1In those days, John the Baptizer came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, 2“Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!” 3For this is he who was spoken of by Isaiah the prophet, saying,
“The voice of one crying in the wilderness,
make the way of the Lord ready!
Make his paths straight!”
4Now John himself wore clothing made of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. 5Then people from Jerusalem, all of Judea, and all the region around the Jordan went out to him. 6They were baptized by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins.
7But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for his baptism, he said to them, “You offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8Therefore produce fruit worthy of repentance! 9Don’t think to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father,’ for I tell you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. 10Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees. Therefore every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit is cut down, and cast into the fire.
11“I indeed baptize you in water for repentance, but he who comes after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit. 12His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will thoroughly cleanse his threshing floor. He will gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn up with unquenchable fire.”
13Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. 14But John would have hindered him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and you come to me?”
15But Jesus, answering, said to him, “Allow it now, for this is the fitting way for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he allowed him.
16Jesus, when he was baptized, went up directly from the water: and behold, the heavens were opened to him. He saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming on him. 17Behold, a voice out of the heavens said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
It is a long-held belief that John the Baptist ministered only in the Jordan River area. However, in 1999 James Tabor and Shimon Gibson were conducting an archaeological survey of the area at Kibbutz Tzova, near the town of Ain Karim – the traditional birthplace of John the Baptist. They discovered the entrance to a cave, and upon entering, discovered several carvings and paintings on the walls that appeared to be very early Christian markings. The two archaeologists decided to conduct a full excavation of the cave.
It turned out that the cave was not natural, but was hand cut from the rock of the hillside. Fully excavated, the cave is 80 feet long, 13 feet wide, and originally (when all of the silt was removed) 16 feet high. The walls were plastered, indicating that the space was meant for water storage, and indeed, the excavators believe it was first dug in the 9th or 10th centuries B.C. as a cistern. At some point in the first century B.C., the cave ceased to be a water storage facility but was still used until the middle of the second century A.D. It was reoccupied during the Byzantine period (4th-7th centuries).
Controversy surrounds the site. Gibson and Tabor found very odd remains in the cave. The floor was covered with hundreds of intentionally broken pots that were dated from the first to mid-second centuries A.D. Another strange aspect of the cave is that the silt that accumulated in the cave during winter floods was not removed over time, but seems to be hard-tamped by foot traffic. Within these layers, the archaeologists uncovered stone basins and paving stones arranged in a circle near the entrance. Near the bottom of the silt layers, Gibson and Taylor found a carved stone that they interpreted as a vessel for placing the right foot in and having it anointed with oil. Near the ceiling of the cave the excavators found images chiseled into the plaster. There are several crosses, a head, an upraised arm and a figure. The figure was intriguing because it seems to depict someone wearing rough clothing, holding a staff and perhaps a bag, and has something on his head, such as a crown or halo. The inscriptions were created from the fourth through eleventh centuries, although this dating is subjective.
Gibson and Taylor have interpreted the cave as having something to do with John the Baptist, and associate it with some kind of early baptismal practice. They go so far as to suggest that John himself may have used the cave. They postulate that initiates came to the cave, performed some cleansing ritual in the circle of pavers, then had their feet anointed on the carved stone. Over time, oral tradition preserved the association of John the Baptist with the cave.
Although the cave is near the traditional hometown of John the Baptist and may display an association with him, Tabor and Gibson’s interpretation has been met with widespread skepticism, even being called “imaginative speculation.”
There is no other evidence that John ministered outside of the Jordan River area, and the excavators’ interpretations of what they found in the cave, while interesting, are based mostly on assumption.
Shanks, Hershel. “John the Baptist’s Cave???.” Biblical Archaeology Review, Nov/Dec 2004, 18-19. http://members.bib-arch.org/publication.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=30&Issue=6&ArticleID=4 (accessed 4/17/2010) Hershel Shanks, “John the Baptist,” Biblical Archaeology Review, 18-19.