Who was John the Baptist?
When they lived First century, in Judea and Perea, a contemporary of Jesus
In short
John the Baptist is the prophet who preached in the Judean desert and baptised in the Jordan. The Gospels narrate the announcement of his birth to Zechariah, the preaching of repentance, the baptism of Jesus, the doubt sent from prison, and the execution ordered by Herod at a banquet.
- Written by
- Raphael Navarro Schmitt
- Reviewed by
- Maria Luisa Navarro Schmitt
- Published on
- Reading time
- 8 min read
John the Baptist is one of the few New Testament figures whose existence is confirmed by an outside source: the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, writing at the end of the first century, gives him a passage — including his death — with no Christian interest at stake.
In the Gospels he is presented as the last in a line of prophets and the first to point at Jesus. He is also an awkward character: he lives in the desert, eats what he finds, calls the religious establishment hard names, and ends up imprisoned for criticising a ruler’s marriage. None of that is softened.
The announcement, and the argument over the name
Luke opens his Gospel not with Jesus but with an elderly couple, Zechariah and Elizabeth, he a priest, the two of them childless. The announcement happens during his service in the temple, and Zechariah doubts out loud — and is left unable to speak until the birth.
Luke connects the two families: it is Elizabeth whom Mary goes to visit, and it is in her house that the meeting between the two pregnant women takes place.
The scene about the name is small and revealing. On the eighth day the neighbours want to call the boy Zechariah, after his father. The mother refuses and says a different name. They appeal to the father, who still cannot speak, and he asks for a writing tablet. The detail matters because it marks a declared break with family continuity: this boy is not going to be the continuation of his father’s priesthood.
59And it happened that, on the eighth day, they arrived to circumcise the boy, and they called him by his father’s name, Zechariah.
60And in response, his mother said: “Not so. Instead, he shall be called John.”
61And they said to her, “But there is no one among your relatives who is called by that name.”
62Then they made signs to his father, as to what he wanted him to be called.
63And requesting a writing tablet, he wrote, saying: “His name is John.” And they all wondered.
Five verses of argument about a name, which is a lot of room for an apparently bureaucratic detail. Notice that the mother decides first and the father merely confirms in writing — that order belongs to the text.
The desert, and the baptism
All four Gospels begin the public activity of Jesus with the figure of John. He is in the Judean desert, dressed in camel hair with a leather belt, eating locusts and wild honey — a description that deliberately evokes the prophet Elijah.
His preaching has a single axis: change your life, because what is coming is near. And the baptism he offers is a public act of turning, performed in the river, by people who came from Jerusalem and from the whole region.
The baptism of Jesus is narrated in all four Gospels and creates a theological problem the texts themselves notice. Matthew records John’s objection — he says the order ought to be the other way round — and the answer that overrides it. No evangelist cuts the episode, which is telling: had this been invented, nobody would have invented a scene that needs explaining.
The moment he steps aside
John’s Gospel records an episode of jealousy among disciples: those of John the Baptist notice the crowd migrating to Jesus and go to complain to him.
His answer is the best-known line the Gospels attribute to him, and it is a line about decreasing. He compares himself to the friend of the bridegroom — the one who arranges the party and is not the wedding — and declares that this is precisely where his joy is.
Worth reading that while remembering he had disciples of his own, a movement of his own, a reputation of his own. Acts records that decades later, far from Judea, there were still people who had been baptised by him.
28You yourselves offer testimony for me that I said, ‘I am not the Christ,’ but that I have been sent before him.
29He who holds the bride is the groom. But the friend of the groom, who stands and listens to Him, rejoices joyfully at the voice of the groom. And so, this, my joy, has been fulfilled.
30He must increase, while I must decrease.
The image of the bridegroom’s friend, and the closing line. Notice that it is not spoken in resignation but in fulfilled joy — the difference completely changes what is being read there.
The question he sends from prison
This is the passage that almost never appears in the abridged versions, and it is the most human thing about him. In prison, John sends disciples to Jesus with a direct question: is it him, or should they be waiting for someone else?
There is no way to soften it. This is the same man who had pointed at him in the river, asking whether he had been wrong. The answer he gets is neither a rebuke nor a guarantee: it is a list of what is happening, for him to weigh.
Right after that episode, in the same chapters, Jesus offers the strongest commendation he gives anyone in the Gospels, and it is about John. The text sets the doubt and the commendation side by side without feeling any need to choose between them.
Herod, Herodias and the banquet
The imprisonment has a stated cause: John kept saying publicly that it was not lawful for Herod to have taken his own brother’s wife. Mark describes an unstable situation — Herodias wanted him dead and could not manage it, because Herod was wary of him, knew him to be a just man, and listened to him willingly.
The end comes at a birthday feast. The daughter of Herodias dances, pleases the guests, and Herod swears to give her whatever she asks, up to half his kingdom. She goes out, asks her mother what to ask for, and comes back with the answer.
Mark records that the king was greatly saddened, and that he was unwilling to refuse because of the oath and because of those sitting at table with him. It is an execution decided by social embarrassment, and the text takes care to say so.
17For Herod himself had sent to capture John, and had chained him in prison, because of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip; for he had married her.
18For John was saying to Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.”
19Now Herodias was devising treachery against him; and she wanted to kill him, but she was unable.
20For Herod was apprehensive of John, knowing him to be a just and holy man, and so he guarded him. And he heard that he was accomplishing many things, and so he listened to him willingly.
The reason for the arrest and a psychological portrait of Herod that is surprisingly detailed for Mark. Note the stated combination: wariness, an acknowledgement that the prisoner was a just man, and pleasure in hearing him talk.
The outside record
Flavius Josephus, a first-century Jewish historian, writes about John in a passage of the Jewish Antiquities devoted to Herod Antipas. He confirms the existence, the baptising, the popularity and the execution — and gives a political motive for the arrest: fear that this man’s influence over the crowd would end in revolt.
The two accounts do not contradict each other, and reading them together is instructive. The Gospel records the stated reason; the historian records the calculation of power. Anyone who has watched a political arrest recognises that those two things usually coexist.
What the text does not say
Biblical figures gather layers of tradition that Scripture does not support. Telling the two apart does not diminish the story — it gives back what is actually written.
What is commonly said
The daughter of Herodias, who danced at the banquet, was called Salome.
What Scripture says
The Gospels do not name her. Mark and Matthew call her the daughter of Herodias and the girl, and nothing else. Her name appears in no New Testament text.
Where it comes from: The name comes from Flavius Josephus, who in the Jewish Antiquities records a Salome among the descendants of that family. The identification is plausible and widely accepted by historians — the point here is not to deny it, but to record that it comes from a first-century historian and not from the biblical text.
What is commonly said
She performed the dance of the seven veils.
What Scripture says
The text says only that she came in and danced, and that it pleased. There is no description of choreography, of clothing, of music or of length — none of the detail popular imagination has built is in the Gospel.
Where it comes from: The dance of the seven veils is a literary invention of Oscar Wilde, in his play Salomé, written in the early 1890s, and it became definitive with the opera Richard Strauss built from it in 1905. From there it passed into cinema, into theatre and into preaching, and is now told as though it were a biblical detail.
What is commonly said
John the Baptist was an Essene, formed in the community at Qumran.
What Scripture says
No New Testament text says so. What it says is that John was in the desert, preached repentance and baptised in the Jordan.
Where it comes from: The hypothesis gained force after the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls from 1947 onwards, and it rests on real similarities of vocabulary, of purification practice and of geography. It is a serious hypothesis and remains under discussion — but it is a hypothesis, and it circulates frequently as if it were established fact.
What is commonly said
John always knew who Jesus was, and never wavered.
What Scripture says
From prison he sends disciples to ask Jesus whether he is the one expected or whether they should wait for another. The question is in Matthew and in Luke, in the same words, and neither of them explains it or softens it.
Where this person appears
13But the Angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth shall bear a son to you. And you shall call his name John.
14And there will be joy and exultation for you, and many will rejoice in his nativity.
15For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and he will not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb.
16And he will convert many of the sons of Israel to the Lord their God.
17And he will go before him with the spirit and power of Elijah, so that he may turn the hearts of the fathers to the sons, and the incredulous to the prudence of the just, so as to prepare for the Lord a completed people.”
The announcement to Zechariah, with the character’s entire programme given in advance: the name, the abstinence, the mission of reconciling and the comparison with Elijah. It is the only time a Gospel introduces anyone this way apart from Jesus.
1Now in those days, John the Baptist arrived, preaching in the desert of Judea,
2and saying: “Repent. For the kingdom of heaven has drawn near.”
3For this is the one who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah, saying: “A voice crying out in the desert: Prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight his paths.”
4Now the same John had a garment made from the hair of camels, and a leather belt around his waist. And his food was locusts and wild honey.
5Then Jerusalem, and all Judea, and the entire region around the Jordan went out to him.
6And they were baptized by him in the Jordan, acknowledging their sins.
His entrance, with the description of the clothing and the food. The wardrobe detail is not picturesque: it is a quotation — this is how the Old Testament describes Elijah, and readers of the time caught the reference at once.
13Then Jesus came from Galilee, to John at the Jordan, in order to be baptized by him.
14But John refused him, saying, “I ought to be baptized by you, and yet you come to me?”
15And responding, Jesus said to him: “Permit this for now. For in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all justice.” Then he allowed him.
The baptism, with John’s objection recorded out loud. Keep this passage: an account invented to persuade would not have created a problem that has to be solved inside the scene itself.
2Now when John had heard, in prison, about the works of Christ, sending two of his disciples, he said to him,
3“Are you he who is to come, or should we expect another?”
4And Jesus, responding, said to them: “Go and report to John what you have heard and seen.
5The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead rise again, the poor are evangelized.
6And blessed is he who has found no offense in me.”
The question sent from prison and the answer. Note that the answer asserts nothing directly: it describes what is happening and hands the conclusion back to the man who asked.
21And when an opportune time had arrived, Herod held a feast on his birthday, with the leaders, and the tribunes, and the first rulers of Galilee.
22And when the daughter of the same Herodias had entered, and danced, and pleased Herod, along with those who were at table with him, the king said to the girl, “Request from me whatever you want, and I will give it to you.”
23And he swore to her, “Anything that you request, I will give to you, even up to half my kingdom.”
24And when she had gone out, she said to her mother, “What shall I request?” But her mother said, “The head of John the Baptist.”
25And immediately, when she had entered with haste to the king, she petitioned him, saying: “I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.”
26And the king was greatly saddened. But because of his oath, and because of those who were sitting with him at table, he was not willing to disappoint her.
27So, having sent an executioner, he instructed that his head be brought on a platter.
28And he beheaded him in prison, and he brought his head on a platter. And he gave it to the girl, and the girl gave it her mother.
The whole banquet, from the oath to the platter. Notice how often the text marks that the decision does not come from the king: he promises, he is saddened, and he goes through with it because of those at table.