Bibliography
| Title: Täufergemeinden und frühchristliche Täuferpolemik im letzten Drittel des 1. Jahrunderts Secondary Title: ZThK Volume: 84 Pages: 36-57 Type: Journal Article Year: 1987 Abstract: "A study of the Sibylline Oracles (no. 4; text in J. H. Charlesworth (ed.), The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha I, 1983), of Josephus' Antiquities (18:116-119), Acts 19:1-7, and the Fourth Gospel reveals that the "baptist sect", initiated by John the Baptist, flourished in the late first century CE in such diverse places as Rome, Asia Minor, and Syria. The author takes baptism to be John's own original and unprecedented idea".
"Evidence from Sibylline Oracles 4 and Josephus allows the conclusion that the preaching of John the Baptist was known in Rome at the end of the 1st-century independent of early Christian tradition and that a circle closely connected with John's message existed there. Acts 19:1-7 offers a further example in Ephesus of a disaspora community of disciples of John the Baptist. The mission territory of early Christianity and the expansion of John's followers, therefore, converged to some extent. Thus the controversy between these two groups found in the Gospels should not be located in the Jordan valley but in the context of the Baptist diaspora where the Gospel themselves originated. The article concludes with observations on the significance of the Baptist movement for early Christianity". - C.R.M. Keywords: New Testament / Early Christianity |