Yohanan the Immerser Demands Repentance

In Yohanan the Immerser Demands Repentance John the Baptist challenges his audience, which had gone through all the trouble of going out to the Jordan River to receive his baptism, to accept his even more important advice: to repent of their evil deeds and imitate the faithfulness of Abraham their father.

Matt. 3:7-10; Luke 3:7b-9

(Huck 2; Aland 14; Crook 17)^[1]

Updated: 5 September 2024

וַיַּרְא אוֹתָם וַיֹּאמֶר לָהֶם יְלִידֵי צִפְעֹנִים מִי הִגִּיד לָכֶם לָנוּס מֵחֲרוֹן הָאַף הֶעָתִיד לָבוֹא [עֲלֵיכֶם] עֲשׂוּ פְּרִי רָאוּי לַתְּשׁוּבָה וְאַל תַּתְחִילוּ לוֹמַר בִּלְבַבְכֶם אָבִינוּ אַבְרָהָם אֲנִי אוֹמֵר לָכֶם יָכוֹל אֵל לְהָקִים מִן הָאֲבָנִים הָאֵלּוּ בָּנִים לְאַבְרָהָם וּכְבָר הַקּוֹרְדּוֹם לְעִקָּר הָעֵצִים מוּעָד כָּל עֵץ שֶׁאֵינוֹ עוֹשֶׂה פְּרִי טוֹב נֶעֱקָר וּבָאֵשׁ נָתוּן

And seeing them approach, Yohanan the Immerser said to the crowds, “You wicked spawn of adders! Who told you that immersing yourselves would help you escape the divine anger that’s overtaking you? Was it I? If you believed me when I told you about the danger, then why don’t you believe me when I tell you about the solution? Act in a way that will bring your repentance to fruition!

“Don’t fool yourselves saying, ‘Our father is Abraham: he will deliver us.’ I assure you that from these stones God is able to raise up sons and daughters for Abraham. Already the mattock for chopping out the roots has been appointed! Every ‘tree’ that does not bear the ‘fruit’ of repentance is uprooted and burned.”^[2]

Table of Contents

1. Reconstruction

2. Story Placement

3. Conjectured Stages of Transmission

4. Crucial Issues

5. Comment

6. Redaction Analysis

7. Results of This Research

8. Conclusion

Reconstruction

To view the reconstructed text of Yohanan the Immerser Demands Repentance, click on the link below:

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^[1] For abbreviations and bibliographical references, see “Introduction to ‘The Life of Yeshua: A Suggested Reconstruction.’” ↩
^[2] This translation is a dynamic rendition of our reconstruction of the conjectured Hebrew source that stands behind the Greek of the Synoptic Gospels. It is not a translation of the Greek text of a canonical source. ↩