When I wrote my book on the gospel of Matthew under the title Biblical Literalism: A Gentile Heresy, I noted the problem that Matthew and Luke had in dealing with the figure of John the Baptist. Both Matthew and Luke had expanded Mark into their longer and more provocative gospels, and in so doing they had to introduce John the Baptist earlier in their narratives. Mark had opened with John the Baptist and had related him to the Jewish observance of Rosh Hashanah. Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, was associated in a special way with Jewish messianic expectations.
