Was John the Baptist baptized as an infant?

This is kind of a preparatory post to an experience from BYU that I want to share.
Check out D&C 84:25-28:
25 Therefore, he took Moses out of their midst, and the Holy Priesthood also;
26 And the lesser priesthood continued, which priesthood holdeth the key of the ministering of angels and the preparatory gospel;
27 Which gospel is the gospel of repentance and of baptism, and the remission of sins, and the law of carnal commandments, which the Lord in his wrath caused to continue with the house of Aaron among the children of Israel until John, whom God raised up, being filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother’s womb.
28 For he was baptized while he was yet in his childhood, and was ordained by the angel of God at the time he was eight days old unto this power, to overthrow the kingdom of the Jews, and to make straight the way of the Lord before the face of his people, to prepare them for the coming of the Lord, in whose hand is given all power.
These are the observations I make from this passage:
1) The Melchizedek priesthood was not on the earth at the time John the Baptist was born.
2) The Aaronic priesthood was on the earth at the time John the Baptist was born.
3) An angel of God ordained John the Baptist to something when he was 8 days old. I only see two possibilities: the Melchizedek priesthood and/or his calling as the one to “make straight the way of the Lord.” I don’t see why he would have needed special ordination to the Aaronic priesthood if it was on the earth at the time.
4) The text says he was baptized “while he was yet in his childhood” and notes this beforewhatever this infant ordination was.
Please correct me if any of these observations are wrong.
So, here are three questions for my LDS friends if you feel so inclined:
A) Do you believe the Jews at the time of the birth of John the Baptist were in complete and total apostasy, just as the Christians were in the early 1800s?
B) What was the ordination that the angel gave John at 8 days old?
C) Is this text implying that John the Baptist was baptized as an infant? Can you be ordained to the Melchizedek priesthood if you haven’t been baptized yet?
I am honestly just asking here. There is nothing up my sleeve; your opinion will help me understand something that happened at BYU years ago.

Comments

Was John the Baptist baptized as an infant? — 11 Comments

  1. A) No, but other Mormons will disagree with me and might even be pedantic about it. But if all the Jews were in apostasy, who exactly was it that had the sense to follow Jesus around 31 years later?
    B) No ordination to the priesthood per se; John was a kohen by birthright. His father was the High Priest at the Temple, after all. Wouldn’t 8 days old been the kid’s bris, also a covenant-making ritual?
    C) Based on what I know of Mosaic law, the 8 day mark is for circumcision; one need not suppose that a baptism took place, but there are rituals of washing and immersion in Judaism. I just don’t recall learning about any immersion rituals for little babies. It’s perfectly feasible to suppose that a very Jewish immersion ritual took place before he reached his age of majority, but after his divinely-attended bris.
    So… yeah, that’s one way to look at it. Is it different from other ways you’ve seen it explained?
  2. A. I haven’t thought about it before, so I don’t know.
    B. I don’t know, but on initial reading here I’d guess something like a calling to have the role he eventually would have.
    C. I don’t see an infant baptism in that verse, although probably before age 12. Certainly today you couldn’t have a Melchizedek ordination before baptism, and I would suppose that’s the way it always has been. That would be a logical supposition.
    And now I’m curious what this is leading up to …
  3. Rob ~ Man, I hope he wasn’t circumcised by an angel, because that just seems kind of creepy.
    Eric ~ Wait and see. Muhahahahahaha!
    BTW, I don’t think “infant baptism” is necessarily the implication of the passage, either. That was just the first thing I thought of as my husband and I went over the passage, and I wanted to give my post a provocative title.
  4. You gadfly. :-)
    I don’t think an angel “snipped at the bris” (if you will…), unless we widen the definition of “angel” to include anyone sent by the Lord on a task and also include mortals.
    In any case, there doesn’t have to be an angel for the whole idea of circumcision to creep me out (but I promise not to hold signs outside the synagogue over it, to be sure!)
  5. Oh, and also, regarding Eric’s comment, I don’t suppose as you do that priesthood ordination necessarily follows baptism; it didn’t for Joseph Smith Jr. or Moses, for two examples. In any case, I don’t think Jack was looking for ordination rules for the higher priesthood, just for the Aaronic priesthood.
  6. Hi Jack,
    1) Probably true.
    2) Definitely true
    3) I’ve always read the ordination to what directly follows in the verse:
    unto this power, to overthrow the kingdom of the Jews, and to make straight the way of the Lord before the face of his people, to prepare them for the coming of the Lord.
    I think you may be conflating the Church’s modern use of the term ordain with Joseph’s original usage. That is historical collapse, something you’ve learned from members, but this is something handled in the Institute Manual for D&C 25. Back then, ordain also had the connotation for what we say today as “call” or “set apart.”
    4) There is no indication in the text that we are receiving a chronological recording, so I wouldn’t extract chronological data from a text that doesn’t indicate chronological data is implied.
    A) Jaein. That’s German for Yes and No. The Jews were living the letter of the law had the priesthood, and so I would want to say no. But, there was no official revelatory process occurring (at least none that we have record of), and based on Jesus actions wrt Jewish leadership, I would say yes. There still were devout Jewish people, as evidenced by Simeon and Anna who were at the Temple at the time of Jesus’ presentation and those who eventually followed Jesus. That would be different then people in 1800, because in addition to no official revelatory process, there was also no (authorized) priesthood. However, the situation was the same because there were devout people who served God the best they could. Often, LDS members conflate institutional apostasy (general or universal) with personal apostasy. I hope to change that.
    B) Answered in 3 above.
    C) I do not believe the text is implying John the Baptist was baptized as an infant. There have been instances were priesthood ordination has preceded baptism. Someone pointed out OC and JS. I add to that Adam in the book of Moses. Today, one must be baptized before they can be ordained, but the scriptural record lists at least 3 exceptions to that rule.
  7. 1) At least one Nephite—probably several—held the M.P.
    2) Yep.
    3) As Rob #1 and psychochemiker #6 said, with one correction: Zechariah was a priest, but not the high priest.
    4) As psychochemiker starts to point out, the text states two events, but it might be assuming too much to think the text means to place them in that chronological order. It does, after all, say “childhood” for the first and “infancy” in the second.
    A) I don’t believe that either group was in “complete and total” apostasy. Trying to follow God but getting it wrong is not “complete and total” apostasy. Actively fighting against God is—and neither the Jews (as a whole) nor 18th Century Christians (as a whole) were even close to that. You want complete and total apostasy? Check out the Nephites around the 4th Century.
    B) As answered very well by psychochemiker.
    C) Implying infant baptism: Probably not. Ordained to MP before baptized: Why not?
  8. I’m not sure about the historical provenance of this statement since it’s coming from the TPJS, but here you go:
    “All priesthood is Melchizedek, but there are different portions or degrees of it.” (TPJS, 180).
    One of my teachers explained it by drawing three concentric circles with the outer one signifying Melchizedek, then Aaronic, then the Levitical priesthood as a subset of the Aaronic.
    I guess I’m of the opinion that priesthood is just the power and authority to act in the name of God and we give it all sorts of nicknames for a variety of reasons. Potato, po-tah-to.
  9. To perhaps narrow down (A), was there any kind of priesthood authority on the earth that was readily accessible in Judea? A Nephite with the MP probably doesn’t count because for him to show up and ordain John to either priesthood would still be a special occasion not unlike an angel showing up to ordain John.
    It already seems clear to me that there isn’t some universal LDS belief on the matter which most members would obviously know and agree with, and that’s helpful to my next post.
    And yes, I probably am assuming current LDS practices must have always applied with my (C). I’m happy to be corrected on that.
  10. BrianJ #7 — I don’t know where I got the idea that Z. was the *high* priest; might have come from oral lore or someone’s understanding of what levitical rank you had to have to burn incense in the Temple.
    Jack, what precisely are you looking to learn, I wonder? Whether Mormons apply the template of current Priesthood organization to ancient times, and attempt to match up modern offices and hierarchies to ancient offices and hierarchies?
    Well, some Mormons do, but as a canonical or liturgical matter, the Church doesn’t teach it.
    In fact, I’d argue that a missionary tactic I was taught is actually rather silly; taking the “body of Christ” rhetoric from the New Testament, and snipping off limbs and things that are marked with “apostle” or “prophet” or some other office missing from most denominations. For one, all denominations missing such offices have answers for such things which satisfy them. For another, it can be quite distressing to watch, because it’s sort of self-congratulatory.
    It seems to me on that basis and from that perspective, that the best way to analyze John the Baptist’s ordination is in terms of Jewish tradition for that time. What sort of impulse would exist during those earliest years of the rabbinical era that would inspire people to seek out a kohen and ask to be immersed?
    That would place the context of Jesus’ baptism at the hands of the Levite John the Baptist in a different context than a modern Mormon one, and might serve to illuminate the event far more completely than through some kind of post-hoc lens.
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