JR7: John the Baptist and Jesus
Theologians and biblical researchers have tended to overlook the significance of this passage from Mark 3: 13 – 19, in which Jesus names the twelve apostles: “. . .James son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder)”. The Gospel writer Mark isn’t telling his audience that James and John were powerful preachers (as Christian writers would like to believe); Mark is telling his audience that James and John were claiming for themselves a powerful pedigree. Among the Dead Sea Scrolls, in the charter for the Yahad is a reference to two prophesied Messiahs — a priestly Messiah and a Messiah of Israel (a royal commander for the armies) — who will serve together in the Last Days at the Messianic Banquet. Once it’s clear that the Yahad was waiting for a pair of Messiahs rather than a single Messiah, the reference in Mark to the Sons of Thunder takes on much greater significance. Mark is saying that James and John were claiming divine heritage, just like the long parade of gentile heroes who insisted they were the sons of Zeus, Jupiter, and other Thunder Gods. (And I don’t think Mark thought much of this particular claim.) Shown here is the mosaic above the entrance to the Chapel of St. John and the Grotto of the Revelation on the island of Patmos. Photo credit JAT 2001.
A: Tell me more about John. Why do you say that John the Baptist and John the Evangelist are one and the same person? Is there any proof for that in the Bible?
J: You have to know what to look for. Mark’s account of John’s beheading is much more than it seems. But Mark is like that throughout his gospel. You really have to know your sources — important early texts — to understand Mark. Mark was highly intelligent and very well read. He riffed off well known symbolism and motifs to tell his tale of intrigue. And intrigue it was.
A: The Gospel of John mentions John the Baptist’s early ministry several times, but then he sort of fades out of the picture. The Fourth Gospel doesn’t say what happened to the Baptist.
J: That’s because John the Baptist was still alive and still teaching long after I died.
A: Tell me about him as a person.
J: How much time do you have?
A: The Gospel of John is considered by many Christians to be the clearest expression, the clearest depiction, of the ministry and divinity of Jesus. Theologians love John’s “high Christology.” Many people feel that when they’re listening to the voice of John, they’re listening to divine truth. The prologue — John 1:1-18 — is poetic, elegant, mystical. It helps people feel they’re getting closer to God.
J: John was a gifted communicator, a skilled rhetorician and poet. If he hadn’t been, I wouldn’t have been drawn into his movement in the beginning. He was truly charismatic when he spoke. His writings definitely reflect that. Even his last writing — the book of Revelation. Even when he was profoundly psychotic, as he was in the later years of his life, the poetry and metre of the texts he’d read again and again in his childhood infused all his thinking. In a way you could say that the poetry and metre of those early texts — the logos — acted for him to lessen the pain, fear, and confusion that comes with psychosis. The logos was a soothing mantra. Olanzapine in word form, you might say.
A: Olanzapine being a highly effective atypical anti-psychotic medication.
J: Yes. Before the advent in recent years of tailored psychiatric medications, those who were suffering from major mental illness — including the flattened affect and hallucinations that accompany schizophrenia and related forms of psychotic illness — suffered more than most people can imagine. The suffering is internal but intense. Sometimes it feels to them as if their head is on fire. Or that ants are crawling everywhere inside them. It’s a horrible feeling. They have to find relief wherever they can. The majority turn to addictive substances — substances that trigger the dopamine circuitry in the brain, the pleasure circuitry. Others turn to religion. It’s sad to say, but extreme religiosity — rigid piety, fideism, blind faith, obsessive observance of ritual — all these careful, minutely observed rituals can bring relief to a suffering individual, depending on what parts of their brain have been ravaged by the effects of the disease process.
A: When I was working in the mental health field, I saw firsthand that one of the hallmarks of psychotic illness is paranoia. A fear that people are out to “get them.” When they’re floridly psychotic they’re often afraid of their own family members and medical caregivers. They’re sure they’re being watched, spied on. They’re afraid somebody will put poison in their medications. They think they’re perfectly sane and everybody else is sick. They have no objective understanding that they’re ill when they’re ill.
J: It’s the tragedy of the disease. They don’t believe they’re sick. If they get proper treatment, and become medically stabilized, they begin to develop insight. They begin to understand that the voices they’d been hearing in their heads weren’t normal, weren’t real. They can begin to trust their family members again. However, it’s not possible to persuade a floridly psychotic person to trust you. You can’t use logic to get through to them. As those working in the field of psychiatry know, sometimes you just have to lock the person up for a while and treat him against his will. Of course, by the time he’s that psychotic, he doesn’t really have free will — not as you and I would understand it. He has lots of thoughts, but they’re not balanced, they’re not integrated. There’s no functioning internal framework to hold his thoughts together, to help him process his thoughts and experiences, and learn from them. It’s a big jumble in his head — very frightening, very confusing.
A: So if he can find an external framework that makes sense to him . . .
J: Right. If he can find an external framework such as a strict religious code, then he can lean on that code. He no longer has to make sense of anything on his own. He’s off the hook, so to speak. The code tells him what to do and when to do it. This means he doesn’t have to decide these things for himself. For a person with schizophrenia (not really one disease, but a related cluster of illnesses) this is a huge relief. Life becomes liveable. Painful but liveable. The tradeoff is the fear. You can’t get rid of the fear. You’re constantly afraid of attack from “evil forces” such as the devil or demons or vampires or aliens. But at least you can blame the “evil forces” for your fear. You don’t have to blame your family. So from that point of view, the strict religious code makes it easier for you to stay with your family and receive the care you need.
A: Can you explain how all this relates to the man named John?
J: The man I knew as John — though his real name wasn’t John — would be diagnosed today under the category of schizophrenia. I first met him when he was about 18, and he already showed signs then of the illness.
A: As I understand it, that’s a common age for a diagnosis of schizophrenia to be made. The signs and symptoms often show up in late adolesence, early adulthood.
J: Yes, except I didn’t have a DSM-IV to refer to, and I didn’t recognize his illness at first for what it was. I thought he was an inspired prophet.
A: What was his background? Where did he come from?
J: He was an Essene. He was born Essene and raised Essene. He wasn’t a raw recruit, as some were — including myself for a short time.
A: You were an Essene?
J: I never officially joined the yahad or “Unity,” as they described themselves. In fact, I never made it past the “inquiry phase,” as you might call it. I was curious about the yahad. Many Jews were. Like many spiritual inquirers, I thought the Essenes might have the answers I was looking for. So when I heard about the new prophet named John, I went to check him out. It took me a long time to understand that John didn’t have the answers. He spoke endlessly and eloquently, but had no answers for me or anyone else. He was far too delusional to help anyone, including himself.
A: You said his real name wasn’t John. What was his real name?
J: I never knew. Not during my lifetime as Jesus. Readers today may have a hard time understanding what I’m about to say, but when I was growing up, “name magic” was a big deal. If you believed in the mystical “truth” of name magic, you didn’t lightly give out your real name.
A: Why not?
J: Your real name was said to be a source of great power. If an evil sorcerer or magician got hold of your name, he could gain power over you.
A: Interesting. That idea is still floating around. I remember reading Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea novels when I was growing up. The power of true names was central to her stories.
J: Kabbalah also embraces this idea.
A: Not a big fan of Kabbalah myself.
J: Kabbalah owes a lot to the ancient ideas of the Essenes.
A: What goes around comes around.
J: There aren’t a lot of new mystical ideas under the sun. The human brain, when diseased and dysfunctional, tends to produce certain distinctive patterns of thought, mood, and behaviour — what physicans call signs and symptoms. When patients start believing — truly believing — in occult magic, psychiatrists get worried. It’s okay to believe in things you can’t see if those things have a scientific origin — because one day the science will catch up with the theory — but there’s a line.
A: For instance, it’s okay to believe in love, even though we can’t see it. Though neuroscientists are now trying to capture it on brain scans.
J: Right. But mature love makes the world a better place, a more compassionate place, a more logical place. Occult magic doesn’t do any of these things. Belief in occult magic makes people less mature, less balanced, more grandiose, more controlling, and therefore less able to bring healing and compassion into the world around them.
A: Belief in occult magic ties in with the signs and symptoms of major mental illness.
J: Including psychopathy and severe narcissism.
A: Only a profoundly narcissistic person would believe that God gives special magical powers to small groups of bullies and tyrants who abuse others in the name of God.
J: There you go — your description of John in a nutshell. Raised to believe he was one of the Essene’s two prophesied Messiahs, hence profoundly narcissistic and dysfunctional by the time he was 18.
A: I guess he didn’t like you very much, then.
J: The Essenes were taught to hate the Sons of Darkness and raise up the Sons of Light. As far as he was concerned, I proved myself beyond dispute to be an apostate to the yahad cause and a Son of Darkness worthy of death. By the time I was arrested, John hated my guts.
A: So much for the theory that John himself was the Beloved Disciple.
J: Yeah, but I forgave him anyway, even after he tried to kill me.
