Introducing John the Baptist



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2 as it is written in Isaiah the prophet:
“I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way”—
3 “a voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.’” (Mark 1:2-3 NIV)

In the second verse of the Gospel of Mark, the author preludes the introduction of John the Baptist by quoting the Jewish Prophets.  In this way the author sets up the perspective through which "Mark" wants us to view both John and Jesus and the relationship  between them.  By quoting Hebrew Scripture, the author sets the tone that both are legitimately part of the Jewish tradition giving their story authority.  I believe that this is the only direct quotation of the Scriptures in Mark. This may have been due to some of the intended audience being non Jewish.  In which case, it must be very important to the story.  It also makes a statement that the Jesus of this story is very much Jewish and that his message is not only part of the on going story of Judaism, but "the" God sanctioned and initiated continuation of the Covenant.
A question comes up when looking at these quotes.  Was the author and "Mark's" community saying that John and Jesus' mission, or experience, was "like" those quoted, or did they see those passages as prophesying specifically about John and Jesus?  If the latter, how literally did they take it and how much of the rest of the quoted passage was thought to apply?.

Two different  Scriptures are quoted here and strung together to make one statement and cited as if from one source.  The first part about the messenger is from Malachi 3:1 while the second part about the voice calling in the wilderness is from Isaiah 40:3.  Yet the entire thing is introduced as from Isaiah.  What are we to make of this?  Was the author/community not studied enough in the Scriptures to recognize that the first part is from Malachi?  Perhaps this may be the case if this was a predominantly  non Jewish community.

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“I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty.  Malachi 3:1


 Isaiah 40:3-5
A voice of one calling:
“In the wilderness prepare
    the way for the Lord[a];
make straight in the desert
    a highway for our God.[b]
4 Every valley shall be raised up,
    every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level,
    the rugged places a plain.
5 And the glory of the Lord will be revealed,
    and all people will see it together.

What this suggests to me is that the beginning is more like a turn of phrase or loose allusion and not meant to point to significant further revelations from the Scripture cited.  They are simply saying that John is a messenger, preparing the way for something  greater  like the messenger  of Malachi.  Some Christian tradition has made much more of this, viewing the writer as wanting the reader to see the greater section of the passages quoted as pertaining to John and Jesus. I don't see this as the case.

I think that two things are going on here.  The first is that the writer is trying to establish the relationship between Jesus and John and their relative status.  Secondly, I believe that the writer is trying to establish Jesus' legitimacy with his Jewish audience by tying him to the Messiah role.

We have reason to believe that John the Baptist was much better known and popular than Jesus was at this period of time. There is no contemporary to the period historical mention of Jesus besides the Gospels which were written by the followers of his teachings over a period of 20 to 70 years after his death. John the Baptist, however, was an important enough figure that he is mentioned in, Jewish Antiquitiesy, written by the Jewish historian Flavius in this time period. This is important enough that later Christian scribes added embellishments to his work to include references to Jesus.
http://www.livius.org/sources/content/josephus-on-john-the-baptist/

Later in the chapter, the author seems to put a lot of effort into showing that Jesus is more important than John, that John is only the messenger, God's herald for Jesus, who is so much more important that John considers himself unworthy to tie Jesus' shoes. I certainly get a case of, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks", and get the sense that there was a real need to downplay John because of his popularity. 
Bruce Chilton, in his book, Rabbi Jesus: An Intimate Biography, has suggested that the reason the Gospel writers needed to stress Jesus as having elevated authority and importance over John is that Jesus had been a disciple of John before starting his own ministry. As Chilton argues, this would explain the, "missing years", of Jesus life before his ministry not accounted for in the Gospel stories. It would also make sense seeing that there is no mention of his father Joseph after Jesus' visit to the Temple when he was twelve. Chilton argues that Jesus would have been considered a mamzer, one suspected of non-Jewish parentage, since his mother was not living with Joseph when Jesus was conceived. Without Joseph to vouch for him, Jesus would have been ostracized from the community, excluded from the synagogue, and ridiculed by others. As such, leaving the wider community to live with a wilderness holiness group led by John the Baptist would have been one of his few options and would have helped him regain a religious legitimacy that would allow him to later return to the wider Jewish society. The Gospel of Mark is the one written closest in time to Jesus life, around 60 CE, 20 years after Jesus' death, close enough that some might remember Jesus as a student of John and therefore requiring a clear statement that the student was more important than the teacher.



http://www.amazon.ca/Rabbi-Jesus-An-Intimate-Biography/dp/0385497938

The second thing I believe the author of Mark was trying do with this quotation from Hebrew Scripture was to confer the legitimacy of the Messiah role on Jesus.  Outside of the Rabbinic Literature, there is a doctrine in Jewish eschatology of Messiah which was quite popular in Jesus time.  The Jews of the first century expected to be rescued from foreign dominion. Looking to texts such Deuteronomy 4:32, Isaiah 40:1-2, and Jeremiah 31:27-40,  many believed that this would only occur after they suffered a purification process for past breaches of their covenant with God.  As such, they looked for an immediate earthly wrath and judgment by God on the people of Israel led by an anointed of God, or messiah, who would then lead them in the restoration of the state of Israel.  I believe "Mark's" citing of Hebrew Scripture was to suggest that Jesus fit this role, or at least to tie him to the legitimacy which that role might confer.