Talk:Baptism of Jesus
Was Mary, mother of Christ present at the baptism of Christ by John? The question came up in Bible study. The Article "Baptism of Jesus" tends to indicate no. Some one believed one of books not in the Bible says she was. What is the answer?
- There is certainly nothing in scripture about Mary being there, and the wording of the Gospels makes her presence seem unlikely. It is entirely possible that there are stories that placed Mary at the event, but at best these would be apocryphal. - SimonP 04:12, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
Harry Anderson Baptism of Jesus artwork...
The name Harry Anderson in the caption for the artwork links to a wiki article on a Harry Anderson, but the article seems to be on an entirely different Harry Anderson who was born in 1952, not the artist Harry Anderson who was born in 1906 referenced here ( http://www.christcenteredmall.com/stores/art/anderson/anderson_biography.htm ), who would seem to be the Harry Anderson in question who did this artwork. Could this be fixed? I'm going to unlink the article from Harry Anderson's name in the caption for the artwork for now. Twilight 15:59, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
Edits -- RFC
I tried to shift the language towards NPOV where possible: changing "most"s to "some"s, for example, when different schools of thought are clearly in conflict. If any changes are objectionable, please indicate below. I have also tried to remove or qualify uncited speculations (e.g., that Luke's "crowd" did not respond to the voice of God from the heavens -- since the pericope ends, we have no indication of the crowd's response!). Again, if this needs discussion please indicate below.
Also (to those writing articles of this nature), please use a first initial for E.(duard) Schweizer to distinguish him from both Alexander Schweizer and the far better-known Albert Schweitzer, sometimes spelled 'Schwiezer.' jrcagle 19:58, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
More Edits -- RFC
In the "John's purpose according to the synoptic gospels" section, I have removed the following:
1)
"The quote, coming from Isaiah 40:3, is taken somewhat out of context, and the original referred to making straight the paths of God. In Isaiah, the passage was referring to how escape from the Babylonian Captivity would come about, whereas the synoptic Gospels have reinterpreted it as being a more metaphysical escape."
and replaced with
"The quote, coming from Isaiah 40:3, refers in its orginal context to making straight the paths of God."
My choice to do so is not simply POV (although it happens to agree with my POV!), but rather that the passage Is. 40 - 42 is highly disputed in terms of original intent; it makes no mention of Babylon; and the passage contains clear references to a coming servant. Hence, rather than drag the reader into a protracted discussion of Isaiah's near and far eschatology, I thought it best to mention the recontextualization in Matthew and let those interested pursue the topic on their own.
2)
"The quote otherwise has the wording of the Septuagint, in preference to that of the Masoretic text."
with
"The quote uses the wording of the Septuagint, typical for New Testament quotations of the Old Testament."
The Masoretic Text dates to AD 900 or so, and was not available to Matthew for quoting! (I don't know about the wording in any of the Dead Sea Scrolls). The majority of textual quotations in the NT are from the OT, so Matthew's choice is not surprising.
3)
"There are actually two justifiable punctuations for the quote, the traditional one being the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare ...., whereas, based on the Hebrew, modern scholars feel that Isaiah was intending the passage to read the voice of one crying: In the wilderness prepare ...., which quite substantially changes the meaning. The latter meaning is far less able to apply to John the Baptist, and hence this interpretation is not favoured by those of a more fundamentalist persuasion."
with
"There are actually two justifiable punctuations for the quote, the traditional one being the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare ....; the other reading, the voice of one crying: In the wilderness prepare ...., which substantially changes the meaning."
I actually disagree that it "substantially" changes the meaning, but I'm willing to concede the point. However, the Hebrew Mas. Text does not prefer either reading (qol qore bamidabar panu = A voice of one crying in the wilderness); both could readings could easily point to JtB; and the last clause of the original strikes me as POVish.
I'm certain that this topic is worthy of some discussion...
jrcagle 01:24, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
4) Removed
"The Gospel of the Nazarenes, a text which has very strong similarities to Matthew, adds a clarification to this story, stating that it was because of Jesus' sinlessness that John felt he was the one who should be baptised."
with no replacement. I was unable to find any such reference in the Gospel of the Nazarenes (text here. --jrcagle 01:47, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
The changes look pretty good, and make sense to me. It seems to help clarify and focus the text a bit better.