Who was the real St John the Baptist?

Who was John the Baptist? He is a figure of immense biblical importance, recognised by the fact that the Church – in the West and the East – has typically given him more feast days than any other saint (outside of Mary). But what we know about him is quite strange.

We know that, according to the Gospels, he adopted some bizarre practices: he wore clothes made out of camel hair, ate only locusts and wild honey, lived in the wilderness and preached a baptism for the forgiveness of sins, and was the son of Elizabeth and Zechariah who served at the Temple in Jerusalem (Mark 1:4-6; Luke 1:5-11). We also know that he saw himself as somebody preparing the way for the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, and preached some fiery sermons of coming judgment (Luke 3:10-18).

How do we make sense of the way he lived and acted? Is he just an eccentric figure that didn’t quite fit into the cultural or religious landscape of the time? Or might there be some historical details that could put him in a new light?

To start, let’s examine one of the most important archaeological discoveries of the twentieth century.

The Dead Sea Scrolls

In the winter of 1946-7, an incredible discovery was made. On the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, Bedouin shepherds were hunting through caves for hidden gold when they stumbled upon something of far greater value: scrolls, preserved in almost pristine condition because of the jars they were in. These scrolls, nearly two thousand years old, included full manuscripts of the Old Testament prophet Isaiah (amongst other things). The State of Israel, upon discovering this, would spend tens of millions of dollars building a climate-controlled museum for these scrolls and invest in exploratory missions that discovered no less than eleven scroll-bearing caves in the limestone cliffs surrounding the ruins of an ancient dwelling called Qumran. What these scrolls revealed was the existence of a religious community that lived in a complex of buildings, with strict dietary and cultic rules, personal vows, and dedicated strictly to awaiting the prophesied Messiah of Israel. It was there they prepared themselves for the judgment he would bring to the world. These scrolls are known as the Dead Sea Scrolls.

This community was founded by someone referred to as "the Teacher of Righteousness", someone who believed they were part of a "new covenant" God was forming with Israel. Entry into the community was through a ritual washing with water, by which the Holy Spirit forgave their sins, and they celebrated daily meals of bread and wine as they awaited the return of the Son of David and God’s kingdom.

Whilst all this may sound familiar, it’s not the Catholic Church we’re talking about. Rather, this community was (to us) a lesser known sect of the Jews called the Essenes, and they took the prophet Isaiah’s words to heart: ‘A voice cried, “Prepare in the wilderness a way for Yahweh. Make a straight highway for our God across the desert”’ (40:3-5). From the perspective of Jerusalem, the wilderness was to the east, and they could travel no further east than the Dead Sea. So that was where they established their community, literally attempting to make a place in the desert for the Messiah. This text in Isaiah was fundamental to their identity.

The relevance this could have for John the Baptist is interesting. One of the foremost accessible scholars on this topic is a man named Dr John Bergsma, a professor of theology at the Franciscan University of Steubenville. His book, Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Image: New York, 2019), outlines some circumstantial evidence that could point to a greater understanding of who John the Baptist was.

John the Baptist

Bergsma’s theory is that John the Baptist had some kind of contact, perhaps a major formative experience in his youth, with this religious community. A key suggestive passage comes from the Gospel of Luke: ‘Meanwhile the child grew up and his spirit matured. And he lived out in the wilderness until the day he appeared openly to Israel’ (1:80). Without knowledge of a religious sect actually living in the wilderness to the east, preparing themselves for the coming judgment of the world, this passage sounds quite strange. Why did John the Baptist grow up in the wilderness when he had parents of a priestly line living in Jerusalem? Well, one answer comes with the knowledge that this desert religious community took vows of celibacy. They had no children of their own, and what the Dead Sea Scrolls reveal is that they would accept other people’s children and raise them in the community.

Since John the Baptist’s parents were quite old when he was born, it’s possible that he was sent to live with the Essenes in the wilderness when they died. Unless we’re willing to believe that a young boy raised himself in the desert, the phrase ‘in the wilderness’ is biblical code for this community.

Another interesting aspect of John the Baptist is that he ate little else than ‘locusts and wild honey’ (Mark 1:6). This is not a randomly chosen form of asceticism. One of the strict dietary rules governing the community was that they were forbidden from partaking of food that was prepared outside the community. There were loopholes, however, because some food that grew naturally in the environment, prepared by no one, didn’t qualify as ‘food’ and so was consistent with their vows. One of the scrolls discovered at Qumran describes how locusts were to be prepared if eaten – the only ancient evidence we have of locusts being eaten, outside of John the Baptist.

A final bit of evidence we might consider is the fact that this desert-dwelling religious community practiced a form of baptism as part of their preparation for the Messiah. The men who lived as part of this community washed daily but saw this washing as being of ritual significance. It was part and parcel of their repentance, a major concern in their preparation. Without sincere contrition, they believed the washing with water was ineffective.

With all of this in mind, we can understand John the Baptist much better: ‘so it was that John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins’ (Mark 1:4).

So what happened?

If John the Baptist was educated by the Essenes, why does he appear in the Gospels as a lone figure? This is where Bergsma’s theory enters more speculative territory but it’s interesting nonetheless. Fundamental to the belief system of this religious community was that the Messiah would only come for the Jews. They did not believe that the Gentiles had any place in the coming kingdom of God.

In the prophet Isaiah, however (a prophet highly honoured by the community), the Gentiles do have a place in the coming kingdom: ‘I am coming to gather the nations of every language. They shall come to witness my glory’ (Isaiah 66:18). Bergsma’s theory is that John the Baptist clashed with the community over this aspect and so was either expelled or left voluntarily. This might explain why he appears as a lone figure continuing to abide by the vows he took concerning food and celibacy. He believed he was remaining faithful to them and set out on his own to make way for the Messiah.

Even though this theory cannot be definitively proven, it would make sense of one of John’s more fiery messages: ‘and do not think of telling yourselves “We have Abraham for our father” because, I tell you, God can raise children for Abraham from these stones’ (Luke 3:8-9). John did not seem to think that God was in the business of restricting Abraham’s children to an exclusive bloodline.

What to make of it?

John Bergsma is not the only scholar to have drawn these connections. Fr Raymond Brown, a towering figure in twentieth century biblical scholarship, also thought these connections were plain as day.

This kind of scholarship is evidence of how helpful the work of history, archaeology, and comparative studies is in our interpretation of the Scriptures. If we were to simply read the text as if its interpretation were self-evident, we would miss so much that could otherwise be known with the help of curious and intelligent minds. The way the Bible is written, too, means that so much of the language and phraseology contains allusions we simply miss when rendered in English. Passages of Scripture that we might otherwise consider strange (like, 'he lived out in the wilderness') are actually tell-tale signs of a larger picture we don't often see.