King Herod heard of it, for Jesus’ name had become known. Some were saying, ‘John the baptizer has been raised from the dead; and for this reason these powers are at work in him.’ But others said, ‘It is Elijah.’ And others said, ‘It is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.’ But when Herod heard of it, he said, ‘John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.’
It is a classic theme in biblical literature, and it is a universal theme: The death of the mentor, the master, the teacher, becomes the crucible in which the hero is refined by fire. Moses ascends to the mountaintop and does not return, Joshua leads the Hebrew people to the promised land. Elijah is carried to heaven in the firey chariot, Elisha takes up his mantle. Master Po is killed by the emperor's nephew, Kwai Chang Caine wanders the American West, defending the defenceless. Obi Wan Kenobi is killed by Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker saves the princess.
The relationship between John the baptizer and Jesus may have been that of teacher and student, master and apprentice, leader and follower. The gospel accounts concur that John emerged first on the public scene, that people went to John to hear what he had to say, that John's disciples participated in a ritual cleansing in the Jordan river, and that Jesus also participated in this ritual. If Jesus was baptized by John, was Jesus a disciple of John? Probably so, but if we trace how the gospel accounts differ, we can see how the interpretation of this relationship changed as time went on.
Mark, the earliest gospel, begins with a description of John the baptizer, who proclaims "the one who is more powerful than I is coming," but John does not directly identify Jesus as "the one." Mark simply states that Jesus "was baptized by John in the Jordan." The gospel of Luke suggests that John and Jesus recognized each other while they were still babies in their mother's wombs, that the elder (John) leaped for joy at the prenatal presence of the younger. The gospel of Matthew asserts that John realized immediately that he should be subservient to Jesus, and further asserts that Jesus humbly allowed himself to be baptized by John, "to fulfill all righteousness." And yet, in both Matthew and Luke, John's early confidence in Jesus seems to have waned when John sends his disciples to ask Jesus, "Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?" (Matt 11:3, Luke 7:19).
By the time the gospel according to John was assembled, the tradition clearly had elevated Jesus above John (and everyone else), Jesus being pre-existent and omniscient. John is granted a dose of paranormal perception, it seems, when he shouts, "behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!" And look carefully at this gospel, is there any mention of Jesus being baptized at all, by anyone? No, there is not. John testifies that he saw the spirit descend upon Jesus, and that is how John knows that Jesus is the Son of God. But any claim to John baptizing Jesus is conspicuously absent. What the author leaves out of the story is as important as what the author adds to the story.
So, though later tradition clearly disagrees, I believe the earliest Jesus traditions indicate that John the baptizer was a mentor to Jesus, that Jesus was a disciple of John. If this is so, then the arrest and later the death of John the baptizer may have been the event that led Jesus to begin his own public ministry. He picked up Elijah's mantle.
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