74 EARLY WISDOM GOSPELS
YOHANAN DENIES BEING THE MESSIAH
And this is the testimony of Yohanan the baptizer when the Jews^10 sent priests
and Levites from Yerushalayim^11 to ask him, "Who are you?"
And he confessed and made no denial, but confessed,
"I am not the Galilean."
They asked him, "What then? Are you Elijah?"
He said, "I am not."
"Are you the prophet?"
He answered, "No."
"Who are you? Give us an answer for those who sent us here. What do you
say about yourself?"
He said,
"I am the voice of one crying in the desert.
'Make straight the way of the lord,'
as the prophet Isaiah said."^12
Now, they had been sent by the Pharisees. They questioned him and said to
him, "Why then do you baptize if you are not the Galilean or Elijah or the
prophet?"
He answered them,
"I baptize in water.
Among you stands one you do not know,
one who will come after me,
whose sandal strap I am unworthy to loosen."
All this happened in Bethany across the Jordan, where Yohanan was
baptizing.
- All the people in these scenes are Jews. The appellation "Jew" here and in most places in
John has two functions: to distinguish Jews who do not believe Jesus to be the son of god from
those who do, and to cast hatred on and condemn the unbelievers to immediate and eternal
punishment. The followers of Jesus were initially few in number among the many sects that
made up the Jewish population. All thought themselves Jews, whether traditional Jews or
Christian Jews. Therefore, naming the Jews as a hated community existing alongside Jesus and
his followers almost certainly reflects the later, competitive period of nascent Christianity,
when the Jews had expelled Christian Jews from the synagogues and when the traditional Jews,
in turn, became the vilified enemy. - Jerusalem.
12. Isaiah 40:3.