Who was John the Baptist?
Short answer
John the Baptist was the Jewish prophet who preached in the desert of Judea, called the people to repentance and baptized in the river Jordan. He baptized Jesus, pointed to him as the Lamb of God, and was imprisoned and executed by Herod Antipas after publicly condemning the king’s marriage.
- Written by
- Raphael Navarro Schmitt
- Reviewed by
- Maria Luisa Navarro Schmitt
- Published on
- Reading time
- 3 min read
John is no minor character in the Gospels: all four begin with him. Before any account of the ministry of Jesus, the reader is taken to the desert, to a man dressed in camel hair who eats locusts and wild honey and tells the people to change their lives. The order is not decorative — it is a way of saying that the story of Jesus begins inside a movement of renewal already under way.
His existence is not known from the Gospels alone. Flavius Josephus, a first-century Jewish historian who was not a Christian, records John’s preaching and his execution on the order of Herod Antipas. That is a rare external confirmation for a figure of this size, and it explains why John’s historicity is among the least contested in the New Testament.
The content of the preaching was hard and specific. John baptized in the Jordan as a sign of repentance, in a gesture that gathered crowds outside the circuit of the Temple, and he announced someone who would come after him and would be greater. In the accounts he never disputes that place: he says he is not worthy even to loosen the other man’s footwear and, when his disciples warn him that Jesus was drawing bigger crowds, he answers that this is how it has to be.
The meeting between the two inverts what you would expect. John resists baptizing Jesus, arguing that the order ought to be the other way round, and only gives way when Jesus insists. After that, it is he who points Jesus out to his own disciples — some of whom start following Jesus from that moment.
What the accounts do not soften is the end. Imprisoned for having told the king that the marriage was unlawful, John sends word from the cell to ask whether Jesus really was the one he had announced. It is a doubt recorded without embarrassment, and the answer of Jesus is not a rebuke: shortly afterwards he says no one greater than John had arisen among those born of women. He would be executed while still in prison, at a request made during a banquet.
What the passages say
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, the father. The mission is described before the birth and in the terms of Elijah — to prepare a people, to turn the hearts of fathers to sons. That is what marks John as a prophet of transition rather than the founder of something of his own.
4John was in the desert, baptizing and preaching a baptism of repentance, as a remission of sins.
5And there went out to him all the region of Judea and all those of Jerusalem, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.
6And John was clothed with camel’s hair and with a leather belt around his waist. And he ate locusts and wild honey.
7And he preached, saying: “One stronger than me comes after me. I am not worthy to reach down and loosen the laces of his shoes.
8I have baptized you with water. Yet truly, he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
The fullest portrait in the fewest lines: where he preached, what he preached, how he dressed, what he ate and what he said about the one to come. Loosening another man’s footwear was the work of a household slave, and he places himself below even that.
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.
16And Jesus, having been baptized, ascended from the water immediately, and behold, the heavens were opened to him. And he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on him.
17And behold, there was a voice from heaven, saying: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
The baptism of Jesus, with John’s resistance preserved in the text. An invented account would hardly show its protagonist being baptized by someone else — it is precisely that awkwardness that makes the scene one of the most solid historically.
29On the next day, John saw Jesus coming toward him, and so he said: “Behold, the Lamb of God. Behold, he who takes away the sin of the world.
The testimony that sums up his role. John does not invite anyone to follow him: he points to another, using an image from Temple sacrifice that already carries, right there, the reading of the death of Jesus.
11Amen I say to you, among those born of women, there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
The praise from Jesus, spoken just after John had sent from prison to ask whether he really was the awaited one. The second half of the verse is the turn: the highest praise comes attached to the claim that the kingdom repositions the whole accounting.
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.”
The reason for the imprisonment, stated bluntly: John confronted the king’s marriage. Prophecy here is not a forecast of the future, it is public criticism of conduct — which tends to cost whoever makes it dearly.