In A Dangerous Parting: The Beheading of John the Baptist in Early Christian Memory Nathan Shedd offers an insightful study of the story of the murder of John the Baptist which first occurs in the Gospel of Mark in the New Testament, but is repeated, expanded, and interpreted extensively from then on. In his book, which is a revised version of his PhD thesis, Shedd situates the story within the framework of the broader phenomenon of beheading and human fascination with it. He brings together in a helpful way the approaches of reception history (with particular attention to the first few centuries, which are relatively neglected) and social memory. The result is a study that highlights the importance of taking into account the roles and functions memories and stories about past events serve for individuals and communities. As the author demonstrates, such considerations are crucial both to the interpretation of religious texts, and to any quest to delve behind them into matters of history.
Shedd provides a helpful exploration of “keying,” a method of reading that uses one biblical event to interpret another. The author’s discussion of the resonances between the account of John’s death and the story of Esther is particularly insightful. He wrestles with the fact that Herod and the daughter of Herodias play roles similar to those of Xerxes and Esther, with a verbal echo of Esther 5:3, in which Xerxes promises up to half his kingdom to Esther. Herodias thus seems to be styled in the role of Mordecai, who works heroically behind the scenes in the Book of Esther to prompt Esther’s request from the king. What can be meant by this presentation of negative characters in ways that connect them to familiar positive ones? Shedd’s answer is that the parallels serve to “sharpen the reader’s aversion to her: she poses as the masculine hero Mordecai but really stands in a cultural line of opposition to God’s prophets” (99).
Shedd also devotes significant attention to the widely held view that the Gospel of Mark deflects blame from Antipas onto Herodias. While the actions of Herodias are certainly blameworthy in Mark’s eyes, within the context of ancient Mediterranean cultural values, Antipas fails to live up to masculine ideals precisely through his lack of self-control and the fact that he can be manipulated. The portrait offered in Mark thus criticizes rather than exonerates Antipas. Next Shedd turns his attention to the question of how we ought to understand Antipas’ response to the rumors he has been hearing about Jesus. After first noting problems with the claim that decapitation definitively ruled out the possibility of resuscitation, Shedd proposes an interpretation that is apparently completely innovative: that Antipas’ question is not whether Jesus is John raised from the dead, but whether John has been raised from the dead by Jesus.
Chapter 4 turns our attention to the subsequent interpretation of New Testament texts, with a focus on Justin Martyr and Origen. In Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho, the two interlocuters agree that Elijah must come before the Christ to anoint him. Whereas Trypho argues that Elijah has not come and thus Jesus cannot be the Christ, Justin appeals to the characterization of John the Baptist in the Gospels as Elijah, who precedes the Christ. Justin characterizes Herod who killed John as your (plural) king, thereby connecting Herod and his actions with Trypho and his people. The story thus comes to play a role in Justin’s overall polemical depiction of the Jews as disobedient to God. Justin also refrains from emphasizing that John as Elijah anointed Jesus the Christ, since Justin is also concerned to combat adoptionist Christology.
Likewise, Origen of Alexandria connected Herod’s treatment of John with the Jewish rejection of the prophets and of Christ. While on the one hand allegorizing the beheading of John so that a “wretched teaching” works to remove the “head of prophecy” from among the people, Origen also blames the dinner guests at Antipas’ birthday celebration for calling for John’s death too. In keeping with his primary methodology, Shedd looks at how Origen keyed the villains in the narrative about the Baptist to his own Jewish contemporaries. According to Shedd, Origen connects John’s death with that of Jesus, the former depriving the Jewish people of prophecy, the latter offering an even greater gift to the Gentiles. In addition to contrasting the effect brought about by each, Origen is also able to claim the superiority of Jesus, whom he says Christians have whole, while the Jews have John, the last of the prophets, “dead, divided, and not unbroken” (162-3, quoting Origen’s commentary on Matthew).
The conclusion recaps the way that keying John’s death to Jesus serves to exonerate both, before proceeding to reveal that the dangerous parting of the title has in view not only the severing of John’s head from his body, but also the “partings of the ways” as a framework for understanding Christian origins. By drawing attention to the way present and past, text and context, fuse in the process of interpretation, Shedd aims to make modern readers aware of their responsibility, of the ethical implications of what we do with sacred and potent texts in particular.
It is perhaps worth observing that, both historically and narratively speaking, the beheading of John was prior to the crucifixion of Jesus and initially loomed larger. Thus, one must ask whether it would make more sense to speak of John’s death as the interpretive key for Jesus’ death, rather than the reverse, at least initially. To be sure, in our time Jesus’ death is the more familiar event and it is natural for us to begin there. However, a historically contextual reading of our earliest sources likely needs to reverse the order. While Shedd does note the both/and reciprocal impact of such keying, on the whole his default frame of reference is how Jesus’ death is used to interpret John’s. It would be interesting for a future study to pursue the reverse, in the process providing an opportunity to further explore how reception-historical approaches and the methods of social memory relate to other approaches to the past, including study of the contexts of ancient authors and interpreters.
However, what Shedd offers in the present volume stands on its own and offers a thought-provoking exploration of a story that continues to fascinate. Whether your interest is in the figure of John the Baptist, the latest methods for exploring the reception and history of interpretation of ancient texts, or the ethics of how stories are retold, Nathan Shedd’s A Dangerous Parting contains valuable insights that make it well worth reading.
James F. McGrath is Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University.
James F. McGrath
Date Of Review:
August 19, 2023
