According to Crossan, the Christian religion is uneasy with the idea of John
baptizing Jesus because it makes "John superior and Jesus sinful,"
(Crossan 44). My question is, if John were not to baptize Jesus than who would?
From a Christian perspective, is God the only one superior Jesus? Jesus did not
realize he was the son of God until his baptism. Therefore, he needed to be baptized
and needed someone to do it. John happened to be the person to do the job. John
and Jesus worked together and shared the idea of apocalypticism before Jesus
went his separate way and moved toward eschatology. I see this as them being team
mates, John may have been a leader but not superior. Jesus was a regular person
and regular people sin. I think this interpretation would allow more people to
connect to Jesus rather spiritually or historically because they can see that
he was not this perfect being. My last thought is a comparison between God
finally giving Jesus the information that he was his dad while being baptized
and the Mediterranean dad holding and accepting their child. Jesus' baptism
could be considered as God holding and accepting his child because in a sense that
is when Jesus meets his father for the first time.
In response to your comment about John baptizing Jesus, there are 3 verses from gospels on page 50 that illustrate your point. They become increasingly defensive about Jesus being superior to John and that the only reason Jesus was baptized was because of sin of ignorance.
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