John the baptist’s appearance in Josephus.

During the Jewish War of 66-70CE, a Pharisee militia leader named Joseph bar Matthew, based on his own wonky studies of the End Times, came to the conclusion the commanding general on the Roman side, Titus Flavius Vespasianus (whom historians call “Vespasian”) was Messiah. Or at least that’s what Joseph told Vespasian after he was captured.

Vespasian was amused, and kept Joseph around as a slave and translator. That is, till he realized he had a really good chance to be emperor, seized it, and left Joseph in Judea with the new commanding general, his son Titus Flavius Vespasianus Junior (“Titus”). Titus is the guy who had Jerusalem burnt down and the temple destroyed in 70, and nine years later became emperor himself. He freed Joseph, and after gaining Roman citizenship, Joseph renamed himself Flavius Josephus after Titus’s family.

We best know Josephus as an historian, mainly for two of his Greek-language books: The Jewish War, a history from Herod the Worst to the end of the war, and his memories of it; and Jewish Antiquities, a history of Israel and Judea. It’s in The Jewish War, book 18, where he makes mention of John the baptist in a chapter about Herod Antipas’s war with Aretas, king of Arabia. (My translation.)

116Some of the Judeans are thinking Herod’s army’s destruction was from God, and rightly so—as punishment for his revenge on John, called “the baptist.” 117Indeed Herod murdered this good man. John was commanding the Judeans to be virtuous towards one another and pious towards God. He was using baptism to help them understand, for this ritual washing was acceptable to God—it will appear to him, not like a certain sin-offering, nor a prayer one could use, but like purifying the body. Therefore before one could be righteous, a soul was cleaned out. 118Those who gathered together to hear John were pleased at much of the teachings they heard. Herod feared John’s strongly persuaded people, lest some of them trigger a revolt, for everyone accepted and followed John’s counsel. Herod considered it better to do this before some new follower of John came to imagine a change in the system, and try something. 119On Herod’s suspicion, John was preemptively made a prisoner, and sent to the fortress Maherús to kill him. In the Judeans’ opinion, the destruction of the army became God’s punishment; he wanted to do evil to Herod.

We have no idea whether Josephus ever read the gospels, all of which had been written by the time of the war. Clearly he didn’t believe Jesus is Messiah… although some overzealous Christian got hold of Antiquities book 18, and altered the one passage which had anything to say about Jesus. Probably he found it blasphemous. Well now it’s not; it now says this, and is obviously not Josephus.

63At this time comes Jesus, a wise man—assuming it’s right to say “man,” for he’s a doer of paradoxical works; a teacher of people who are pleased to get the truth, who drew many Judeans and many Greeks. This man is Christ. 64On the evidence of the head men among us, Pilate ordered him to the cross. Not that those who first loved him stopped following, for he appeared to them alive again on the third day. The divine prophets had foresaid this, and other countless wonderful things about him. To this day the “Christians,” named for him, have not fallen as a tribe.

So it’s not outside the realm of possibility the bit about John the baptist was also altered, or inserted by Christians who wanted to make sure one of our prophets is in Josephus’s history.

Virtual churches.

Back in 2020, before there were COVID vaccines and the pandemic was still raging, we Californians were voluntarily isolating ourselves, and a lot of churches switched to online services. Mine did. Our pastor would record his sermon from his office or from home. The musicians would record their worship music separately. It’d all get edited together, then uploaded to YouTube so people could watch it Sunday morning.

Or Sunday night. Or Monday morning. Or whenever they got round to watching it. That’s the nice thing about videos of a church service: You can watch them whenever you want. However you want: If there’s a particular song you’re so very tired of, you can skip it! If the worship team has the bad habit of repeating the chorus 30 times at the end, you can skip past the last 29 repeats. If the pastor spends the first 15 minutes of any sermon talking about football, especially if he roots for the wrong team, skip that too. If he speaks too slow, crank it up to double speed! If she speaks too fast, you can even slow her down a little (and it’ll have that fun side effect of making her sound a little bit drunk). And if you wanna watch all the sermons in a series at once, you can binge-watch ’em.

Obviously there are downsides to “virtual church.” You can’t be there to participate. If the pastor says, “Turn to your neighbor and pray for them,” you can’t. If they’re having holy communion, you can pause the video and dig around your pantry for saltines and grape-flavored Kool-Aid so you can take ’em in sync with the recording, but it’s still not the communal ritual it’s meant to be. There are no real live Christians to interact with; just a service. And the real live Christians are the point.

This is why a lot of churches back then refused to move their services online, and insisted on having in-person church services, dangerous virus or no dangerous virus. Like the snake-handlers, they insisted God would honor their faith, and protect ’em despite their irresponsible behavior. Bluntly, a lot of ’em weren’t actually doing it because the church is people, and they didn’t want take the people out of their services. They were doing it ’cause they wanted to give the middle finger to the government for making ’em do anything they didn’t wanna. This jerk-like attitude managed to alienate a whole lot of people, who wouldn’t come back to their churches after the quarantines lifted. But y’know, sometimes no one in their churches did catch the virus: It hadn’t spread to them yet, or those who were most likely to spread it wore masks and gloves and sanitized themselves. Still wasn’t wise.

Well, once the quarantines lifted, and people came back to the in-person services… a lot of people stayed home. Because watching church on the internet is so convenient.

Obadiah’s fearful faith.

1 Kings 18.7-16.

Last Elijah article we got to Obadiah—not the prophet, but the man who ran Ahab ben Omri’s house; his butler. Ahab and he were looking round the land for any water or vegetation. 1Ki 18.5-6 And likely unbeknownst to Ahab, Obadiah was secretly hiding the LORD’s prophets in caves because Ahab’s queen, Jezebel bat Ethbaal, was killing them. 1Ki 18.4

So as Obadiah is on his quest, he runs into Elijah, who was coming from Sidon to Ephraim after the LORD’s word sent him to speak to Ahab. Obadiah recognized him, though not entirely, because you notice he had to ask Elijah if it was actually him. Some commentators claim Obadiah likely knew Elijah from seeing him in Ahab’s court. More likely Obadiah knew of him; knew him as a guy with a leather belt and a unique robe, and here was a guy who looked like he might be Elijah, so Obadiah asked.

1 Kings 18.7-8 KWL

7Obadiah came to a path

and look: Elijah met him.

Obadiah recognized him and fell on his face,

and said, “Are you¹ my lord Elijah?

8Elijah told him, “I am.

Go tell your¹ lord Ahab, ‘Look, Elijah!’ ”

Sounds simple, right? This is the prophet Ahab’s been searching for over the past three years; he’d be delighted, or at least satisfied, to hear Obadiah found him back in Ephraim. But Obadiah’s response is… well, it strikes a lot of commentators as really weird.

1 Kings 18.9-14 KWL

9Obadiah said, “What wrong have I done,

that you¹ give your¹ slave to Ahab’s hand

to kill me?

10By the life of YHWH your¹ god,

is there a people or kingdom where my lord Ahab

hasn’t sent people to seek you¹ there?

And they said, ‘He’s not here,’

and he made the kingdom and people swear

he shouldn’t be able to find you¹ there.

11Now you¹ say,

‘Go tell your lord Ahab, “Look, Elijah!”

12Let’s say it happens I’ll go away from you,¹

and YHWH’s Spirit carries you¹ off—

I won’t know where—

and I came to tell Ahab,

and I won’t find you,¹

and he kills me, your¹ slave,

who respected YHWH since my childhood.

13My lord, weren’t you¹ told what I did,

when Jezebel killed YHWH’s prophets?

I hid YHWH’s prophets—

a hundred men, fifty and fifty men, in a cave,

and provided bread and water.

14And now you¹ say,

‘Go tell your lord Ahab, “Look, Elijah!”?’

He’ll kill me.”

“No, you’re gonna disappear on me and Ahab will kill me. Why would you do this to me? I’ve been faithful to God all my life!” Obadiah simply presumes Elijah by default can’t be trusted. Where’d this attitude come from?

Duh; the prophets Obadiah knew. He was hiding 100 of them in caves, remember? And if they were near-unanimously ill-behaved, Obadiah couldn’t help but come to the conclusion ill behavior is simply how prophets are. If Obadiah’s prophets were never where they were supposed to be—and even worse, regularly blamed the Holy Spirit for not being where they were supposed to be—stands to reason Obadiah wouldn’t trust any of them. Not even Elijah.

I know how Obadiah felt, ’cause I’ve known Christians who are just the same way. Flakey and spiritually immature, and try to justify this inconsistent behavior by saying they’re just so zealous for God. Which isn’t a valid excuse! Especially since the fruit of the Spirit is good character and behavior, i.e. spiritual maturity. If we’re listening to the Spirit we oughta see some of that, and certainly not the foolishness we see in both manic Christians and Obadiah’s prophets. Human nature hasn’t changed in 28 centuries, which is why the bible’s stories are still so useful.

Ecumenism: Christians together. (Unlike how we usually are.)

ECUMENICAL ɛk.jʊ'mɛn.ə.kəl adjective. Representing multiple Christian churches or denominations.

2. Promoting unity among Christian churches, regardless of affiliation.

3. Representing all Christian churches, regardless of affiliation.

[Ecumenism ɛ'kjʊ.mɛ.nɪz.əm, ɛk.jə'mɛn.ɪz.əm noun.]

One of Jesus’s commands is that we Christians love one another, Jn 13.34, 15.12, 1Jn 3.23 and one of his prayers is that we be one, like he and his Father are one.

John 17.20-23 KWL

20“I ask not only about these students,

but also about believers,

because of their message to me:

21So they all might be one

just as you,¹ Father, are with me,

and I with you.¹

So they might also be with us.

So the world might believe you¹ send me.

22The glory you¹ gave me,

I give them,

so they might be one

just as we are one.

23I with you¹

and you¹ with me,

so they might be perfected as one;

so the world might know you¹ send me

and you¹ love them

just as you¹ love me.”

Originally we Christians were one group. Or at least every Christian church was affiliated with every other Christian church. Didn’t take long for that to change; for individual Christians and church leaders to insist, “We’re real Christians, but they aren’t.” Happened among Jesus’s students; Mk 9.38-39 happened among the Corinthians; 1Co 1.11-13 happened throughout Christian history. The reason there are a thousand denominations is because we Christians don’t obey Jesus’s command to love one another.

Well, ecumenism is about undoing all that. It’s about overcoming our differences and recognizing we all share and follow the same Lord. It’s about loving one another, like Jesus ordered. Sometimes working together; certainly not working against one another.

Yet there are many Christians out there who insist ecumenism is devilish. (And they’re in every church, so don’t go blaming the Fundamentalists for this one.) Not only that, many of these isolationist Christians insist one of the tricks the Beast will try to pull off during the End Times is to get all the churches to recombine into some devilish one-world religion. It’s based on a profoundly out-of-context interpretation of Revelation 17-18, which you can read for yourself and notice it says no such thing.

In any event, these isolationists insist we’re not to overcome our differences. We’re not to love one another—’cause those other churches aren’t real churches, and the Christians they consist of aren’t real Christians. They’re phonies who’ll do nothing but corrupt us. So keep ’em at arm’s length. Interact with them only to try to win people away from their compromised, poisonous churches. Stay separate and independent and pure.

Jesus prays for his believers’ unity.

John 17.20-23.

In his teachings after the Last Supper, Jesus gave his students a new command—to love one another— Jn 13.34 and said his students would be identified by their love for one another. Jn 13.35

Of course, Christians nowadays insist they’re to be identified by their public declarations that they’re Christian. And insist we should take their word for it entirely on their say-so. Doesn’t matter how fleshly they are. Doesn’t matter how much they don’t love one another. If you go to a different church than they do—even in the same denomination!—they don’t know you’re Christian; they won’t take your say-so; if you voted for the other party or have the wrong skin color, they presume your “Christianity” has gotta be somehow irredeemably corrupt. Therefore they don’t have to love you. Not that they follow Jesus’s command anyway, but if you ever call them on it, this is their excuse for ignoring it.

It utterly ignores the spirit of Jesus’s John 17 prayer, in which he straight-up tells the Father he wants those who believe in him to be one. He wants unity among us. He wants us to be so unified, we’re like Jesus and the Father—who are one being. (In three persons, but still, one being.) So unified, so unbreakable, no politician should be able to turn one Christian against another, because we’re one.

Sadly, that doesn’t happen. Partisan Christians regularly violate the unity Jesus wants to see in his followers. So do greedy Christians, horny Christians, and every kind of exceptionalist Christian who figure they get grace, but nobody else does.

We need to fight this tendency in ourselves, and we do it by praying for unity like Jesus does.

John 17.20-23 KWL

20“I ask not only about these students,

but also about believers,

because of their message to me:

21So they all might be one

just as you,¹ Father, are with me,

and I with you.¹

So they might also be with us.

So the world might believe you¹ send me.

22The glory you¹ gave me,

I give them,

so they might be one

just as we are one.

23I with you¹

and you¹ with me,

so they might be perfected as one;

so the world might know you¹ send me

and you¹ love them

just as you¹ love me.”

The reason people doubt Christianity is because we’re so unlike Christ Jesus and his intentions. Too few of us strive to love like he does; too few of us try to love fellow Christians indiscriminately, and use that love to overcome the inevitable disagreements we’ll have from time to time. Skeptics rightly point out if Jesus were living and active among his people, we wouldn’t see anything like the strife and sin and antagonism we see pouring out of the American church. They’re absolutely right. But if we want Jesus to be living and active among us, we gotta follow him. And pray for unity like he does.

John the baptist’s interview in 𝘑𝘰𝘩𝘯.

John 1.15, 19-28.

The Gospel of John doesn’t describe John the baptist’s appearance like Mark and the other synoptics; John’s just there, doing his ministry. The author assumed his readers would already know who John the baptist was—and already know a lot of the Jesus stories, which is why the gospel was largely written to fill in the blanks in those stories. John skips John’s birth story ’cause Luke already told it; skips what John looked like and preached ’cause the synoptics already told it; he just goes straight to what John taught about Jesus.

John 1.15 KWL

John witnesses about Jesusᴾ

and when he cried out, he’s saying,

“This is of whom I say,

‘The one who comes after me

came into being before me.’

Because he’s first over me.”

The author only cared about that.

So the gospel leapfrogged all John’s other teachings, and the first we see of John is verse 15, and his testimony to the Judean leadership who wanted to know who he was. As told in this part here:

John 1.19-28 KWL

19And this is John’s testimony,

when the Judeans of Jerusalem

send priests and Levites out to him

so they could ask him, “Who are you¹?”

20John is in agreement with them,

does not resist them,

and agrees with them:

“I’m not Messiah.”

21They ask John,ᴾ “So… what, are you¹ Elijah?”

He says, “I’m not.”

“Are you¹ the Prophet?”

He answers, “No.”

22So they say, “Who are you¹?—

so we can give an answer to those who sent us.

What do you¹ say about yourself¹?”

23John is saying, “I’m

‘a voice crying out in the wilderness:

Straighten the Lord’s path!’ Is 40.3

like the prophet Isaiah said.”

24Those who were sent are from the Pharisees,

25and are questioning John,ᴾ

and are telling him, “So why do you¹ baptize,

if you’re¹ not Messiah nor Elijah nor the Prophet?”

26John answers them, saying, “I baptize in water.

In your² midst, one has stood among you.²

You’ve² not known him.

27{He’s} the one coming after me,

{who has got in front of me}.

I’m not worthy to loose his sandal strap.”

28These events happen in Bethany-beyond-the-Jordan,

where John is baptizing.

Now y’might notice the three people John said he’s not:

• Messiah.
• Elijah.
• The Prophet.

These three are major figures in the Pharisee End Times Timeline.

Back then, same as now, people figured the End was coming, and might actually be upon us. And since John was getting a lot of attention, Pharisees wanted to know whether John considered himself any of these End Times guys. They likely had their doubts. But John silenced those doubts by quickly saying nope, he’s none of those guys. He’s just a voice in the wilderness, like Isaiah described, telling people to get ready ’cause the Lord is coming.

And no, this “voice in the wilderness” is not a specific prophecy about John the baptist. It’s just a verse John borrowed to describe what he was up to. Because anybody who speaks up for God in a lawless, fruitless, godless culture is a voice in the wilderness. Any Christian can be such a voice. Many Christians have been.

Likewise anyone who tells people to get ready for Jesus’s second coming—especially to a culture who’s more interested in looking like they follow God instead of bearing actual good fruit—is a similar voice in a wild, undeveloped, untended land. Wouldn’t hurt to have more of them.

Obadiah and the famine.

1 Kings 18.1-6.

The scriptures say this happened in “the third year,” 1Ki 18.1 which could either mean the third year of the reign of Ahab ben Omri, king of Ephraim; or the third year of the water being turned off. The apostle James presumed it was the third year of drought, Jm 5.17 and he’s probably right.

Elijah was hiding in Sidon, so the word of the LORD (whom we Christians know as Jesus) told him it was time to return to Ahab and present himself. Rain was coming.

1 Kings 18.1-2 KWL

1Many days came, and in the third year

YHWH’s word came to Elijah to say,

“Go appear to Ahab.

I will give rain to the face of the soil.”

2Elijah left, to appear to Ahab.

The hunger was hard in Samaria.

Verse 2’s וְהָרָעָ֖ב חָזָ֥ק/vᵉha-ra’av khazáq, “and the hunger [was] hard” tends to be translated, “The famine was severe,” but a shortage of food is one thing; it’s the fact people have to cut back on eating which causes the greatest amount of distress in a famine. In the United States, if money is tight, you gotta switch to cheaper food, or start visiting the food banks. In wealthy countries you don’t have to suffer during our years of famine. Ancient Ephraim was not a wealthy country; Ahab might be able to ride it out just fine, but his people were definitely feeling it. And unlike the other Israeli country of Judah, the Ephraimites didn’t consider their king divinely appointed by the LORD; they could totally overthrow him, same as Ahab’s last two predecessors had overthrown their predecessors. So in that sense, Ahab was feeing it too.

Anyway, while Elijah headed for Samaria, Ahab and his butler Obadiah—not the prophet; different Obadiah—started looking for grass for Ahab’s hungry livestock.

1 Kings 18.3-6 KWL

3Ahab summoned Obadiah,

who supervised the house.

Obadiah greatly respected the LORD.

4Jezebel was cutting off YHWH’s prophets.

Obadiah took a hundred prophets

and hid them by fifties in a cave.

He provided bread and water for them.

5Ahab told Obadiah, “Go to the land,

to all the water springs

and all the wadis.

Perhaps we might find grass,

and keep alive the horse and mule,

and not cut off the domestic animals.”

6They divided the land between them,

to pass through it:

Ahab went one way to his part,

and Obadiah went one way to his part.

Most bibles translate verse 5, “horses and mules,” but the Hebrew is singular. Ahab might have been down to only one of each by now. I should point out the Israelis were forbidden to breed mules, Lv 19.19 and the king was forbidden to overdo it on owning horses. Dt 17.16 But as an unrepentant pagan, we can’t expect Ahab to care much about God’s commands.