The Question of John the Baptist and Jesus’ Indictment of the Religious Leaders. Roberto a. Martinez
of John to the eschatological message of Jesus.107 The thrust of the pericope shows respect for John, emphasizes a new eschatological situation, and draws a parallel between John and Jesus.
Ulrich B. Müller also addresses portions of the passage in his presentation of John the Baptist. For him, the words of Jesus about the Baptist belong to an old tradition.108 In his praise of the Baptist, Jesus shows his solidarity with him, who as an eschatological messenger breaks with the scheme of OT prophecy, but remains subordinated in regard to the new order.109 Müller grants considerable historical credibility to the words of Jesus: “Das ganze Wort ist so sehr von Jesu Verständnis von der mit der Gottesherrschaft anbrechenden eschatologischen Heilswende geprägt, dass hier keine nachösterliche Gemeindebildung vorliegt, sondern der historische Jesus selbst zu Worte kommt.”110 The words are missionary in character, but not of a later date.
According to Müller, during the life of the Baptist, or probably shortly after his death, Jesus was trying to persuade the people to accept the message of the kingdom of God.111 In the proclamation of Jesus, the admiration for the Baptist is relativized by the broaching of the kingdom of God. For Müller the introductory parable of the children originally belonged together and formed a unit with the words of Jesus about the Baptist. In this parable the similarities and differences between Jesus and the Baptist are underscored. Both are rejected by their contemporaries, but both messengers of God stand in contrast with each other: the Baptist is the ascetical preacher of conversion and Jesus the proclaimer of the message of jubilation.112 Luke portrays the Baptist as a significant prophet, but without saving efficacy.113 John is for Luke the precursor and forerunner of Jesus.114
Recently, Catherine M. Murphy has also undertaken an analysis of the passage in her investigation of the life and ministry of John the Baptist. Murphy seeks to decipher the role of John by taking into consideration the purification movements in first-century Judea and their notions of “purity and pollution.” She studies the redaction of fifteen different vignettes, four of which are part of Luke 7:18–35.115 Although in her analysis Murphy weighs the possibility that Jesus’ affirmation of John may be a process of reflection in the early church rather than Jesus’ own words, she ultimately accepts the historical reliability of the account.116 For Murphy, the episode recounts the concern of the Baptist, who has not seen the fulfillment of his messianic prophecy of judgment, regarding the healing and preaching ministry of Jesus.117 The testimony of Jesus about John means that the Baptist stands between the Law and the Prophets on the one hand, and the kingdom of God on the other. Based on the awkwardness of the statements from the point of view of the early Christian community and on the attribution of the tradition to Q, Murphy also accepts the authenticity of the parable of the children in the marketplace, which she uses to establish the ascetic lifestyle or lack thereof in the lives of the Baptist and Jesus.118
To summarize, the historical studies of John the Baptist raised new questions regarding the reliability of Luke 7:18–35. Greater awareness about the origin and diversity of the Synoptic accounts regarding the role of the Baptist results in a protracted debate about the authenticity of the story. Consequently, fewer commentators resort to harmonization in order to explain the apparent contradictions between the passage and other testimonies in the Gospels. They are also less constrained at attributing real ignorance or doubt to the Baptist, and eager to find in the prehistory of the text echoes of the controversies between John’s followers and the early Christian community. Many of these authors emphasize the difficulties that Jesus’ contemporaries faced in understanding the role of the Baptist in light of the messianic expectations of Second Temple Judaism.
Commentaries
The new perspective brought about by modern methods of exegesis in commentaries is exemplified by Paul Schanz’s interpretation of 7:18–35 in his commentary on the Gospel of Luke. Schanz, whose commentary represents a greater scholarly awareness of the Synoptic problem, believes that Luke has taken the language of this passage from Matthew.119 For him the episode deals with the relationship of Jesus with different classes of people, particularly the Pharisees, and serves to characterize the unresponsiveness and the opposition of the Jews.120 Neither the delegation of the Baptist nor the testimony of Jesus about John can be described as favorable recommendations, because the answer of Jesus is not clear and his speech about the Baptist is in response to Jews’ rejection. John, along with the rest of the Jews, expected another movement and other messianic signs, because they anticipated a different manifestation of the kingdom.
According to Schanz, John is the forerunner and stands as such over all the prophets. However, as a forerunner the Baptist also stands behind the members of the kingdom. Schanz regards 7:29–30 either as a Lukan addition or an insertion based on Matthew 21:31–32, because the speech overrides the preceding address of Jesus that resumes in v. 31.121 The people and toll collectors who recognized their sins and obtain the mercy of God gave honor to the justice of God by recognizing the baptismal requirement as a condition for entry into the messianic kingdom.122 Despite the opposition, John and Jesus are justified by all the children of wisdom, i.e., those who have recognized and acknowledged the wisdom of God.123 Schanz proposes that by substituting Matthew’s phrase “the works” (11:19) by “all her children” (7:35) Luke has gone beyond the earlier evangelist to stress the inclusion of all the faithful disciples in the kingdom of God in opposition to the Pharisees whose admittance is not contemplated.
With an acknowledgement of the notorious difficulty that the passage has posed since antiquity, Marie Joseph Lagrange argues against what he considers the most radical opinion of his time, i.e., that John is questioning here for the first time whether Jesus might be the Messiah.124 According to Lagrange, such a claim would be contrary to the thought of the evangelist, who had previously professed the greatness of Jesus. Even the dialogue between the disciples of John and Jesus suggests that the Baptist must have had previously some sort of messianic expectation of Jesus. For Lagrange, the doubt of John dealt rather with what type of Messiah he had hoped for.125 The question of John denotes that he was impatient with Jesus’ messianism, and the episode reflects the historical difficulty that was entailed for the Baptist to understand the mission of Jesus: “Nous avons ici une leçon sur la difficulté—toujours actuelle—de comprendre l’œuvre de Jésus.”126
Although for Lagrange it is possible that Jesus’ praise of John could have been delivered in different historical circumstances, he accepts the integrity of the discourse because nothing here indicates a change of situation. The point of the speech is not so much to praise John as to correct the errors concerning his role. Despite his greatness, the role of the Baptist is subordinated to the role of Jesus. The ancient order is inferior to the new, and John is less than the members of the kingdom. His exclusion from the kingdom is not a matter of sanctity but of historical circumstance, and