolatry is another subject. (Frederick
C. Grant, “Prolegomenon,” in Adolf Būchler, Studies in Sin and Atonement in
the Rabbinic Literature of the First Century [Library of Biblical Studies;
New York: Ktav Publishing House, Inc., 1967], xxii)
But what the idea of immersion of
the body after the cleansing of the soul was is not evident; while John explicitly
excluded as its object to demand pardon of some sins, he did not state the
meaning of the purification of the body. It is strange that Mark 1, 4 says, ‘So
John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming the baptism of
repentance for the forgiveness of sins. (5) And they were baptized by him in
the river of Jordan, confessing their sins;’ and so also Luke 3 ,3 ‘proclaiming
the baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins’. Both accounts
explicitly state that the sole object of the immersion was the remissions of
sins, and the preparation for it was repentance during, or immediately before,
the baptism, manifested by the confession of sins; so that repentance and
confession formed here one act as with the Rabbis of the first century. In
normal Jewish life and practice and confession of sins was to be found only in
connexion with the sacrifice brought by the repentant sinner to the Temple of
Jerusalem, and the forgiveness of sins mentioned by John was also the purpose
of the sin-offering. It seems, therefore, probable that the three significant
points connected with John’s baptism, repentance, confession and forgiveness,
were borrowed from the sin-offering, as the Essenes seem to have declared their
daily immersion (If it is remembered that the pious men of the beginning of the
first century in Jerusalem brought every day a guilt-offering for doubtful sins
to cleanse themselves from every error possibly committed, Kerith 6, 3; Tos..
4, 4; the substitution of the daily immersion by the Essenes for such daily
atonement will be better understood) to have the same atoning effect as the
atoning sin-offering. Outside the Temple sins were confessed in the hearing of
others (cf. Didaché, 4, 11: Confess thy sins in the congregation, and proceed
not to thy prayer with a bad conscience) at the service of the public fast (It
should be noted that fasting which was considered essential as an expression of
self-abasement with repentance, 1 Reg. 21, 27; Joel 2, 12; Jonah 3, 5; Psalms
of Solomon 3, 9; and the Rabbis, was not required by John, nor in Sibyll 4, 165
ff., ‘Wash the whole of your body in perennial streams and, in lifting up your
hands to heaven, ask pardon for former days, and expiate with praise bitter
impiety, and God will repent’. As a Jewish-Hellenistic ideal this agrees with
John as the absence of fasting; the Essenes do not seem to have emphasized
fasting) which was held on account of some great public calamity as drought or
plague. There the elder among the assembled people addressed to them words of admonition
to be penitent, ‘My sons, no one should be ashamed before his fellow-man, nor
be ashamed on account of his accounts; it is better than he be ashamed before
his fellow-man and on account of his actions than that he and his children
should be oppressed by hunger’ (Tos. Ta’an 1, 18). And also ben-Zoma taught
publicly, ‘If thou hast been shamed in this world, thou shalt not be shamed
before God in the world-to-come’ (Exod. R. 30, 19; though the book which has
preserved the statement is of a late date, the statement may still be authentic).
So the Jews confessed their sins n the hearing of one another also before John;
and as that was undoubtedly a strong moral means of cleansing the individual from
any sin not made good by restitution, forgiveness, asking for pardon and by
other acts of conciliation, the immersion as a symbolic washing of the heart
and the soul concluded the purification from sins. (Ibid., 368-70, emphasis in bold
added)
For a book-length discussion of the biblical evidence for baptismal
regeneration, see my book:
“Born
of Water and of the Spirit”: The Biblical Evidence for Baptismal Regeneration
(2021).
For those who want a free PDF, email me at
ScripturalMormonismATgmailDOTcom.
