Category:John the Baptist--literature (subject)

John the Baptist (literature); see John the Baptist (home page)

• Fiction : John the Baptist (fiction) -- John the Baptist (art) -- John the Baptist (literature) -- John the Baptist (music) -- John the Baptist (dance) -- John the Baptist (cinema)

• Scholarship : John the Baptist (research) -- John the Baptist (sources)

< Life of John the Baptist : Annunciation to Zacharias -- Visitation of Mary -- Birth of John the Baptist -- Child John the Baptist with Jesus -- Young John the Baptist in the Desert -- Preaching of John the Baptist -- Baptism of Jesus -- Question about Fasting -- Messengers from John the Baptist -- Death of John the Baptist -- Question about Authority -- Relics of John the Baptist >

Page authored by Gabriele Boccaccini, University of Michigan, @2020.

Overview

Unlike other biblical characters, John the Baptist does not emerge with distinctive features in literature. The interest of the readers focused on the bizzarre circumstances of his death rather than on his many life accomplishments, which gave him a quite marginal role in a drama where the real protagonists were others: Herod Antipas, Herodias and Salome. Soon his name disappeared even from the titles of plays and novels. Only in contemporary times have there been a few attempts to revisit his biography, the most ambitious of which is that of American novelist Brooks Hansen in 2009. Too little and too late to establish John the Baptist as a protagonist of biblical fiction.

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