Refusing John the Baptist

If you do not have a paid subscription, please consider registering as a Premium Member starting at $10/month (paid monthly) or only $5/month (paid annually): Register

One Time Purchase Rather Than Membership
Rather than purchasing a membership subscription, you may purchase access to this single page for $1.99 USD. To purchase access we strongly encourage users to first register for a free account with JP (Register), which will make the process of accessing your purchase much simpler. Once you have registered you may login and purchase access to this page at this link:

Conclusion

We find no evidence of direct dependence of either version of Refusing John the Baptist upon the other, nor do we find evidence that the authors of Luke and Matthew based their versions on a common literary source. Neither have we found that both authors were acquainted with an oral tradition in which Jesus said something about toll collectors being more receptive to John the Baptist than the Jewish authorities. Rather, it appears that both evangelists were independently familiar with an early Christian criticism of the Jewish leaders that disparaged them as being worse than toll collectors: Toll collectors responded to the preaching of both John and Jesus, but the Jewish leaders rejected John, so it is hardly surprising that they haven’t responded to Jesus either. Each evangelist independently alluded to this circulating criticism at different points in their writings where the respective authors found it to be useful to do so.