On John the Baptist

CANDIDA MOSS: The Misunderstood Man Behind Lent. Lent commemorates the forty days and nights that Jesus spent in the wilderness after his baptism. But Jesus never would have ended up there if not for the work of John the Baptist (The Daily Beast).

John Turner also has republished an essay on The Head of John the Baptist in The Anxious Bench

Some past posts on the Baptist, one of which also brings in the intriguing Mandean (Mandaean) traditions about him, are here, here, here, here, and here.

Incidentally, Salome is not actually mentioned by name in the New Testament accounts of the beheading of John the Baptist. One reading in Mark 6:22 gives the name of the daughter as the same as her mother, "Herodias." But this may be a mistake for a reference to her as the daughter of Herodias. Scholars generally seem to read the New Testament story alongside Josephus's and identify the daughter as Salome.

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