Jesus’ Repudiation of John?
Jesus’ Repudiation of John?
After Jesus praises John, he observes that the least in the kingdom are greater than John. Some scholars suggest that Jesus denigrates John by claiming that “the least in the kingdom is greater than he”72 (Matt 11:11//Lk 7:28). On the basis of this alleged criticism they then suggest a breach between the two that led to Jesus proclaiming a message contrary to John’s, namely, that Jesus must have opposed John’s eschatological message. (This hypothesis does invite those of us who understand the “kingdom” as eschatological to wonder why Jesus would have denigrated an eschatological message by referring to the kingdom.) This reading, however, imposes a foreign understanding on the account and employs that interpretation as a substitute for any genuine evidence that Jesus’ message contradicted John’s. The ministries of the two prophets certainly differed, but our sources indicate that Jesus, like John, continues to warn about repentance in the face of God’s impending day of justice.
The view that Jesus broke with John, hence opposed John’s message, hence did not speak of imminent judgment or the end, depends on a series of extrapolations. It also has to suppose that the extant gospel tradition consistently distorts the actual teaching of its “lord” to make it fit that of John (as if the gospel tradition owed more fidelity to John than to Jesus). This view uses an explanation of a saying that many consider obscure to explain away the only hard evidence we have, and then to argue from the silence that remains that Jesus believed the opposite of what both John believed and what Jesus’ followers thought Jesus taught. Would later Christians have wrongly conformed Jesus to John (the competition)? His own contemporaries sometimes compared him with John or with Elijah (Mk 6:15; 8:28), who in gospel tradition was the background for John (Mk 1:6; 9:13; Matt 11:14; 17:12), despite John’s lack of signs. They viewed both as prophets (e.g., Mk 6:4, 15; 11:32).
In fact, Jesus is not at all hostile toward John here; after all, he makes John the most significant figure of history so far (Matt 11:11//Lk 7:28)! He confronts John’s question graciously in Matt 11:4-6//Lk 7:22-23, quite in contrast with how he addresses his opponents and even wayward disciples (Mk 8:33; 12:38-40; Matt 23:25-39//Lk 11:39-52); far from invoking judgment as on one who had seen much and believed little (Matt 11:21-24//Lk 10:13-15), he had John’s disciples recount to John what they had now seen for the first time (Matt 11:4-5//Lk 7:21-22) and pronounced a blessing on him if he would persevere (Matt 11:6//Lk 7:23). He calls John his promised forerunner (Matt 11:10//Lk 7:27).73 He further chides that generation for not receiving John (Matt 11:18-19//Lk 7:33-34).74
The suggestion that Jesus is criticizing John at all in these words reflects an inadequate understanding of ancient Jewish speech patterns (and even of broader Greco-Roman rhetoric).75 Jesus’ contemporaries and successors developed hyperbolic and superlative praise still further: rabbis called Johanan ben Zakkai “the least” of Hillel’s eighty disciples not to demean Johanan but to praise Hillel as a teacher.76 This observation fits the context. Over half a century ago Carl Kraeling’s work on John the Baptist showed that the explicitly positive saying in Matt 11:11//Lk 7:28 (no one born of women is greater than John) exemplified standard Jewish rhetoric:
In a single passage in the Mekhilta, for instance, we have statements about both Joseph and Moses that use the same expression. About Joseph it is said, ‘there is not among his brethren one greater than he,’ and about Moses ‘there is not in Israel one greater than he.’ As used in Jewish texts such statements are not to be taken as blanket judgments . . .”
The “least” in the kingdom is greater than John simply in the sense that anyone in the kingdom has access to a fuller revelation than those who spoke beforehand (Matt 13:16-17//Lk 10:23-24).78 It exalts Jesus’ followers not by denigrating John but by comparing them with someone great, just as the context interprets it.
Further, when Jesus divides time into eras by making John transitional between earlier prophets and the kingdom (Matt 11:12-13//Lk 16:16), he cannot mean that John would be excluded from the future kingdom. In “Q” tradition, the righteous who precede the era of the kingdom nevertheless would participate in it (Matt 8:11//Lk 13:28). Jesus’ language is meant to envision the promised eschatological blessing, not John’s failure to be saved.
That the prophets continued their ministry until or through the time of Jesus’ predecessor John (Matt 11:13//Lk 16:16) suggests that the saying envisions both John and Jesus highly, making John the climactic prophet and Jesus’ promised forerunner. Jesus might allude to a traditional Jewish recognition that the law and prophets pointed to the coming messianic era,79 which had now confronted them in his own ministry. Far from necessarily being later Christian language, such a claim fits Jesus’ vision of himself as special revealer of the kingdom (Matt 12:28//Lk 11:20).
Seeking to emphasize differences between Jesus and John, Crossan points out that Jesus further contrasts John with himself also in Matt 11:18-19//Lk 7:33- 34.80 The point of the contrast, however, denigrates not John but the hostile critics that John shares with Jesus: they reject the message whether it comes through the style of John or of Jesus, neither of which styles Jesus condemns.81 The charge that John the prophet “has a demon” could suggest a familiar spirit, such as those that belonged to magicians.82 Although his accusers could not enforce any punishment in the relatively pluralistic Judaism of first-century Palestine, under Jewish law such a charge involved a capital offense. Likewise, the charge that Jesus was a “glutton and a drunkard” alludes to the “rebellious son” of Deuteronomy 21:20 — also a capital offense.83 Jesus and John, despite their different styles, were God’s servants with a common opposition.