Month: September 2024

Week 37  Matthew 3

John is called The Baptist because he baptized people.
I was wondering if baptism was a brand new development or if it was an already-known practice.
It’s possible that baptism was one of the things that had developed in the long years between Malachi & Matthew (I do know that a lot of things start showing up – almost like out of thin-air – as soon as I start reading the NT).
Anyway I remember that the books of Moses have instructions & regulations about ceremonial washing. That’s a bit different from John’s baptism – in the NT John actually took people into the Jordan River (where they were maybe submerged in the water).
I checked a word book to find where the OT mentioned baptism. I found baptism & Baptist & baptize & baptized are used in Matthew (never in the OT). Baptizes is used once in John. Baptizing in Matthew 28. None of the words are used in the OT. And I don’t really think the idea is either.
That leaves me with two choices: a) baptism started to be practiced in the long interval between Malachi & Matthew or b) John the Baptist invented baptism as a brand new thing.
Personally I like b) (it’s pretty nice to think of John as the Founder & Originator of Baptism). But I don’t think I can because it’s possible that baptism somehow evolved during The Big Silence between the OT & NT – and that I just don’t know about it.

Week 37  Matthew 2

Starting to read the NT I get a reminder of the big information gap between Malachi & Matthew.
In Matthew 2 foreign astrologers arrive in Jerusalem and ask King Herod: where is the newborn king of the Jews?
Herod had no idea. But he’d heard rumours about a mysterious hero called The Messiah that Jewish people talked about. That’s why he asked the Jewish religious specialists: where did the prophets say the Messiah would be born?’ (not where is the newborn king of the Jews?)
The religious leaders quoted Micah: a ruler of Israel will come from (Bethlehem), one whose origins are from the distant past…He will be highly honored around the world. And he will be the source of our peace.
Over the centuries Jewish people had developed Micah’s ‘Ruler’ into a man they started to call The Messiah. So Herod had heard about the mysterious – and worrisome – Messiah and knew enough to ask where The Messiah would be born. (The religious teachers didn’t correct Herod…didn’t say “oh, Micah did not say anything about a Messiah! He just said a ruler”.) In the years between Micah & Matthew Micah’s Ruler had expanded and evolved into The Messiah.
So anyway Point #1 is that during the silent years Micah’s Ruler had been transformed & enlarged & renamed. He was the NT’s Messiah.
And Point #2 is a personal reminder that I’ve missed out on several centuries of information about how that – and other changes – came to be.

Note: quotes from Matthew 2:2-3 & Micah 5:2 (NLT)