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The First Christian Believer: In Search of John the Baptist by R. Nir (review)
Neotestamentica Pub Date : 2021-03-24
Barrie A. Wilson

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:

  • The First Christian Believer: In Search of John the Baptist by R. Nir
  • Barrie A. Wilson
Nir, R. 2019. The First Christian Believer: In Search of John the Baptist. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix. Hardcover. ISBN 978-1910928554. Pp. 342. $90.

Rivka Nir is noted for meticulous, careful dissection of ancient texts, having established an excellent reputation with her Destruction of Jerusalem and the Idea of Redemption in the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch (2003) and Joseph and Aseneth: A Christian Book (2012). This book follows in that vein with a detailed literary analysis of Josephus and the relevant biblical texts. Her thesis is straightforward:

. . . I have attempted to prove that the figure of John the Baptist, as reflected in all our available sources, is filtered through a Christian prism. He is depicted not as a Jewish prophet, apocalypticist or ascetic but as a Christian who speaks for the ideas and beliefs of Christian theology and its core faith in the messiah Jesus.

(258)

Her arguments are impressive and well worth consideration in this yet another quest for the historical personage behind a received narrative. She contends that we cannot now know the John the Baptist of history: Christian theology has intervened and John is presented as a Christian witnessing to Jesus. John is not a Jew working out of the conceptual matrix of Second Temple Judaism. So his baptism is not a form of a [End Page 411] Jewish mikvah nor that of the immersion ritual of the Dead Sea Scroll community at Qumran. His was different.

Nir’s methodology is that of detailed historical literary analysis, examining key ideas and situating them in the context of what we know of Second Temple Judaism and emerging Christianity of the late first century, the period that the Gospel writers reflect. Her major evidence has to do with the concept cluster in which the Gospels present John the Baptist. The conceptual landscape is Christian. Ideas such as “repentance,” “kingdom of heaven,” “the coming one,” “baptism,” “forgiveness of sins,” “holy spirit,” “the wrath to come” and “fruit worthy of repentance” are all interpreted in accordance with evolving Christian belief. The Jewish and Christian understanding of these concepts differ and Nir outlines the contrasts clearly. Repentance, in its Jewish sense, for instance, as a return to the covenant with God as expressed in Torah, is just not present in the Gospel accounts of John the Baptist.

Similarly Josephus’s description of John the Baptist’s water ritual makes it clear that his ritual is not a Pharisaic baptism but an early Christian one. Nir carefully analyses the text, pointing out that the action is “a collective mass baptism under the administration of one person, which must be preached and proclaimed to be administered.” This along with “its characterization as an initiatory baptism into an elect group” (258) are hallmarks of the Christian rite of baptism.

Moreover, John’s baptism “combines physical purification with inner moral spiritual purification, in which the latter constitutes a prerequisite for the former” (258). This contrasts with a Jewish Pharisaic baptism, which is a different ritual in which immersion signifies cleansing the body from various states of impurity. The contexts differ, significantly.

This, in turn, argues for the view that Josephus’s account of John the Baptist is “not from the hand of the Jewish historian but a late interpolation written by a Christian or a Jewish Christian” (259). That finding is bound to be controversial but it adds to the suspicion that the passages about Jesus and James, brother of Jesus, have all been inserted into Josephus’s text by later Christian hands. Thus Josephus is not an independent witness to the subject matter of the Gospels.

Nir’s meticulous study has implications for the larger question concerning “the parting of the ways.” The distinctions she draws out carefully delineate lines between the beliefs and practices of Second Temple Judaism and its early rabbinic modifications on the one hand and [End Page 412] developing Christian theology on the other hand. There are important boundaries which should not be blurred.

Nir’s findings that John the Baptist is portrayed in neither the canonical Gospels nor in Josephus as a mysterious...



中文翻译:

第一位基督徒信徒:R。Nir寻找施洗约翰(评论)

代替摘要,这里是内容的简要摘录:

审核人:

  • 第一个基督教信徒:约翰在搜索浸会由R.尼尔
  • 巴里·威尔逊(Barrie A.Wilson)
Nir,R.2019年。《第一个基督徒信徒:寻找施洗约翰》。谢菲尔德:谢菲尔德凤凰城。精装。ISBN 978-1910928554。Pp。342. $ 90。

里夫卡·尼尔(Rivka Nir)因精心细致地剖析古代文献而著称,在《毁灭耶路撒冷》和《巴鲁克叙事世界》(2003年)以及《约瑟夫与阿森尼思:一本基督教书》(2012年)中赢得了极高的声誉。本书紧随其后,对约瑟夫(Josephus)及其相关的圣经文本进行了详尽的文学分析。她的论文很简单:

。。。我试图证明,在我们所有可用资料中所反映的施洗约翰的身影都是通过基督教棱镜过滤的。他不是被描述为犹太先知,启示论者或禁欲主义者,而是被描述为基督教神学的思想和信仰及其对弥赛亚耶稣的核心信仰的基督徒。

(258)

她的论点令人印象深刻,值得我们考虑,这是对叙事背后的历史人物的又一次追求。她认为,我们现在不知道历史的浸信会约翰:基督教神学介入了,约翰被奉为基督徒的耶稣见证人。约翰不是在第二圣殿犹太教的概念矩阵之外工作的犹太人。所以他的洗礼是不是一个形式[尾页411]犹太mikvah也不是在库姆兰的死海古卷社区的浸泡仪式。他与众不同。

尼尔(Nir)的方法论是详细的历史文学分析方法,研究主要思想并将其置于我们对第二圣殿犹太教和福音派作家所反映的第一世纪后期基督教的了解的背景下。她的主要证据与福音派代表施洗约翰的观念有关。概念上的风景是基督教。诸如“悔改”,“天国”,“来世”,“洗礼”,“宽恕罪孽”,“圣灵”,“将要发怒”和“值得悔改的果子”之类的观念都得到了解释。根据不断发展的基督教信仰。犹太人和基督教徒对这些概念的理解不同,尼尔(Nir)清楚地概述了这些对比。以犹太人的意义为例,悔改是对《摩西五经》中表达的与上帝立约的回归,

同样,约瑟夫斯(Josephus)对施洗约翰的水仪式的描述也清楚地表明,他的仪式不是法利赛式的洗礼,而是基督教的早期洗礼。尼尔(Nir)仔细分析了案文,指出该行动是“在一个人的管理下进行的集体大规模洗礼,必须宣扬并宣布要予以管理。” 这连同“其被描述为向一个选民团体发起的洗礼”(258)是基督教洗礼仪式的标志。

此外,约翰的洗礼“将身体净化与内在道德精神净化结合在一起,后者构成了内在道德精神净化的先决条件”(258)。这与犹太法利赛洗礼形成鲜明对比,后者是一种不同的仪式,其中浸入意味着将身体从各种杂质状态中清除出来。上下文明显不同。

反过来,这也证明了约瑟夫斯对施洗约翰的叙述“不是来自犹太历史学家的手,而是基督教徒或犹太基督教徒所写的晚期内插法”(259)。这一发现注定是有争议的,但它增加了人们的怀疑,即后来的基督徒之手把关于耶稣和耶稣兄弟的詹姆斯的文章全部插入了约瑟夫斯的著作中。因此,约瑟夫斯不是福音主题的独立见证者。

尼尔(Nir)的细致研究对涉及“道路分离”的更大问题产生了影响。她一方面仔细地画出了区别,另一方面在第二圣殿犹太教的信仰和实践与早期犹太教的修改之间形成了鲜明的界线,另一方面,[End Page 412]发展了基督教神学。有重要的界限,不应模糊。

尼尔(Nir)的发现,在规范的福音书和约瑟夫斯(Josephus)中都没有将施洗约翰描绘成神秘的...

更新日期:2021-03-24
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