Saturday, January 15, 2022

The Gospel of John Refuting any Identification of Elijah with John the Baptist

Commenting on the depiction of John the Baptist in the Gospel of John, Troels Engberg-Pedersen writes the following, showing that John consciously made an effort to ensure that there would be no ambiguity between OT Elijah and John the Baptist, clearly presenting the “Elijah” who was to come in fulfillment of Mal 4:5-6 as someone other than John the Baptist:

 

Mk 6.14-16 and 8.27-29 (on who Jesus is: the Baptist or Elijah redivivus, or just ‘one of the prophets’?) have given John – in an entirely paradoxical, but also in fact quite logical manner – his 1.20-21 and 25 (on who the Baptist is not). This is again an exciting example of the transformation wrought by John on Mark. Mark had twice told a story about who people took Jesus to be. John transforms this into a story in which the Baptist himself says (in response to a question who he is, 1.19) that he is neither the Christ nor Elijah nor ‘the prophet’ (1.20-21, 25). John then uses this statement by the Baptist to have his interlocutors ask the question that is the single, basic, underlying question in his whole presentation of the Baptist: if you are neither of the three figures, then why do you baptize? (1.24). This crucial question is then answered – and again by the Baptist himself- in 1.29-34 . . .Mk 9.11-13 (implicitly on the Baptist as Elijah redivivus in relation to ‘the Son of Man’), which should (I believe) be read together with Mk 12.35-37 (about Jesus as the ‘lord,’ not the ‘son,’ of even David), has given John – once again – 1.20-21 and 25 at the same time as it marks one of the strongest differences between Mark and John, duly noted by almost all commentators. While the Baptist in fact was, so Jesus implies in Mark, ‘Elijah redivivus’, John has the Baptist himself explicitly deny this. Why? Because in John, the Baptist is just a human being (cf. 1.6 and 5.33-34: ανθρωπος), though with divine knowledge . . . (Troels Engberg-Pedersen, “John the Baptist in Mark and John: An Exercise in Comparison,” in Eve-Marie Becker, Helen K. Bond, and Catrin H. Williams, eds., John’s Transformation of Mark [London: T&T Clark, 2021], 141-42, emphasis in original)

 

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