This evening I\u2019ll be presenting to the New Testament Seminar at Columbia University<\/a>.\u00a0Here\u2019s the title and abstract of my talk:<\/p>\n \u201cThe Influence of John the Baptist on Jesus\u2019 Teaching\u201d<\/p>\n Disciples and students inevitably reflect the impact and influence of their teachers, even when they resist or reject that influence. Whatever Jesus\u2019 precise stance towards his mentor over the course of his public activity, it is reasonable to expect to find evidence that can aid us in reconstructing the teaching and emphases of John himself. By working deductively (in a manner that reflects our understanding of the influence ancient teachers had on their students), we can say more about the teaching of John the Baptist than is usually acknowledged. Triangulating between the New Testament sources, Josephus, Mandaean texts, and other relevant works helps bring the portrait into sharper focus.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I\u2019m going to share here some things that I think may be of interest and useful to those who attend, some of which I plan to mention and others of which may come up in the Q&A.<\/p>\n First, I make the case for looking for influences of and even quotations from the words of John the Baptist in Jesus\u2019 teaching by pointing out how Paul\u2019s ethical teaching echoes that of Jesus, and not just when he directly attributes things to Jesus.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll then move on to the few places where the New Testament actually attributes the same words and phrases to both John and Jesus. They tell us something about the impression early Christians had about the continuity between the two. From there I\u2019ll move on to places where the connection is not explicit but I think the case can be made. (I won\u2019t share those things here. No spoilers for anyone who might be there tonight who reads my blog, just a trailer and teasers!)<\/p>\n I will make reference to the Mandaean Book of John and so here is a link to the open access edition of the translation that Charles\u00a0H\u00e4berl and I published<\/a>. There are, in the Book of John, things that we might call parables, including one about a soul fisher (is that essentially the same thing as \u201cfishing for people\u201d?) and even one about a good shepherd!<\/p>\n Of related interest to baptism and the activity of John the Baptist, there are two really useful articles about the washing requirement in Torah<\/a> and how it came to be understood in terms of full immersion<\/a>. There have been several excavations of mikva\u2019ot (immersion pools) recently including this one:<\/p>\n 2,000-Year-Old Mikvah in Jezreel Valley Hoisted to Safe Location<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n