Baptism and John

Fra Angelico's Baptism of ChristThe origins of John's baptism ritual are much discussed amongst scholars. While various forms of baptism were practiced throughout the Jewish world at this time, only those of John the Baptist and Qumran are associated with an eschatological purpose, leading many scholars to connect John to the group that wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls. In Qumran, however, baptism was a regular ritual for individuals rather than the one-time event that the synoptics present it as. Obviously that the synoptics describe John as baptizing people in the once-off form could simply be due to them putting a spin on John's historic behaviour due to being motivated to present him in accordance with Christian theology.John the Baptist is described by Mark, Luke, and Matthew as referring to a successor, who will baptize with the Holy spirit and with fire. While John is presented as describing this successor as coming after him, the word usually translated after does not have a chronological meaning, but means instead after in sequence. It is often used to indicate that the one following is a disciple of the previous one (e.g. Matthew 4:19[13]), but it also can simply mean behind (Matthew 16:23[14]) or after (Luke 19:14, "after him"). At the time, the disciple of a Rabbi would be expected to perform menial chores, but as sandals were considered unclean, a view still persisting in the Middle East today, not even a disciple would deal with them, only the lowest slave. Thus when the text has John presenting himself as not worthy to carry/untie the sandals of his successor, he is presenting himself as extremely lowly in comparison.Fire was often a symbol of wrath, and so linking the Holy Spirit with it superficially appears to clash with portrayals of this Spirit elsewhere in the New Testament as a gentle thing. Some translations avoid using the word fire due to this, but when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, it appeared that several of its texts make the connection between Holy Spirit and wrath, and so most scholars now see the wording here as original, and the other portrayals as misinterpreted. See also Acts 2.It is worth noting that John baptizing by water and his successor by fire has parallels with Sumerian mythology. Enki, who the Babylonians later knew as Ea, had become known as Oannes by the time of John, and Oannes is almost identical to Ioannes, which is how the name of John the Baptist is spelt in the original Greek of the New Testament. Enki/Oannes was the god of (pure) water, and although the first god, the god of creation, over time he lost significance, while the sun god grew more important. Hence in folklore of the period in the surrounding region, Oannes, god of water, was superseded by the god of the sun, the god of fire. That this folklore surrounding Oannes may have influenced a narrative built around a historic figure named Ioannes, is of course somewhat tenuous, though the connection is frequently made by those who question the Historicity of Jesus.