Okay, but this by itself only really gets you to "not implausible".
True enough. In fact nothing here, by itself, is a good argument for historicity. It is when everything is taken together that it becomes much more likely (and therefore historical, as "historical" really only means what most likely happened in the past).
I've mentioned this before, but I really don't think that the recording of this in the Gospels places Jesus in an inferior position.
I'll quote from Meier's second volume of A Marginal Jew: "There is no credible reason why the early church of the first generation should have gone out of its way to invent a story that would only create enormous difficulties for its inventor. After all, the story of the baptism presents the church's Lord being put in a postition of inferiority to John by accepting from him a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The narrative runs counter to the desire of all Four Gospels to make the historically independ John merely the forerunner, proclaimer, prophet, or witness of Jesus. More to the point, the idea the Jesus, whom early Christainity considered sinless and the source of forgiveness of for humanity, should be associated with sinners by undergoing a "baptism for the forgiveness of sins" is hardly a fiction created by the church, unless the church enjoyed multiplying difficulties for itself. Significantly, in this case we are not simply projecting embarrassment
we may feel back onto the early church, which in theory might have had different sensitivities on the subject. As a matter of plain fact, the Gospels do encince embarrassment at the story of Jesus' baptism and try to "control the damage" as best they can.
The earliest kind of damage control seems already present in the pre-Markan tradition: the overshadowing of the actual event of baptism--which is quickly passed over and barely "narrated" in any real sense--with the theophany that follows.
Also, it seems like you tried to slip something by: Mark mentions the Baptism, as does Matthew and Luke... though if the Markian priority hypothesis is correct, this just reinforces the fact that it was in Mark. However, John doesn't mention it. I find it odd that you would acknowledge the fact that this event is missing from one of the two independent accounts we have (taking Matthew and Luke as dependent on Mark) as a point in favour of it being historical rather than a point against it.
Why? The point was that it was embarrassing for the church. It is a suprise, in a way, that we find it in any gospel, for the reasons quoted above. That John, perhaps the most likely of any gospel author to "innovate" would have left this event out, even if he had access to it, is not suprising.
Also, it is not necessarily true that Matthew and Luke are dependent on Mark. Some of their material may have come from Q, as there exist agreements between them, over and against Mark (the use of the verb/inf. eneochthesan/aneochthenai in Matt/Lk, instead of schizomenous, both add to Mark's simple "spirit," and both state that the spirit descended ep' auton/upon him rather than eis auton/in him). The argument for independence here is slight, but it must be remembered that the reason for arguing for the existence of Q or Matthew and Luke's dependence on Mark is the extremely close matches in material. The fact that Matthew and Luke agree in areas against Mark, even in so few, makes independence possible, if not by any means certain.
Meier and Goguel also argue that the evidence points to the Johannine tradition showing an awareness of the baptism, and deliberately leaving it out. Again, the evidence is tenous.
I think it's a fair assumption that if the incident were mentioned in John, you'd take the agreement between the Gospels as evidence that the incident was historical as well. Is there any arrangement that wouldn't be considered support for historicity?
What you are saying is true in a sense, but it is not simply that John left it out, but that it appears he left it out deliberately (see above). As for the other question, there are plenty of such arrangements. If an event is laden with heavy christology, for example, it is more likely to be an invention of the church.
- when do you think that Mark was written
c. 69-75
- where do you think that Mark was written? Do you have any particular reason to think it was written in the geographic vicinity of followers of John the Baptist?
M. Hengel (in Stuhmacher (ed.), "Gospels" 229-43) that the tradition that Mark really was by John Mark (Peter's interpreter), written in Rome. Gerd Theissen and Annette Merz argue, on the basis of the "Palistinian Jesus tradition" and "pre-Pauline Hellenistic traditions" that Syria is most likely for a place of composition. And it goes on.
All of it is somewhat irrelevent, as the evidence that the gospel authors had to deal with competitors who supported John is in the Gospels themselves. See, for example, Wink's book "John the Baptist" "Polemic and apologetic directed at contemporary 'disciples of John' clearly seems to be present..." (104).
Not sure what you mean here; which strains are you referring to?
Interactions and familiarity between Jesus and John are attested to by Q, Mark, and John.
I really don't see how this helps to establish historicity. Even a fictional story builds its plot somehow.
Again, it is when you put it all together that it starts adding up to "historical"
My problem with all this is that the bible is not an ordinary historical source nor was it intended to be.
This is not entirely true. As I have already mentioned, several scholar's have argued persuasively (see previous posts for citations) that the gospels are a type of ancient biography known as "lives." As for the Old Testament, it is also not entirely accurate to say that "it is not a historical source nor was it intended to be." Take, for example, Fowler's comment on the greek historian Herodotus: "As Eduard Meyer noted many years ago: in our Western world, genuine historical literature had a wholly independent origin only among the Greeks and the Hebrews (Geschicte des Altertums, II (1910) 131). We cannot trace the early development of this type of literature or branch of science so adequately among the Greeks as in Israel, yet it seems safe to say that the development among the Hebrews was considerably earlier, both absolutely, in date, and relatively to other departments of literature. If that is the case, Herodotus's proud title as the "Father of History" seems very questionable." (Fowler, Henry Thatcher. "Herodotus and the Early Hebrew Historians."
Journal of Biblical Literature 49.3 (1930): 207-217).
In other words, the various books in the OT fit VERY WELL into the genre of ancient history, and they were certainly intended to be taken as such. The fact that much of it is inaccurate does not lessen this; as I have been saying such a statement is true for ALL of ancient history.
