Rather than conflicting with John’s earlier proclamation about the coming one, his subsequent doubts about Jesus in “Q”52 would fit it well. Jesus’ ministry had so far fulfilled none of John’s eschatological promises. A prophet who was merely healing the sick and driving out demons did not appear to fulfill John’s vision of a divine immerser in God’s Spirit and end-time fiery judgment.53
In any case, the “criterion of embarrassment” makes John’s doubts even more plausible historically than the “Q” report about his message; one hardly expects Christian tradition to have invented his doubts! Although early Christians had reason to stress John’s testimony for Jesus, this narrative reports John’s doubts and does not even conclude with a clear statement of John’s renewed faith.54 The tradition here is thus likely authentic, not a creation of early Christian imagination.55
Jesus’ recorded response to John’s doubts (Matt 11:5-6//Lk 7:22-23) is to invite John’s attention to the nature of Jesus’ miracles as signs of the promised kingdom. Many scholars argue that Jesus interprets his miracles here by means of an allusion to Isaiah 35:5-6, which mentioned some of the same signs he was performing. In so doing Jesus reminded John’s disciples that the works he was currently performing might be less dramatic than a fire-baptism, but that Isaiah had already offered them as signs of the messianic era.56 Thus they were compatible with John’s message. Some scholars have argued that the deeds Jesus lists were even already considered messianic in some streams of Jewish thought;57 the biblical allusions that many scholars find in his words here suggest an early Palestinian interpretive tradition also attested at Qumran.58 Whatever the particulars, Jesus’ answer here does fit a Palestinian Jewish setting.
Most modern scholars, including even Bultmann, accept this response of Jesus as authentically reflecting the words of Jesus.59 The saying does, after all, sound more like Jesus than like his later followers: Jesus’ roundabout response to John is characteristic of Jesus’ responses (fitting the Messianic secret, a Middle Eastern teaching style, and Jesus’ penchant for riddles). The gospel for the “poor” coheres with other Q tradition about Jesus (cf. Matt 5:3//Lk 6:20); and the saying exhibits Semitic structure. The setting of the saying also seems likely authentic.60 The account lacks specifically Christian understandings of Jesus (e.g., emphasizing atonement or Lordship) and traditional Christian titles (“coming one” hardly qualifies).61
After John’s messengers leave, Jesus goes on to praise John to the crowds. Jesus’ contrast here between John and a shaking reed or pampered prince also appears to reflect early Palestinian tradition. That John was plainly not a pampered prince (Matt 11:8//Lk 7:25) probably contrasts him with his persecutor, Herod Antipas, Galilee’s best-known prince.62 Jesus contrasts John with Antipas only implictly, as we would expect for an authentic saying from during Jesus’ public ministry; to name this ruler openly during Antipas’ tetrarchy would be indiscreet (given Antipas’ contemporary abuse of John). Later Christians might not catch the allusion, but Jesus’ Galilean contemporaries presumably would have.63
That this tradition reflects a setting during Jesus’ ministry is made more likely by the observation that Jesus’ claim that John was no easily bent reed (Matt 11:7; Lk 7:24) fits a setting in Jesus’ own day.64 The image reflects the literal setting of John’s ministry: the banks of the Jordan, the site of John’s baptism, hosted reeds growing as high as five meters.65 Moreover, Theissen suggests that even this image might also allude more specifically (albeit again discreetly) to Antipas,66 arguing for the reed as Antipas’ emblem on coins before A.D. 26.67 If Theissen is right, the saying must have originated in Palestine while the memory of Antipas’ reed emblem remained fresh — probably in the late 20s, i.e., the time of John’s ministry.68
After implicitly challenging Antipas, Jesus honors John. Jesus claims that John is a prophet (Matt 11:9//Lk 7:26), a role in which many would have viewed him, as we have noted. Scholars may be more apt to dispute Jesus’ quotation of Mal 3:1 in the following lines (Matt 11:10//Lk 7:27), referring to a messenger who will prepare the way, since this tradition surely envisions Jesus as the one whose way John prepares.69 Yet if Jesus continued John’s mission of summoning Israel to repentance, and worked more signs than John, could he not have viewed himself as John’s greater successor? We know of no other successor of John as popular as Jesus was. Whether or not the original saying refers to Jesus, it comports with “Q’s” portrayal of the one John claimed would follow him (Matt 3:11//Lk 3:16). The text in context refers to preparing God’s way (Mal 3:1), and ancient Jewish tradition usually viewed the end-time Elijah as preparing God’s rather than the Messiah’s way.70
Jesus’ praise of the Baptist in Matt 11:9-11//Lk 7:26-28 is presumably authentic; the later church, sometimes concerned with John’s undue popularity, would hardly have invented it.71 Yet it is quite easy for those unfamiliar with ancient Jewish rhetorical practices to misunderstand the character of his praise.
