Exciting news from the Enoch Seminar about the next Nangeroni meeting. It will take place in January 2021 online, and the focus will be on John the Baptist! You can imagine how excited I am, given my own current research focus in this area. Below are provisional details. If youโre an academic who works in this area or in another that intersects with it (e.g. Dead Sea Scrolls, Gnosticism, Islamic studies) and you havenโt been invited to participate, let me or someone else connected with the Enoch Seminar know if youโd like to participate.
2021 Nangeroni Meeting on John the Baptist (online)
Tentative schedule
DAY 1 (Monday Jan 11, 2021)
9:00am โ Welcome โ 9:15am-9:45am โ Introduction
(-) 9:45-11:45 โ Who is my John the Baptist? Contemporary Scholarly Portraits.
- Joel Marcus, Joan Taylor, Edmondo Lupieri, Gabriele Boccaccini, Albert Baumgarten โฆ
(1) 12:30pm โ 2:15pm โ John the Baptist, the Temple, and the Priesthood
Was John a priest? What was his attitude towards the priesthood? Was his teaching or his baptism in opposition to the Temple? What was the attitude of the Temple and the Priesthood towards the preaching of John?
(2) 3-4:45 โ John the Baptist, Qumran, and the Essenes
Was John an Essene? Was he at Qumran? Which are the major similarities and differences between John and the Dead Sea Scrolls? How is Johnโs relationship to Essenism to be revised in light of the latest studies on the Essenes, the Scrolls and Qumran?
Day 2 (Tuesday Jan 12, 2021)
9:00am โ Welcome โ 9:15am-9:45am โ Recap session
(3) 10-11:45 โ John the Baptist and Jewish Apocalypticism (Enoch literature)
Can Johnโs preaching be interpreted in the light of Second Temple Jewish Apocalypticism? What is the relationship between Johnโs preaching and the latest phase of the Enochic literature reflected in the Book of Parables? Can we notice any evidence of the influence of Enochic or Apocalyptic theological discussions on Johnโs worldview? Can the Apocalypticism be traced back to the historical John or is it the result of the reinterpretation that the Synoptics provide?
(4) 12:30pm-2:15pm โ John as a Prophet: his Eschatological and Messianic Vision
How is John to be located within the various forms of Jewish prophetism and revelatory practices? Was John a โmysticโ? What was Johnโs eschatological outlook? Was his message mostly/all about judgment or was he first and foremost a prophet of restoration? Did he talk about the kingdom of God? Who was the Coming/Stronger One he announced? (The Davidic Messiah? A superhuman Messiah, e.g. the Son of Man? YHWH?) What did John think of himself? Did he claim to be the Elijah redivivus?
(5) 3-4:45 โ John and Politics
How did John react to the social, economic, and political troubles of his time? Did John have a social program? What was his attitude towards the wealthy? What was his attitude to Roman imperialism, the Jerusalem aristocracy and the Herodian house? Did Johnโs message have clear political implications, perhaps even revolutionary? What weight should be given to his political death in trying to reconstruct John as a truly historical person of his time rather than in more or less theological terms? What was his attitude toward Gentiles?
DAY 3 (Wednesday, Jan 13, 2021)
9:00 Welcome โ 9:15am-9:45am โ Recap session
(6) 10-11:45 โ John and the Law: Purity, and Other Halakhic Matters
What was Johnโs stance on the much debated question of purity in light of the other halakhic views known to us? How did he articulate the relationship between ritual/bodily (im)purity and moral/inner (im)purity? Did he considered sinners to be ritually unclean (and defiling?) as long as they remained unrepentant and unrighteous? Did he somehow conflate the two, so that immersing in water was seen as cleansing not only the body from ordinary levitical uncleanness โ or perhaps some special kind of sin-generated impurity โ but also the heart from sin? How are Markโs reports on John eating locusts and wild honey and wearing a garment of camelโs hair to be understood from a legal point of view? Do they testify to a peculiar halakhah and a claim of expertise on subtle legal questions on Johnโs part? Was John celibate? If so, was this related to purity concerns?
(7) 12:30pm-2:15pm โ Johnโs Baptism and the Forgiveness of Sins
What was the relations between Johnโs baptism and Second Temple ritual baths? For whom was Johnโs baptism devised: for all and everyone (i.e. all Israel) or specifically for the sinners? What is the precise relationship between Johnโs immersion, the repentance of those who undertook it, and the forgiveness of sins? Which description of his baptism deserves more credit: Josephusโ or Markโs? Was Johnโs baptism an โeschatological sacramentโ mediating forgiveness and effecting atonement and salvation? Did it impart the Holy Spirit?
(8) 3-4:45 โ John and the Historical Jesus
What was the relationship between John and Jesus? Was Jesus one of his disciples or did he simply approve Johnโs work โfrom outsideโ? Did Jesus subsequently break with John or in any case left Johnโs vision and concerns behind him in favor of a very different kind of message and activity? Or is Jesusโ ministry rather to be seen as a programmatic and consistent continuation of Johnโs work? What are the main aspects of continuity and discontinuity? How much of Johnโs teaching was taken up by Jesus? Was the Lordโs Prayer originally taught by John? Did Jesus baptize at first? If so, did he ever stop? Should Jesusโ purificatory healings of lepers and people possessed by โunclean spiritsโ be seen as a departure from or rather an extension of Johnโs (and Jesusโ) interest in purifying repentant sinners through immersion?
Day 4 (Thursday, Jan 14, 2021)
9:00 โ Welcome โ 9:15am โ 9:45am โ Recap session
(9) 10-11:45 โ The Memory and Legacy of John in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (Gospels, Acts, Josephus, Qurโan)
How was the memory of John reshaped by the various groups and authors who in various ways valued his figure for their own โagendasโ? Do the sources testify to the existence of a messianic โBaptist sectโ in competition to the Jesus movement? If so, at what stage?
(10) 12:30pm-2:15pm โ โJohn the gnostics, and the Mandeans (Pseudo-Clementine literature, Gnostic Literature, Mandaeism)
What role does the figure of John the Baptist play within Mandaeism? How is John represented in Nag Hammadiโs Gnostic texts? How is his relationship with Jesus articulated in the Psuedo-Clementine Homilies and Recognitiones?
(-) 3-4:45 โ Wrap-up session
A final panel of specialists discussing the results of the conference.
Also in amazing John the Baptist news, Joan Taylor made her bookย The Immerser: John the Baptist within Second Temple Judaism available for free online. This is one of the most important studies of John the Baptist and it is thrilling to see it freely available, not least at present when I am working on a book of my own about John the Baptist and need to consult Taylorโs book regularly!
Mostly unrelated to John the Baptist, but related to one of his disciples, is my review of a book byย Leonard J. Swidler,ย Three Jesus Certitudes: Pacifism, Feminism, and the Birth of Christianity. The review is now available inย Review of Biblical Literature.
Also, as we live in a time that witnessed an attempt to defund the National Endowment for the Humanities, I want to express my delight about as well as share a link to the press release indicating the good work they continue to do. Take a look at all the important work in so many areas, including the study of religion, that they support! See too this PALNI-funded Butler University project to digitize some of the artifacts in our collection in 3D.