The Diet of John the Baptist: "Locusts and Wild Honey" in Synoptic and Patristic InterpretationMohr Siebeck, 2005 - 256 pages James A. Kelhoffer offers a comprehensive analysis of Mark 1:6c par. Matt 3:4c in its socio-historical context, the Synoptic gospels and subsequent Christian interpretation. The first chapter surveys various anecdotes about John's food in the Synoptic gospels and notes that there has never been a consensus in scholarship concerning John's locusts and wild honey. Chapters 2 and 3 address locusts as human food and assorted kinds of wild honey in antiquity. Chapter 4 considers the different meanings of this diet for the historical Baptist, Mark, and Matthew. Contemporary anthropological and nutritional data shed new light on John's experience as a locust gatherer and assess whether these foods could have actually sustained him in the wilderness. The last chapter demonstrates that the most prevalent interpretation of the Baptist's diet, from the third through the sixteenth centuries, hails John's simple wilderness provisions as a model for believers to emulate. |
Contents
Introduction and the status quaestionis concerning | 1 |
B The status quaestionis si autem est quaestio concerning John | 12 |
LocustGrasshopper Eating in Ancient Near | 36 |
AlDamīrī on Locust Eating and Islam | 59 |
Plutarch Athenaeus | 74 |
The Baptists Wild Honey | 81 |
Locusts and Wild Honey in the Synoptic | 100 |
Mark 16c | 121 |
Common terms and phrases
Aesop Alexandria ancient antiquity Arist Aristeas Arnobius the Younger ascetic asceticism Baptist's diet bee honey Biblical calories Cambridge Chrysostom cicadas Clement of Alexandria Commentary concerning custs Cyril Damascus Document depictions desert Diatessaron Diodorus early Christian Eaters eating locusts Ebionites Eerdmans Elijah example Galen Geoponica Gospel of Mark grasshoppers Greco-Roman Greek text Gregory of Nyssa historical Baptist honey-water human food idem infer insects interpretations of John's Isaiah Jerome Jesus Jewish Jews Johannes der Täufer John the Baptist John's clothing John's diet John's food John's locusts John's wilderness Josephus Leipzig literature locust eating locusts and wild locusts/grasshoppers Lohmeyer Luke Mark's Matt Matthew meat mention milk Mishnah moreover notes nutritional offers Origen Oxford passage patristic Philo Pliny prophet Q/Luke Qumran refers scripture Strabo Synoptic Syriac Tatian Tatian's Diatessaron Testament Teubner Theophylactus tion tradition Translation University vegetarian wild honey witnesses York δὲ καὶ τῶν