In David Bokovoy versus Robert Bowman on the Shoe Imagery in the Book of Mormon and Bible, I reproduced David Bokovoy’s response to Robert Bowman on the shoe imagery in 1 Nephi 10:7-8. While reading David Daube’s The New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism, I came across the following which touches upon this issue and related issues:
The Offices of a Disciple
According to Matthew, the Baptist considered himself unworthy to carry the shoes (or sandals) of Jesus, according to Mark, Luke, John and Acts to take them off (Matt. 3.11, Mark 1.7, Luke 3.16, John 1.27, Acts 13.25). In Talmudic utterances, whenever a slave’s services are illustrated, these two—carrying the master’s things before him to the bath-house and taking off his shoes (when he comes home)—are listed together (Mekh. on Exod. 21.2, Siph. on Num. 15.41, Bab. Qid. 22b). Let us note, however, that the Baptist was willing to do them for Jesus not as a slave, but as a disciple. It was a general rule that a son or disciple owed the duties of a slave (Bab. Ket. 96a).
Why does Matthew mention one of the two services and Mark, Luke, John and Acts the other? Or supposing the original saying referred to both, why does Matthew omit one and Mark and so on the other? Of course it may be due to an accident of transmission, or we may have to invoke one of the modern theories concerning Q. On the other hand, there may be an altogether different explanation.
R. Joshua ben Levi held that a disciple should do for his teacher anything a slave would do—except take off his shoes (Bab. Ket. 96a). It is true that this Rabbi flourished about A.D. 250. But his principle may be much older. (The earliest datable identification of the Suffering Servant with Israel in Jewish literature is as late as the 12th century. Yet we know from Origen that it was prevalent in certain Jewish circles in his time, some 900 years before.) If the principle had followers in the New Testament epoch, it may account for the difference. Matthew represents the Baptist as having adhered to the principle: he spoke only of carrying the shoes of Jesus, but not of taking them off. The latter is not a disciple’s task. The other sources represent the Baptist as eager to perform for Jesus precisely that service which some Rabbis thought too low for one who was free, even if he was a great man’s disciple. (David Daube, The New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism [University of London, 1956; repr., Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 1998], 266)
