Did Jesus know John the Baptist?

Did Jesus know John the Baptist before and after the baptism?

Jesus and John were relatives. Their mothers were cousins. Jesus was baptised at the Jordan River, where John had suddenly appeared dressed in a camel-hair garment. This was an event that brought people from far and wide, including the Jerusalem elite.

Did Jesus know John before this event? How much did they meet afterwards? Both suffered violent deaths.

What is the background to this relationship in the turbulent times of Israel?

Context is important. This includes religious history, dates and politics. 1. Dating So it is important, vital, to understand the priestly and political events of the time and also the dates of the writings. Luke’s gospel was clearly written during the period of the high-priesthood of Theophilus, son of Annas, son of Seth. He reigned from 37 to 41. Luke addresses him as ‘kratiste,’ Most Excellent, using the title applied to governors etc. Theophilus was then in office. As high priest recognized by Rome, Theophilus was the ethnarch, ruler of the people. When Luke wrote the book of Acts for him, he was no longer in office and therefore not called ‘Most Excellent’, as this would be a slur and even be seen as a treasonous act to the high priest then in office. Luke reminds Theophilus of the facts. John had a miraculous birth as his mother was ‘in old age’, beyond the age of normal childbirth. Miriam the mother of Jesus was ALSO post-menstrual, Luke 1:36. Furthermore Jesus rose from the dead and there were many witnesses of it including Romans, Luke 1:1. See Jesus, James, Joseph and the Temple on academia.edu/43233588 2. Why the shock of John? John’s appearance on Jordan was a shock event for the priestly dynastic family of Annas. The Jerusalem elite came to the banks of the Jordan. It brought up the nightmare, earlier events of the past, of which they were clearly guilty. What was the scandal? John and Jesus were born at the end of Herod’s despotic life. Two political events are important here. First, two scholars made an attempt to purify the Temple in anticipation of the prophesied coming of the Messiah. They pulled down a pagan eagle at the entrance to the Temple. It glorified the goddess Victory and the Roman legions. Then came a broader revolt which ended in armed Roman intervention and the bloody War of Varus. Thousands of the faithful were crucified. Sepphoris, the reclaimed northern capital in Galilee, was burnt and its inhabitants sold into slavery. 3. Murder in the Temple The Seth dynasty of priests seized power and supplanted the Boethusean priesthood by force and bloodshed. John’s father, Zacharias, was probably killed then ‘between the altar and the Holy Place.’ A subservient high priesthood was set up in Jerusalem as the Roman controller to keep a lid on religious revolt. Then Annas and the other sons of Seth changed some of the festival calendar and introduced other foreign Temple customs. 4. What’s in a name? The mothers of John and Jesus knew each other. Their fathers too. Troubles began with a religious dispute, escalated to civil war then bloody Roman destruction. How were John and Jesus affected by this bloody war and what were religious backgrounds of John and Jesus? History shows they left Israel in two different directions. Why? Safety and to provide double security for continuing the priestly line. Both John and Jesus derived their priestly prominence because of their high Aaronic pedigree. The names of their mothers show it. They were cousins and both ‘daughters of Aaron’ Luke 1:5. John’s mother was named Elizabeth (Hebrew Elisheva, the same as the name of Aaron’s wife) and Jesus’s Mariam in NT Greek (Hebrew Miriam, the name of the prophetess and sister of Aaron and Moses). Names were not, as today, chosen at random. They recalled verified genealogy. The women were cousins descended directly from Aaron (Luke 1:5). When the son was named Jechoniah and not Zacharias like his father, it caused shock and surprise. 'Fear came on all that dwelt round about' Jerusalem and Judea, Lk 1:65. Why? because it reflected back to the genealogy of Elisheva’s line, recalling Onias, the high priest in Jerusalem who fled to Egypt for safety when Antiochus Epiphanes desecrated the Temple, Josephus War, bk 1. Onias built a duplicate of the Temple at Heliopolis and taught priests the rituals so they would not be lost. John’s birth and naming revealed many secrets and exposed the guilty.

5. Herod initially tried to control the priesthood Note that, when Herod took power, there was no true Aaronic priest in office. Initially Herod, an enthusiastic pagan, had put into priestly office those without genealogical right to the Holy Place, says Josephus. The male Aaronic line had been killed off. But a son of a ‘daughter of Aaron’ could claim office because the grandfather was an Aaronic priest. When the NT stresses that Elizabeth and Mariam were both ‘daughters of Aaron’ it casts a slur on the genuineness of the priests that had seized office (Joshua son of Seth and Annas of Seth). It also implies that all the authentic sons of Aaron had been killed or were in hiding. 6. What family, what person was the last true Aaronic priest? Go back further. Two decades before their birth, Caesar Augustus had agreed to a peace treaty with its main enemy, Parthia, which was ruled by the Hebrew-speaking Arsacid dynasty, favourable to Israel and the Jews. It insisted on religious restoration too, including that of the high-priest dynasty. That treaty reshaped the world, till then divided in two. Parthia had trading relations as far as China and controlled parts of India. Under this historic pact, Rome agreed on the reconstruction of the Temple under the legitimate Aaronic priesthood of Sim(e)on Boethus. Herod was forced to concur. Simon returned from Egyptian exile to the shock of the nation. Simon had authenticated Aaronic pedigree. He wasn’t rich but he became the lever that broke Herod’s grip on power. Herod had married into the previous priestly dynasty, the Hasmoneans, hoping this would ensure loyalty of the population. He had forced a marriage to the daughter of that previous priestly house, even though priestly daughters were forbidden to marry outside the tribes of Israel. The Hasmonean priestly line had died out. The last one, Aristobulus, was killed by Herod’s Gauls. Herod put in place people who had no genealogical right to the office. The contrast was stark. Now it was clear that these fraudulent priesthoods had nothing to show compared to Simon’s. It was also obvious that they had become corrupt and Hellenised. Herod divorced this wife, Mariamne I, the last daughter from the Hasmonean/ Maccabee dynasty. Herod forced a further marriage. The daughter of Simon became his queen, Mariamne II. Who were these legitimate Boethusean priests who had taken shelter in Egypt during the wars and syncretic paganisation of the Maccabees? John’s naming showed he was part of the family. 7. Simon Boethus Simon remained high priest and reconstructed the Temple until he was retired by Herod just before the birth of Jesus. Boethus is probably not a name but the crude Greek version of his dynastic claim. It was also useful for this not to be too obvious as the priests that got killed first were those with the most authentic genealogy. What does Boethus signify? It is probably the Greek for Beth Yesse. That would imply that the Simonian priesthood were intermarried with the Davidic line. David was the son of Yesse. 8. Where did the child, Jesus, go? Forty days after his birth Jesus was presented in the Temple where he was received by Sim(e)on. He is described as righteous, the term used often for the authentic high-priestly family. He prophesies. Simeon praises God for the coming deliverance of the country through this child as Savior. Simon met the family in the Temple at the time of their purification ceremony and no doubt recorded the genealogical details in the archives as we see it in Matt 1 (Greek and Hebrew). The beginning of Matthew’s gospel dates from this time. Having disclosed in Bethlehem that he was of the family of David and heir to his throne, Joseph could no longer stay in Israel. Herod was becoming more and more crazed with acute disease, conspiracies and killing potential rivals. Jesus was taken to the same place where Simon had found safety against persecution. His father and mother took him to Egypt when he was a toddler, paidion. 9. Where did John go? What happened to John? Luke tells us diplomatically that he went East and 'dwelt in the desert' Lk 1:80. Matthew is more specific. At thirty he returned from exile dressed in the costume of that country. He wore a camel-hair garment and Hebrew Matthew adds a black leather belt (Roman leather was brown). See Why did John wear a camel-hair garment and a black belt? academia.edu/44001253. Parthia, the super-power in the East, had vast resources of camels and horses. They often went into battle with multiple thousand camels, the general himself having a baggage train of a thousand, according to Plutarch: Crassus #21 in Rawlinson’s Parthia. John’s dress implies he came directly from Parthia. (Hebrew Matthew is more specific.) It is unlikely that he previously met Jesus though he would obviously know of his relatives, equally under death threat, especially on the important topic of priestly succession. Jesus clearly came from a senior branch of Aaronic priests, although he was younger. ‘It behoves him (Jesus) to increase, but me to decrease,’ Jn 3:30. It was a matter of precedence and prophecy. 10. Why did John’s appearance on the Jordan make such an impact? Firstly he came out of exile from Rome’s hereditary enemy. Secondly he denounced the pro-Roman Quisling priesthood that displaced by force and bloodshed that of Simon the righteous. Thirdly, his own father Zacharias was probably killed by this clique, Matt 23:35. Fourthly, he preached repentance not revenge. He led the people to baptism as a sign of their already changed lives to virtue: burial of the past in the waters. Josephus Antiq 18,5,2 (117). Baptism signifies burial and resurrection to a new spiritual life. This was like the mikva a personal process in front of witnesses, not a dunking by a preacher to wash away sins. It is possible therefore that this was the first meeting of Jesus with his cousin since infancy. Their parallel lives came to the same conclusions and similar actions, reinforcing that God’s covenant with Israel demanded virtue and obedience to his laws. 11. Only 2 Rabbis in NT. In the Hebrew Yosippon – which may reflect the Hebrew version that Josephus says he sent to Parthia and Scythia before writing the Greek ‘Jewish War’ – John is called ‘Rabbi John the Baptist High Priest’. Yes, high priest.

He had right to this office through Elizabeth/ Elisheva not his father Zacharias. John is also called ‘Rabbi’ in the NT but it did not mean leader of a synagogue in the first century. All the documents and epigraphical remains of the period call the leader of the synagogue an archisynagogos or archon, as does the NT. ‘Rabbi’ means ‘anointed’ in Aramaic. Jesus is the only other person called Rabbi in first century literature. He is referred to more than a dozen times as priest or high priest in the book of Hebrews. He is also called Great Priest, Faithful High Priest (= Chief Priest) and Teacher, that is, the despotes of the Temple. The teacher was the controller of the Temple and it was off limits to Romans and non-Israelites. The Teacher is teaching high priests. He catechized priests like Theophilus in the Temple, Luke 1:4 Gk, katechethes. After his resurrection, James / Jacob, his brother, was in control of the Temple rituals. All early writers, like Hegesippus, Eusebius, Jerome and others, confirm that James as Sagan or Teacher was permitted to enter the Holy Place and pray there for Israel on a daily basis. 12. John as Family Defender, Goel. When Herod the Tetrarch seduced the wife of Herod (Philip) the son of Mariamne II, John risked and lost his life to defend the honor of the family. This incident is described in Josephus Antiq 18.5 (109) and in the NT in Matt 14. It was the duty of the goel, or Redeemer, as head of the family to right the wrongs of relatives and if necessary buy back a relative from slavery. In this case, Herod imprisoned him. The wife is named Herodias and Josephus names the daughter who requested the head of John the Baptist on a charger as Salome. This incident shows that John was indeed a high priest and related to Mariamne II, the daughter of Simon Boethus. 13. Seniority Thus we have two high priests of the authentic Aaronic family, John and Jesus, who grew up separately. John was raised in Parthia. Jesus in Egypt where Simon Boethus retained the true faith. He was then in Nazareth – the genealogical center of northern Israel, the Yeshana of Sepphoris. Why did John cede to Jesus? Firstly Jesus was anointed possibly by Simon in the Temple after his birth when Simeon declared he was the Messiah, then by John at the baptism with the heavenly signs and divine voice, Hebrew: bat kol. Secondly, Jesus had both high priestly pedigree through his mother and his father, and also royal blood through Joseph as the genealogy of Matt 1 shows. A king has the right over a high priest, for example, to dismiss him. 14. The ‘Essene’ incident Did John and Jesus meet much after the baptism event? There is little to say they did. The incident of Mt 11 where John in prison sends two disciples to enquire whether Jesus was definitely the Messiah, ‘the one to come’, suggests that they did not meet previously to discuss this. Jesus replies that the sick were being healed; the blind were given back their sight; lepers are cleansed, deaf hear and the dead are raised. That seems an extraordinary list ending with the dead being raised. But it does not end there. Jesus adds what to materialists may seem incongruous: ‘the poor have the Gospel preached to them.’ This is clearly more important than all the rest. It speaks of the coming Kingdom of God. What is also remarkable is that this unusual order of events is repeated in what is considered an Essean document among the Dead Sea Scrolls, 4Q521 called ‘Redemption and Resurrection.’ It says ‘The Eternal shall do glorious things that have not been done, just as he said. For he shall heal the critically wounded. He shall revive the dead. He shall send good news to the afflicted.’ This implies that both were in communication through this group who represented the combined royal line and priestly line in Israel.

How old was Jesus when he became Teacher-Priest?

Luke 3 describes the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist. John, six months older than Jesus, was then imprisoned and executed by Herod. John was an Aaronic priest through his mother Elizabeth. His father, Zacharias, was also a priest but not of such a highly esteemed family.
Luke then puts the spotlight on Jesus. He was a son of Mariam who like her cousin Elizabeth, Lk 1:5, was also of 'the daughters of Aaron'. They could trace their family back to Elisheba, wife of Aaron, and Miriam sister of Aaron and Moses. Luke then gives the priestly lineage of Jesus from Joseph to Adam.
The Bible says that a priest had to be 30 years old before he took up the mature, senior office of priest, Num 4:3. "From thirty years old and above, even to fifty years old..." (Some other junior posts could start when men reached twenty.)

"Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age," says Luke in 3:21.

But if Jesus was born in the autumn of 3 BCE and died at Passover 30 CE after 3 1/2 years mission, how could he be 30 when he started the mission? That would mean he started his mission in the autumn of 26 CE. Are there 30 years between 3BCE and 26CE?
That depends how you count them and Luke is very clear. The King James Version (KJV) says he began to be 'about' 30. The Greek however does not use the normal word 'peri' for 'about'. It uses another word for 'about' which invokes a comparison, oosei.
Why? Clearly it is drawing a distinction between the Greek or Roman calculation or arithmetic and the Hebrew.
Luke is after all writing to the Most Excellent Theophilus, chapter 1:3. This son of high priest Annas of the gospels, Theophilus, was put in office as the high priest in 37 CE by Vitellius who replaced Pontius Pilate. He was thus ethnarch or political leader of the nation. As such he was addressed with the respectful title of Most Excellent or Most Noble, kratiste.
He  was educated. He knew how to count in Greek and also in the Hebrew Torah!
Following the death of Tiberius who gave 7 years of peace to Nazarenes and Jews, Gaius Caligula threatened the entire Jewish people. He commanded that his statue should be placed and worshipped in all synagogues. Massacres of Jews took place in Alexandria, Egypt under Roman governor Flaccus and elsewhere. Then Caligula announced that he would place a huge golden idol of himself as Jupiter in the Temple itself. He would move the center of the Roman empire to the Temple and install himself there after having his divine status confirmed in Egypt by its pagan priests.
The cause of Caligula's wrath against the Jews? The Resurrection of Jesus the Christ -- which Tiberius had acknowledged as a fact but which threatened the fragile myths of the Roman gods, the invention of men.
Theophilus was high priest during the whole reign of Caligula. He needed to be stalwart in character to resist wisely with the minimum of bloodshed. That depended on his knowledge and education. How was he educated? By a teaching priest. Luke says:

"Seeing that many did take in hand to set in order a narration of the matters that have been fully assured among us, as they did deliver to us who from the beginning became eye-witnesses and officers of the Word, it seemed good also to me, having followed from the first after all things exactly, to write to you in order, Most Noble Theophilus, that you may know the certainty of the things wherein you were catechised." Lk 1 Literal translation 

Yes, a teacher catechised a potential high priest and one new in office to understand and fulfill all the complex rites and rituals. He was also informed about all recent political events that would effect the Jewish nation. He was the nominal head of government under the Romans. Theophilus had a very delicate task to perform.
In 37 James (Jacob) the brother of Jesus was recognised as the Superintendent (sagan or bishop) of the Temple and matters pertaining to the ordering of priests (see Acts 15 and 21:17).  Luke and the other gospels record that the resurrection of Jesus had been witnessed by all at Jerusalem. The priests in the Temple had a full view of the Ascension of Jesus forty days later from the nearby Mount of Olives.
What is a Teacher-Priest? To understand the basics we must rid ourselves of centuries of misinformation and gentile, antisemitic propaganda. Jesus is called throughout the Gospels, 'Teacher'. An unknown person, who according to the common "Christian" belief was a carpenter and who suddenly decided to become a roaming preacher, would not in first century Israel be called a Teacher. He would be called a carpenter. He would also be dismissed as a vagabond.
Jesus taught priests and lawyers in the Temple, many times. Obviously he had better education about the Temple and the Law than they had. He commanded their attention by his authoritative presentations and cutting reprimands, Matt 23. He called them hypocrites and blind guides.
A Temple Teacher must not only have deep learning but also an authentic pedigree to even enter the Holy Place. Genealogies were checked at the outer gates. He could not enter to teach priests if he had not fulfilled the requirements of priest himself. He must have been legally at least 30 years old in 26/27 CE.
So let us go to the Bible rather than traditions of a sect. Teacher in Hebrew is Moreh. It is a title. We find the term Teacher-Priest or Teaching Priest in the early days of the Temple. In Hebrew it is Cohen-Moreh. In 2 Chronicles 15:3 we learn that King Asa of Judah was greatly helped when the post of Teacher-Priest was re-established.

"For many days Israel was without a true God, and without a teaching priest (cohen moreh), and without law (Torah, teaching)."

Asa was the son of Abijah, the son of Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, the son of king David.
He carried out a reform and purified the land of idolatry. This might seem costly in one sense as it required righteousness and energy. But the whole land was in turmoil, city against city and nations were against nations in the area. He destroyed idols. Asa's reforms were a disruption only to those who were not believers in the true God. That included some of his own family.

The result was that peace reigned instead of internal turmoil and external wars. In reality righteousness was a very inexpensive policy and it was a sure-fire way of protecting national security.

In 15:2 Asa was told: "The Eternal is with you while you are with him. If you seek him he will be found of you."

Soon after he started the reform, Judah and Israel were faced with a massive invasion from Egypt, then controlled by the Ethiopians and led by Zerah. He expected easy pickings from the what he had heard of turmoil and wars.
All Judah could muster as an army was 280,000 men. That is a considerable army in modern terms. But it was far outclassed by the Ethiopian army. They numbered one million!
In spite of being massively outnumbered the Jews vanquished the invaders.
Thus instituting reform towards the true God of Israel was the best insurance policy that anyone could ever have.
So what was the office of Teacher-Priest? This post is mentioned to Aaron in Leviticus 10:11, so it is very ancient. When the Bible uses the term Teacher it does not mean 'preacher'. That is a Protestant term. It means teacher of Torah. It is associated with the Temple. Who was the Teacher-Priest in the time of Jesus?
The lineage that follows in Luke 3 shows that Joseph, his father, was this teacher before him and Heli or Eli before him. Joseph is called a tekton in the gospels. This word means 'technical expert'. It does not mean carpenter in the Jewish context. It means expert teacher of the Torah. Jesus too was a tekton, a teacher.  From Asa's experience we see that a Hebrew tekton was a master of security for the nation because he could turn Jews and their surrounding gentiles to God.
Josephus, the first century historian, calls Jesus a teacher and also refers to him by another Greek word in the famous passage in Antiquities book 18. That is poietes, a divinely inspired prophet.  (Our English word 'poet' derives from this word.) Jesus, he said, was

"a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer (poietes) of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was the Anointed of God (Christ)."

So we have not only a priest and teacher but an anointed one. Anointing was not performed for the  high priests, like Theophilus, Annas or Caiaphas. The Talmud records that an anointed priest is in a higher category of holiness from an unanointed one and the latter must withdraw before him.
So having established that Jesus had this special, divine office of Teaching Priest, how can we show he was of an age that allowed him to take office, namely 30 years?
Understanding how the Hebrews counted reigns of kings and priests will explain why the Bible does not mention that king X reigned 5 years three months and two days. It always gives a whole number of years. Why?
In the Hebrew scriptures, the dates of kings and priests were governed by regnal years. Instead of noting a specific date in the calendar when the last king died and counting the days, the method was to note who was the king on the first day of the beginning of the civil year and then count the number of years that this applied. The civil year began on the first day of the month of Tishri, the Feast of Trumpets.
Counting the number of number of these feast days gives the length of the regnal years for the king. If a king B took over from his father king A in January and stayed on the throne until Trumpets, then he had reigned a year. If he died before Trumpets he would not have reigned that year, but the year would be given to the next king C who was in office on Trumpets. This would be noted as C's first year. The chronologer would not bother to note that he had only reigned a few months of that year.
So how does this apply to Christ?
According to the calculation made by Dr Ernest L Martin in his book, The Star that astonished the World, Jesus was born at the beginning of the first of Tishri at the start of the Feast of Trumpets, 3 BCE.
So we can calculate:
3 BCE to 2BCE is one year.
3 BCE to 1 BCE is two years.
Then we have to remember that there was no year zero. The next year is 1 CE.
3 BCE to 1 CE is 3 years.
3 BCE to 6 CE is 8 years.
3 BCE to 26 CE is 28 years!

So how could Jesus be reckoned to be 30?
Firstly, we should note that Jesus was born at the beginning of Trumpets -- at night. Hebrew days begin at sunset and end at sunset. There were shepherds in the field at night who announced that he had been born in their crib in their tents. (Jesus, James Joseph chapter 15)
So what part of the whole day of the Feast of Trumpets was the critical time that marked the king's reign and distinguished it from the previous king?
The clue is in the name -- Feast of Trumpets. It was the time when the trumpets sounded. If this was midday, then if the king B died before the trumpet he was without the regnal year.  If he took office only just before and died a few seconds after the trumpet he had reigned a whole year!
So we must count the time before the trumpets of 3 BCE as the first year of Jesus's life. The second year started with the Trumpet and continued to the next first of Tishri in 2 BCE.
So the calculation should read as following:
Birth to the time of Trumpets 3 BCE year one
3 BCE to 2 BCE 2 years.
3 BCE to 1 BCE is three years.
3 BCE to 26 CE is 29 years.

But aren't we still a year short of 30?

That's when we need to look at the gospel of Luke again. Luke 3:23 says:

"And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being according to Torah law (Greek does not mean 'supposed' as Jerome mistranslated it into Latin for doctrinal purposes. The word 'enomizeto' means regulated and according to nomos, Hebrew or Torah Law, literally legalized)  son of Joseph, ... "

Jesus was beginning his thirtieth year. Come the1st of Tishri, this would all be recognized as his year.  Under Hebrew law he was entitled to count this year. As Jesus was alive on this next feast of Trumpets, we can say with Luke Jesus was beginning to be thirty years and fully qualified to be priest.
Jesus, James, Joseph and the past and future Temple is available free on www.academia.edu/25051668 or in bookshops.