John+the+Baptist

Evan Smith, Amelia Messenger, Natalie Whiting **John the Baptist﻿**


 * Summary of the story of John The Baptist:**

John, born in Israel, cousin of Jesus Christ, grew up to live a holy life. He wore animal skins and ate a strict diet of wild foods.

He soon gained a following of many Israelites, and Jesus asked John to baptize him, giving him the name "John the Baptist".

After the baptism of Jesus, John was imprisoned, because John preached that it was immoral of King Herod to marry Herodias, the widow of Herod's brother. Along with imprisonment, Herodias convinced her daughter, Salome, to help seek revenge on John.

At Herod's birthday party, Salome danced so beautifully that Herod offered to give her anything she wanted as a reward. Taking Herodias's request into consideration, Salome asks for John the Baptist's head on a platter.

Herod was unhappy about her request because he believed John hadn't done anything wrong and killing him would anger his followers, but obliged and ordered for his execution, where he was beheaded. His head was then placed on a platter and given to Salome.

[|John the Baptist Video]

** Allusions to John the Baptist: ** //The Time Traveler's Wife// (book, 2004) "Achtung Baby" by U2 (song) "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot (poem, 1915) //The Scarlet Letter// by Nathaniel Hawthorne (Book, 1850)

**Passage from the Scarlet Letter** **Chapter 8: The Elf Child and the Minister** "The wide circumference of an elaborate ruff, beneath his gray beard, in the antiquated fashion of King James’s reign, caused his head to look not a little like that of John the Baptist in a charger. The impression made by his aspect, so rigid and severe, and frost-bitten with more than autumnal age, was hardly in keeping with the appliances of worldly enjoyment wherewith he had evidently done his utmost to surround himself."

Many authors use the famous story of John's beheading to allude to characters in literature.

** Tip-Offs ** Head on Platter Baptism John Saint John Dancing Baptism of Jesus Mark 6:14-29