Christian Texts and History • Re: Proofs that John the Baptist Existed

Some Jews thought that Elijah would precede the Messiah because of Malachi's prophecy.

Source? I would most appreciate it, but at present I have not found anything that is unambiguous until into the second century CE and beyond, well past the development of early Christianities.

1/ Malachie 3:2-24

“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.
And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.

A concept of a “Day of the Lord” is associated with the Messiah in those texts :

* Psalms of Solomon 17:26-32
* 4QpIsa 7-10

+ Ben Sirach 48:1-10 alludes to Malachie 3 and mentions the coming of Elijah at the end of time when the tribes of Israel will be gathered. A strong allusion to Isaiah's servant (49:6), who was interpreted messianically (Isaiah’s servant) in Second Temple Judaism.


2/4Q558 (1st Century BCE)

1 [...] evil [...] 2 [...] their [...] who ... [...] 3 the eighth as an elected one. And see, I [...]4 to you I will send Elijah, befo[re ...] 5 po[w]er, lightning and met[eors...] 6 [...] and... [...] 7 [...] again ... [...] 8 [...] ... [...]

In this text, Elijah is associated with an Elect One.
“Elect one” was a Messanic title before the rise of Christianity (4q534 + Parables of Enoch)


3/ Mark 9:11-13

11 And they asked him, “Why do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?”
12 Jesus replied, “To be sure, Elijah does come first, and restores all things. Why then is it written that the Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected?
13 But I tell you, Elijah has come, and they have done to him everything they wished, just as it is written about him.”

If the concept of Elijah as the forerunner of the Messiah is a concept invented by Christians, we'd have to explain why Mark attributes it to the scribes. It should also be remembered that Mark constantly interract with the Jewish messianic expectations of his time to prove that Jesus was the Messiah. Elijah redivivus (=John) is just another Jewish messianic expectation that Mark uses.


4/ Talmud Babylon Eruvin 43b:3

Come and hear: [If a man said,] ‘Let me be a nazirite on the day on which the son of David comes,’ he may drink wine on Sabbaths and festival days, [43b] but is forbidden to drink wine on any of the weekends. Now, if it is granted that the law of Sabbath limits is applicable, it is quite intelligible why the man is permitted [to drink wine] on Sabbaths and festival days; but if it be contended that the law of Sabbath limits is inapplicable why [it may be asked] is it permitted [for the man to drink wine] on Sabbaths and festival days?—There the case is different since Scripture said, behold I will send you Elijah the prophet etc. and Elijah, surely, did not come on the previous day. If so, even in the case of weekdays, [the drinking of wine] should be permitted on any day since Elijah did not come on the previous day? But the fact is that we assume that he appeared before the high court, then why should we not here also assume that he appeared before the high court?—Israel has long ago been assured that Elijah would not come either on Sabbath eves or on festival eves owing to the people’s pre-occupation.
Assuming that as Elijah would not come the Messiah also would not, why should not [the drinking of wine] be permitted on a Sabbath eve?—Elijah would not, but the Messiah might come because the moment the Messiah comes all will be anxious to serve Israel

+ Talmud Babylon Shabbat 118a:7

Rabbi Shimon ben Pazi said that Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said in the name of bar Kappara: Anyone who fulfills the obligation to eat three meals on Shabbat is rescued from three punishments: From the pangs of the Messiah, i.e., the suffering that precedes the advent of Messiah, and from the judgment of Gehenna, and from the war of Gog and Magog. The Gemara derives that one is rescued from the pangs of Messiah by means of a verbal analogy. It is written here, with regard to Shabbat, day: “Eat it today” (Exodus 16:25). And it is written there, with regard to Messiah, day: “Behold, I am sending you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and awesome day of God” (Malachi 3:23). The Gemara derives that one is rescued from the judgment of Gehenna by means of a verbal analogy. It is written here, with regard to Shabbat, day, as cited above. And it is written there, day: “That day will be a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of destruction and desolation, a day of darkness and blackness, a day of cloud and thick fog” (Zephaniah 1:15), which is interpreted as referring to the punishment of Gehenna. The Gemara derives that one is rescued from the war of Gog and Magog by means of a verbal analogy. It is written here, with regard to Shabbat, day. And it is written there, with regard to the War of Gog and Magog, day: “And it shall be on that day, on the day that Gog arrives on the land of Israel” (Ezekiel 38:18).

We can nitpick about the dating of the text. But it would be difficult to defend the idea that the rabbis took over a Christian concept. The opposite is far more credible.


5/ Justin - Dialog with Trypho

And Trypho said, “Those who affirm him to have been a man, and to have been anointed by election, and then to have become Christ, appear to me to speak more plausibly than you who hold those opinions which you express. For we all expect that Christ will be a man [born] of men, and that Elijah when he comes will anoint him. But if this man appear to be Christ, he must certainly be known as man [born] of men; but from the circumstance that Elijah has not yet come, I infer that this man is not He [the Christ].

Justin is a latecomer and probably a fictitious dialogue. But the idea of the Forerunner that he attributes to the Jews can be found in the sources I quoted earlier.

Statistics: Posted by Peter Kirby — Fri Jan 19, 2024 6:22 am