The social class of the Baptist : Dissident retainer or peasant millennialist ? 1

In this article the Baptist is compared with the upper-class/literate millennialists behind the Psalms of Solomon, the Testament of Moses, the Similitudes of 1 Enoch, and the Qumran scrolls on the one hand, and with the lower-class/illiterate millennialist movements in Josephus on the other hand. The argument is developed in constant dialogue with the analyses of John Dominic Crossan. After an initial statement of historical facts about the Baptist, these are compared with the named groups in terms of each one’s (1) criticism of the social-political and religious status quo, (2) depiction of the imagined mediator through whom God was expected to intervene, (3) portrayal of the violent/non-violent intervention of God and the group respectively, and (4) social ethics. It is concluded that John shows closer resemblance to the literate than illiterate millennialists, and should therefore rather be considered as a dissident retainer.


INTRODUCTION
In recent discussions two opposite characterizations of the Baptist's social class are discernible.On the one hand are those who typify the Baptist as peasant millennialist, comparable to the peasant millennialist groups described in Josephus.On the other hand are those who classify the Baptist as literate millennialist, comparable to the literate millennialists at Qumran. 2 Exponents of the former view tend to stress similarities between John and peasant millennialists, while emphasizing differences between him and Qumran.I take John Dominic Crossan as one example of this tendency,3 and will develop my argument primarily in dialogue with his views.Although the Baptist is not central in his work on the historical Jesus, I for two reasons consider him an appropriate partner with whom a well-focused discussion on this theme may be developed.First, on the micro level, he employs a sophisticated use of primary sources on the Baptist.As a matter of methodological procedure, his construct starts with those complexes for which he can find multiple independent attestation in the earliest strata.Second, on the mesolevel, he proposes to understand this authentic material in relationship to its Greco-Roman and Jewish contexts.
The result of his analysis is a Baptist who criticized a corrupt Temple cult and oppressive Herodian-Roman regime.He was a man who proclaimed God's imminent intervention to punish the unrepentant and save those who had been purified by his magical rite of baptism.According to Crossan's  (1996:49) view, the Baptist was the first of a series of peasant millennialists who appeared in Palestine in the decades preceding the fall of Jerusalem, and should not be related to the Essenic literate millennialists, whom he typifies as "dissident priests who had broken with the official Temple priesthood about a century and a half before the time of Jesus".Crossan  (1996:49-50) summarizes: Those Essenes had withdrawn into the desert, but west of the Jordan, unlike John to the east; and they awaited the arrival of twin Messiahs, one priestly and one lay, unlike John who awaited the arrival of God without any mention of a preceding Messiah .... John's once-and-for-all baptism, by crossing from the desert through the Jordan River into the Promised Land, is totally different from the daily purification rituals at Qumran.I see John's movement, therefore, as quite distinct from that of Qumran, oriented toward the general populace rather than an educated group living in isolated community.
In this article I will, against Crossan's thesis, argue that John's baptismal practice and millennialist ideology are closer to comparable structures amongst literate than peasant millennialist groups.My argument will be developed in three steps: first, authentic Baptist complexes relevant to the debate will be identified; second, this material will be compared with contemporary ablution practices; third, the identified authentic data will be compared with concurrent literate and peasant millennialist groups.

AUTHENTIC BAPTIST MATERIAL
The following statements about the Baptist can be accepted as authentic, I will argue, on the basis of multiple independent attestations in Christian sources and the Josephan text on the Baptist (Ant 18:116-119) as well as reasonable inference:4 • John urged his audience to repent that is to change their attitude and behaviour towards one another, before God would intervene through a mediator to punish the unrepentant.

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Only after this psychological and moral change, John held emphatically, could they come to be immersed by him in the Jordan.This immersion was to serve as a visible sign of the mental and behavioural change that they had undergone.

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The Baptist was arrested in the late 20's CE on Antipas' orders in Perea, the district East of the Jordan over which Antipas ruled as client king for the Romans.John was imprisoned and beheaded at Machaerus,5 a fortress of Antipas in Perea, not far from the Nabatean border.Antipas had at least two interrelated reasons to act against John: first, he disliked the moral criticism that John levelled against his marriage with Herodias, whom he had married while his half-brother was still alive; second, he feared a possible coalition between the Baptist and the Nabateans, who had been humiliated by his rejection of their princess in favour of Herodias.It thus seems reasonable to surmise that John's moral criticism of Antipas' impure marriage arrangement simultaneously undermined the tetrarch politically.
My proposal of authentic Baptist material differs in three important respects from Crossan's: • Crossan holds that John awaited God's direct intervention without any mediator.However, both Q 3:16 and Mk 1:7 attest independently that the Baptist expected someone else, someone greater/stronger (i0 sxuro/ terov) than himself, who would come after him and would baptize with the Holy Spirit.Crossan's thesis that o( i0 sxuro/ terov originally referred to God can not be accepted, since the independent reference to John being unworthy of loosening the strap of the mightier one's sandals would present an unprecedented anthropomorphism if it were to refer to God. 6

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Crossan maintains that John offered his water ritual as a magical way to obtain God's forgiveness of sins, in order to be protected from the imminent apocalyptic catastrophe.He thinks that Josephus protests too strongly against such a magical understanding of John's baptism, and therefore instead accepts the magical interpretation as historically more probable.However, my comparative reading of Josephus and the Christian texts convinces me otherwise: First, I accept as historical fact that John linked his baptism in some way with meta/ noia ("repentance"), since the connection appears in several independent Christian complexes (cf Mk 1:4; Mt 3:11, Acts 13:24, Acts 19:4).The connection is in my view also present in Ant 18:117, where John's baptism is closely linked to a change of mind ("purification of the soul") and the practising of a0 reth/ (ie right behaviour towards each other and pious behaviour towards God). 7The authenticity and meaning of the concept meta/ noia can thus be argued on the basis of independent attestation.Crossan, however, does not focus on this important moral aspect of the Baptist at all.Secondly, I am convinced that we can be more specific about the way in which the historical John related his baptism to this meta/ noia-call.
He did not understand his baptism as a magical rite that would automatically effect the removal of sins, as Crossan maintains; instead, 6 Meier (1994:34) aptly remarks: "The interpretation of the stronger one as God threatens to border on the nonsensical when the sentence continues with the affirmation that John is not unworthy to untie the strap on the sandals of the stronger one.... A metaphor presenting John untying God's shoelaces seems to go beyond the bounds of any OT example." 7 I relate these two moments in Josephus in the following way to the Christian sources: (1) As to the Baptist's call for a change of the heart: In Mk 1:5 John's baptism is explicitly linked with the confession of sins (e0 bapti/ zonto … e0 comologou/ menoi ta\ v a9 marti/ av).This last phrase is clearly synonomous with Josephus' purification of the soul (thṽ yuxhṽ dikaiosu/ nh| proekkekaqarme/ nhv), which in the Josephan text is also related to forgiveness of sins (a( marta/ dwn paraith/ sei).
according to my reading, John presupposed repentance (ie a change of heart and behaviour) as a necessary prerequisite for his water ritual, which would have served as an outward sign of the meta/ noia already undergone.Josephus explicitly opposed a magical understanding of John's baptism in Ant 18:117b: it was "not for the begging-off of certain sins" (mh\ e0 pi\ tinwn a( marta/ dwn paraith/ sei), but was rather intended as a purificatory rite of the body that followed after and on precondition of an already purified soul (e0 f' a( gnei/ a| tou~ sw/ matov, a# te dh\ kai\ thṽ yuxhṽ dikaiosu/ nh| proekkekaqarme/ nhv).This need not be seen as in contradiction with Mk 1:4 which states that John preached "a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins" (ba/ ptisma metanoi/ av ei0 v a! fesin a9 martiwñ).According to the semantic analysis of Nida & Taber  (1974:51-52), the four nomina actionis in this clause may first be transformed into four kernel sentences, before the relationships between them are explicated.The first two events may then be rendered as "repent and be baptized", in which case the repentance would precede the baptism (in Acts 2:38 the corresponding but much less ambiguous verbal construction is found: Metanoh/ sate kai\ baptisqh/ tw).Furthermore, as Bratcher & Nida (1961:11) correctly observes, the ei0 v should be taken as equivalent to "the English preposition for with its various shades of meanings."It does not form part of an explicit argument on the effectiveness of John's baptism as does the e0 pi/ in Josephus, but is rather used in a less defined way.My reading supposes no contradiction between the Christian and Josephan evidence, but is essentially in accordance with that of Webb (1991:190) and Taylor  (1997:97).Both of them think that meta/ noia in Mk 1:4 results in the forgiveness of sins (ie remission of sins follows from repentance/changed behaviour), and that immersion was to follow only after such a fundamental change.
My third point of difference from Crossan concerns the reasons why Antipas decided to execute the Baptist. 8I agree with Crossan that the Baptist posed a real social-political threat to stability in Antipas' realm, and that the client-king therefore had reason to move against him.But whereas Crossan proposes a correlation between the social-political threat posed by the Baptist on the one hand and contemporary peasant millennialists on the other (about which I will have more to say below), I argue for a connection between John's moral criticism of Antipas' marital arrangements (as part of John's concern for purity laws) 9 and the political subversiveness of such criticism (a connection which I do not find in Crossan's work).John's condemnation of Antipas' marriage with the wife of his still-living half-brother received agreement from pious Jews; 10 his message would also simultaneously have received sympathy from the neighbouring Nabateans who had been humiliated by Antipas' rejection of their princess in favour of Herodias and who actually considered the divorce a cancellation of an agreement about territorial claims. 11Josephus links the Baptist's death with Aretas' defeat of the Herodian army, by noting that some Jews considered Aretas' conquest to have been God's righteous revenge on Antipas who had killed John unfairly.12This reading is in line with that of Theissen & Merz (1996:186): "Wahrscheinlich bilden Gebietstreitigkeiten mit den Nabatäischen Nachbarn (Ant 18:113) den politischen Kontext der Hinrichtung des 9 According to the levirate requirements in Dt 25:5-6 it was obligatory for a man to marry his brother's wife, should his brother have died childless.However, in the case of Antipas' marriage to Herodias, the marriage was immoral/unclean in terms of Lev 20:21, since Herodias' husband was still alive.Webb (1991:366-367) correctly observes: "in the light of John's concern for purity, his (ie John's -JS) rebuke of Antipas most probably had a second implication: Antipas was in a condition of impurity.... John was charging a ruler, a major portion of whose subjects were Jews, with being both a Torah-breaker and impure" (my emphasis).

THE BAPTIST IN COMPARISON WITH CONCURRENT ABLUTION PRACTICES
The most immediate temporal and geographical analogies for John's immersion are found in the ritual ablutions performed by the Qumran Essenes13 and Bannus.What exactly are the similarities and the differences?As far as the form of the rite(s) is concerned, it is quite true that Bannus and the Qumran Essenes (1) washed/immersed themselves, and (2) did so repeatedly,14 whereas John (1) administered his rite himself (he himself "dipped"/immersed people in the water), and (2) probably did so only once. 15hese differences of form (especially the first one, of which we can be certain) account sufficiently for the fact that John came to be known as "the Baptist".
However, the more important similarity that Crossan overlooks/negates concerns the meaning that these water rite(s) had for both John and the Qumran Essenes: 16 in both cases it was emphasized that true repentance (purifying one's soul and changing one's behaviour) was a prerequisite before the water ritual(s) could be meaningful.This shared view is not an invention of Josephus, but can be substantiated from the Qumran writings themselves on the one hand, and from independently attested and therefore authentic material on the Baptist on the other hand.Thus the Community Rule proclaims, in clear correlation to Josephus' Baptist, that a change in attitude and lifestyle (i e repentance) in accordance with the sect's understanding of Torah must precede ritual washings at Qumran.True purification (= atonement/forgiveness of sins) is achieved only after and by virtue of righteous behaviour in accordance with God's laws (i e as interpreted by the sect): For it is by the spirit of the true counsel of God that the ways of man -all his iniquities -are atoned, so that he can behold the light of life.It is by the Holy Spirit of the Community in his [= God's] truth that he can be cleansed from all his iniquities.
It is by an upright and humble spirit that his sin can be atoned.It is by humbling his soul to all God's statutes, that his flesh can be cleansed, by sprinkling with waters of purification, and by sanctifying himself with waters of purity. 17The wicked shall not enter the water ... for they shall not be cleansed unless they turn away [= "repent"] 18 from their wickedness.
17 For text and translation, see Charlesworth (1994:12-15).Webb (1991:146-152) offers a precise analysis of this passage.Four statements are introduced by b, which indicates the instrument (a defined "spiritual virtue") by which atonement/purification of sins can be accomplished.He considers the meaning of the first and third statements as essentially identical: "by means of spiritual virtues given by God, a person's sins are atoned" (:149).He furthermore notes that the explicit virtue in the fourth statement by which the cleansing is effected, "is the candidate's submission to the Torah as interpreted by the community" (:149; my emphasis).Immersions are thus considered effective only when they are "accompanied by spiritual virtues," by which should be understood "a commitment to obey the community's sectarian interpretation of the Torah" (:150). 18The meaning clearly is that they should turn away ("repent") from their sinful behaviour and start to live according to God's Torah as interpreted by the Essenes.Webb (1991:155)  summarizes the issue well: "Here once again [as in the previous passage -JS] ... we find the belief that moral failure renders a person impure.Since it is moral failure which defiles, purification cannot take place simply by an immersion; it must be preceded and accompanied by the corresponding moral or spiritual dispositions of repentance and obedience."

THE BAPTIST IN COMPARISON WITH CONTEMPORARY LITERATE AND PEASANT MILLENNIALIST GROUPS
According to Crossan's proposal, the Baptist movement was not an upperclass/literate phenomenon, but rather a peasant/illiterate undertaking.The most appropriate comparative material is therefore, in his view, not to be found in literate apocalyptic texts like the Psalms of Solomon, Testament of Moses, Similitudes of 1 Enoch, or the Qumran writings.Rather, he maintains, we should locate John's movement within the trajectory of peasant millennialist movements, which are mentioned primarily by Josephus.I will argue, however, that a comparison between John and each of these cases, reveals that the Baptist's mentality is closer to that of the upper-class than that of the lower-class millennialists.
First, compare John with the mentioned educated millennialists with reference to the following four points: (1) criticism of the social-political and religious status quo, (2) the envisaged divine intervention through a mediator, (3) the violent character of God's intervention, but non-violent strategy of the group itself, and (4) the concern for a pure/righteous lifestyle before the awaited divine intervention: • As far as the social-political and religious status quo is concerned, a consistent criticism is detectable in all four examples of upper-class millennialists.Not one of those literate groups condoned the status quo, but each one denounced the system as corrupt.Psalms of Solomon, in its final form of ca 50 BCE, criticized the Hasmonean kingpriests for their abuse of political and religious power.19I have argued above that the Baptist too was critical of the royal elite, in that he despised the moral decadence of Antipas.TestMos, in its earliest form, was directed against Antiochus IV Epiphanes, later against the

Social class of the Baptist
Hasmonean king-priests,20 and eventually against Herod. 21In TestMos 7 the ruling elite is specifically criticized for their lavish banquets. 22The Baptist's ascetic behaviour too can be understood as a criticism of royal gluttony (Jesus contrasted the lifestyle of Antipas and his court with that of the Baptist -an authentic logion that is found independently in Q 7:24-27 and GosThom 78).The Similitudes of 1 Enoch, probably early in the first century CE, also strongly disapproved of the socialpolitical system of its time.The rulers are here explicitly accused of unjust oppression and of accumulating wealth by exploitation of the oppressed (cf 46:7; 53:2, 7; 62:11) 23 -a contempt which the Baptist would surely have shared.The Qumran sect opposed the military and exploitative roles of the Hasmonean king-priests since its very inception in the latter half of the second century, 24 which is again comparable to the Baptist's social-economic criticism of the Herodian court in the 20's CE.Both rejected a luxurious lifestyle and opted instead for an ascetic one in the desert -the literate Qumranites in their enclave West of the Dead Sea, and John on the Eastern side of the Jordan.(omni hora diei amantes convivia).They are labelled "devourers" (devoratores) and "gluttons" (gulae), who are reported to say: "Let us have extravagant banquets, let us eat and drink.And let us act as if we are princes" (Habebimus discubitiones et luxuriam, edentes et bibentes.Et putavimus nos tamquam principes erimus). 23Although this criticism is directed against Roman imperialism in the first place (the accusation of the opponents' worshipping idols made by human hands in 46:7 and the references to world-wide dominion in 48:8 are not applicable to Jewish rulers), it is nevertheless not farfetched to assume that the Herodian collaborators of Rome were included for censure as well (cf Collins 1984:153).
24 I accept the thesis that the Qumran community was established when Essenes under the leadership of a Zadokite priest (the "Teacher of righteousness") ca 150 BCE separated themselves from the new Hasmonean "wicked priest" in Jerusalem (either Jonathan or Simon Maccabaeus).The latter was accused of defiling Jerusalem and the Temple, of not keeping the law and of being corrupted by power and wealth (cf the analysis of 1QpHab in Vermes 1995:28-29).Although it is certainly true that differences in the interpretation of the Torah (specifically concerning matters of ritual purity) and conflicting calendars played an important part in causing the schism, it also seems justified to accept that political and economic factors played a decisive role in the original separation: in 1QHab 8-9 the "wicked priest" is accused of betraying "the precepts for the sake of riches" and his successors are said to have continued amassing "money and wealth by plundering the peoples."

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All four examples of educated millennialists, as well as the Baptist, expected God to intervene through a mediator.In Psalms of Solomon it was hoped that God would wage war against and conquer the Hasmonean enemies through a human messiah, an idealized king of Davidic descent. 25In Testament of Moses the expectation was that God would exact vengeance against the group's enemies through an angelic intermediary. 26Similitudes, similarly, hoped that God would intervene through a heavenly agent (the angelic Son of Man). 27In the Qumran sect, four types of future mediators were imagined, through whom God would intervene to reward the group for their holy life: the royal messiah of Davidic descent, 28 who would be subordinate to the priestly messiah of Aaron29 ; the eschatological prophet of Moses;30 25 Cf PsSol 17:21-27; 18:5-9.Although an earthly king of Davidic descent was expected by this group, he was clearly endowed with a divine aura.In PsSol 17 and 18 he is not only portrayed as an idealized hero who will be sinless and the very embodiment of the virtues of wisdom and justice, but is also given the honorary titles "Son of David" (ui9 o\ v Dauid) and "Messiah Lord" (Xristo\ v Ku/ riov). 26Crossan states that TestMos did not envisage any messianic intermediary through whom God would, in the near future, bring an end to the miserable condition of the righteous.This is only true in the sense that TestMos foresaw no earthly Davidic king like the one in PsSol.TestMos 10:2 explicitly visualizes an angelic intermediary through whom God would exact vengeance on the group's enemies: Tunc implebuntur manus nuntii qui est in summo constitutus, qui protinus vindicavit illos ab inimicus eorum ("Then the hands of the messenger, when he will be in heaven, will be filled, and he will then vindicate them against their enemies").This heavenly messenger is, according to Collins (1985:156), akin to Michael, the guardian angel of Israel in Dan 12:1, and is portrayed as a priestly figure here (the filling of hands is an idiom for consecration).
27 Similitudes envisages that the angelic Son of Man would reverse the present power structures of the world: he would dethrone the Roman/Herodian rulers, and establish the current powerless as new rulers in their stead.
28 Known as the "messiah of Israel" in 1QS 9:11 and 1QSa 2:20, the "scepter" in CD 7:19, the "branch of David" in 4QpIsa a , 4Q285 frag 5, and the "prince of the congregation" in 4 Q285 frag 5, 4QpIsa a and 1QSb 5, he is depicted as an earthly/secular, military king who will defeat the sect's Hasmonean and/or Roman opponents by violent means and restore a utopia of justice for the sect itself.
and an angelic figure. 31The Baptist also expected God to intervene through a mediator.He envisaged a human mediator, but did not conceive of him as a Davidic king.Instead, he expected a charismatic man stronger than himself who would condemn impenitent sinners.He appealed to his audience to repent (ie to change their behaviour and their attitude) and then be baptized by him, before the day of judgment would arrive.

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The third point of comparison concerns strategies of violence or nonviolence.The four examples of literate millennialism -with the possible exception of Psalms of Solomon -consistently envisaged a violent intervention by God through the pertinent mediator, but a nonviolent strategy on the part of the group itself.Psalms of Solomon represents a possible exception, since the Davidic king through whom God would establish the utopia of justice for this group, was first of all idealized as a non-violent scribe. 32Military language is used only once in connection with this figure, and can clearly be understood as a traditional motif from Ps 2:9.TestMos is, however, much clearer: it never propagates militant revolt against Seleucids, Hasmoneans or Herod.Instead it explicitly propagates non-violent resistance to the unjust system, by offering the passive martyrdom of Taxo and his sons as model of protest against Antiochan persecution -a strategy that would still have been clear to those who reinterpreted this text in their opposition to Herod. 33The final reckoning is here left to God and his angelic messenger.It seems that the Baptist too presented his divine agent as a threatening figure who would judge the impenitent fiercely, but without exhorting his audience to any militant actions against the regime (Antipas could, of course, have feared that such an uprising might occur, as Josephus reports).John's proclamation of imminent judgment through a fiery figure served as a device to exhort his audience to change their moral attitude and behaviour.Similitudes of 1 Enoch used the most violent images to portray the destruction of the group's enemies 34 -inter alia the metaphor of "burning chaff", which was also used by the Baptist to envisage the doomed fate of the unrepentant. 35At Qumran as well the divine intervention was expected to be of a violent nature, at least through its military Davidic messiah; 36 the sect itself, however, probably abstained from violence before the imagined final battle. 37It is thus most likely that in all these cases of literate protest against the status quo, just like in the case of the Baptist, the violence resided in the apocalyptic imagery, but was not part of the actual strategy of the respective groups.

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As fourth and last point of comparison I take the concern for a pure/righteous lifestyle as a common concern amongst those literate millennialist groups and the Baptist.Psalms of Solomon exhorted its audience to repentance and a moral life.Exactly like John, PsSol 9:6-7 promised God's forgiveness to the repentant sinner who confessed his sins.TestMos similarly represents a group of pietists for whom loyalty 34 Similitudes foresees the most dreadful punishment for their opponents: "darkness shall be their dwelling, and worms shall be their bed, and they shall have no hope of rising from their beds" (46:6), they will perish completely from the earth after the final judgment (45:2, 5), their teeth will be broken (46:4; cf Ps 3:7; 58:6), they will burn like straw in fire and sink like lead in water and be totally annihilated before the righteous sectarians (48:9; cf Ex 15:7, 10 and Mal 4:1 for this imagery).The gruesome picture of God's "sword (being) drunk with their blood" (62:12) is used to portray the punishment vividly, while the righteous sectarians visualise themselves to participate in the apocalyptic castigation of their oppressors (38:5; 48:9; 62:12).It is, however, most likely that this violent retribution was only reserved for the projected apocalyptic finale, and did not motivate the literate sect itself to take up arms against its opponents.
35 Though we do not have independent attestation of this metaphor for the Baptist (it only occurs in Q 3:17), I suspect that it is authentic (cf Strijdom 1998:14-16).
36 Cf 4QpIsa a , 1QSb 5, and 4Q285 frag 5 for the imagined violent intervention of the Davidic messiah: he will kill the sect's opponents "by his sword" and "gore (them) like a bull" and "trample the peoples (ie the Romans) like mud of wheels" (for a discussion of these texts, cf García Martínez & Trebolle Barrera [1995:164-167]).In 4QpPs a 2 the sectarians imagine that their Hasmonean opponents will "perish by the sword and famine and plague," and in 1QM 19 they portray themselves as invoking God to act with the utmost brutality against their enemies in the final battle: "Lay Thy hand on the neck of Thine enemies // and Thy feet on the pile of the slain!// Smite the nations, Thine adversaries, // and devour flesh with Thy sword!" (Vermes 1995:59, 144, 348). 37The tone of 4QMMT, possibly a letter from the Teacher of Righteousness to the Hasmonean king-priest in Jerusalem, sounds remarkably irenic (cf VanderKam 1994:102).
The sect probably only thought that it would be necessary for them to take up arms in the final battle, when God would intervene through his angels and human intermediaries.VanderKam (:105) thinks it quite possible that they did defend themselves in 68 CE, presuming that the final war had come.
to the law and purity were of the utmost importance. 38Although Similitudes does not explicitly refer to the Mosaic law, a concern for a pious life in accordance with the Torah is probably presupposed.
Amongst the Qumranites we find a definite fusion of apocalyptic vision and moral/legal obligation, 39  The criticism of the lower-class protesters was indeed, just like that of the literate millennialists which I discussed above, also directed against the social-political and religious oppressors of their day. 42But whereas non-violent tactics seem to be the norm amongst the literate millennialists, we find examples of violent resistance amongst the peasant millennialists: Josephus reports an armed following for both the Samaritan 43 and Egyptian "sign prophets".For the latter we have independent attestation of the violent aspect in Acts 21:38,26 44 and have therefore no reason to doubt its authenticity as Crossan does. 45It thus seems that the Baptist is in this respect closer to the literate than peasant millennialists.

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As sign prophets the peasant millennialists symbolically reenacted the ancient actions of Moses and Joshua, hoping that God would intervene to liberate them too from their political oppressors. 46According to Crossan, John understood his water ritual in the same way: the Baptist conducted his ministry in the Perean desert and his water ritual in the Jordan river, because those two places carried political connotations of 41 Crossan (1998) acknowledges the insight of cultural anthropologists that it is usually leaders from dissident "retainer" or aristocratic classes who serve as leaders of movements of peasant resistance, but nowhere applies it to the Baptist.He says: "Dissident priests or scribes may become leaders for dissident peasants or artisans" (:167), since the former not only have the verbal proficiency to formulate the ideology of resistance (often "in the name of the divinity itself" [:171]), but also have the skills to organize the group of protesters effectively -capabilities that are usually not found amongst peasants themselves.Cf also Fiensy  (1999:3-27). 42Cf Strijdom (1998:82-86) for a discussion of the evidence.
44 Cf Acts 21:38: the Egyptian "started a revolt" (a0 nastatw/ sav), and War 2:262: the Egyptian "was ready to force (bia/ zesqai) an entry into Jerusalem, overwhelm the Roman garrison, and seize supreme power (turanneiñ) with his fellow-raiders as bodyguard." 45Crossan's argument for non-violence in the case of the Samaritan is more convincing than for the Egyptian.He maintains that Pilate could not have been dismissed for his violent attack on the Samaritan's followers, if the latter had indeed been armed (Crossan 1991:161).As far as the Egyptian is concerned, he holds that Luke ascribed violence to this prophet since he conflated him with the sicarii, and that Josephus portrayed him as violent on account of his general bias against "Jewish tyrants" (:165).The major reason for Crossan's doubt, however, is derived from the cross-cultural thesis that millennialists do not act violently -an assumption that is, of course, in tension with his own modern example of apocalypticism in "David Koresh of Waco, Texas" (Crossan 1995:47). 46Cf Strijdom (1998:90-92) for a discussion of the textual evidence, and a more detailed evaluation of Crossan.
divine liberation from systemic oppression. 47To understand the Baptist's intention correctly, Crossan holds that one should not so much emphasize that he baptized, but rather that he baptized precisely in the Jordan.I am, however, not convinced that one may emphasize Jordan at the expense of baptism, 48 and instead prefer the more controllable comparison based on the explicit textual evidence that I have presented above.

CONCLUSION
My comparison has then, on the basis of the textual evidence, shown John's understanding of his baptism to be closer to Qumran's understanding of its ablution practices than to the symbolic actions of the sign prophets.Furthermore, it was shown that the apocalyptic hope of divine intervention through a mediator is found amongst all four examples of literate millennialists as well as the Baptist; on the other hand no such figure appears amongst the peasant millennialists as far as the textual evidence let us see.The same holds for the pious lifestyle according to the Torah, which was so important amongst the educated millennialists and John: no comparable concern is explicitly discernable in our texts for the illiterate millennialists.Also as far as non-violent strategy is concerned, the Baptist seems closer to the consistent 47 According to Crossan (1994:42) the peasant millennialists led "large crowds into the wilderness so that they could recross the Jordan into the Promised Land, which God would then restore to them as of old under Moses and Joshua."Just like those peasant prophets, Crossan (:45-46) holds, "John went ... out into the Transjordanian Desert and submitted himself to the Jewish God and Jewish history in a ritual re-enactment of the Moses and Joshua conquest of the Promised Land.... Presumably, God would do what human strength could not do -destroy Roman power -once an adequate critical mass of purified people were ready for such a cataclysmic event."The only difference that Crossan proposes between the peasant millennialists and the Baptist concerns strategy: whereas the former led masses into the Perean desert to re-enact the reconquest of Palestine from there, John instead kept sending his followers back to the Promised Land where they were supposed to await the imminent coming of God.John was thus creating a diffused "network of ticking time bombs all over the Jewish homeland" (:43).I do not find this proposal persuasive, but instead accept as historical fact that a growing number of people were assembling around John in the desert (both Mt 14:5 and Ant 18:117-118 independently attest to this fact). 48Taylor, who in The Immerser (1997) emphasizes the fact that John immersed people rather than the fact that he did it in the Jordan (she thinks it possible that he did it elsewhere as well), asks the same question as I do and expresses the same discontent with the rash identification of the Baptist with contemporary "sign prophets": "We may be justified in asking ... whether John really was like the men who led people out to the wilderness with expectation of signs and who hoped for the deliverance of Jerusalem from the hands of the Romans.... Is it in the context of these popular prophets ... that John should be understood?Clearly, the focus of these leaders was the overthrow of Gentile rule.Yet, whatever political agenda may be found in John's teaching, he did not call upon those he assembled to witness a sign founded on an incident in the Bible.... John's immersion itself was not (such -JS) a sign" (Taylor 1997:218).
tactics of the upper-class millennialists than the more ambiguous tactics of the lower-class millennialists.
A final point to support my argument on the Baptist's social class concerns the manner of his death and the respectful way in which he is presented by Josephus.Antipas moved cautiously against the Baptist, by first having him alone arrested and imprisoned at Machaerus, and then having him beheaded -a procedure that probably reveals the fact that the Baptist was no mere peasant who could be easily disposed of by Antipas.Josephus' respectful treatment of the Baptist, which is comparable to his respect for the Essenes, can similarly be explained by assigning John a higher social class.
The outcome of this study, then, is to propose that we see John as a dissident retainer, who influenced both peasants and other like-minded dissidents.Externally, he criticized the decadent Herodian court, and probably won the support of the Nabatean neighbours.Internally, he exhorted his audience to a pious lifestyle in accordance with the Torah, before God would intervene through a charismatic man to punish those who had not listened to his moral message of repentance.The immersion he administered would then serve as a symbol of the radical change that the repentants had undergone.