What led the Pharisees to associate John the Baptist’s abstinence from bread and wine with demonic possession?

Question

Luke 7:33-35 (NKJV) says:

For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look, a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ But wisdom is justified by all her children.”

If a priest or monk lived such a life style I would assume that he was a very Godly person to live a life of denial. This seems not to be the case for John the Baptist.

Is there any justification for why the Pharisees might have thought John the Baptist was demon-possessed due to his refusal to eat bread or drink wine?

Answer 1

For much the same reason as they accused Jesus of having a demon - it was what was taught and the number of people following that rankled with the accusers. The actions they spoke of were simply a front; an excuse for claiming demon possession.

That is shown by the text in question; Jesus pointed out that it was "a no-win situation". Those critics were rejecting God's counsel spoken by John, refusing to be baptised by John. They next rejected the counsel of God through Jesus, who had just healed many sick, and demon-afflicted people. So, Jesus used the illustration of children playing the flute for people to dance to, complaining nobody danced; then they mourned for others who, they complained, did not respond with weeping. See verses 20 to 32.

He applied the illustration to their refusal to be moved by John (who they said was austere) but they also refused to be moved by Jesus (who they knew was not austere). In other words, it wasn't their eating or drinking (or lack of that) which made them say both men were demon-possessed; it was what those men taught and did from God that they hated, but they couldn't come out in public and reveal that, could they?

See the same pattern showing itself with Jesus, who had told his critics that they sought to kill him, a man who had told them the truth which he heard from God; that he had been sent by God but they were of their father the devil. He pointed out that they could not convict him of sin. They responded:

"Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil? Jesus answered, I have not a devil, but I honour my Father, and ye do dishonour me." John 8:48-49 A.V.

They first hurled at Jesus what was, to them, an insult, followed by an awful accusation of demon-possession, Yet they had just seen Jesus cast demons out of people who had been demon-possessed! On the occasion recorded by Luke, they accused Jesus of being a drunken glutton. None of those three accusations had a grain of truth in them. So the accusations had to be followed up with a monstrous allegation of demon-possession to get the people distanced from both John and Jesus. Any old excuse would do to enable them to make the far more serious charge of demon-possession. They must have known that the people following John and then Jesus - "tax-collectors and sinners" in their sneering estimation - would know the initial charges were simply not true, so a distracting, more serious charge needed to take precedence.

They knew from their own personal experience of John the Baptist that he was leading many to repentance, preparing them for the Messiah who was about to appear. But they refused to be baptised by him. John had accused them first, saying to their faces:

"O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance..." Matthew 3:7-8 A.V.

That is why they resorted to accusations of demon-possession, to try to counteract his influence and expose of themselves. His strange life in the wilderness was just an excuse to base that on. Same with Jesus, who followed on the heels of John, likewise having greater influence and exposing them - more false (though opposite) excuses to make the same charge.

Answer 2

Abstinence and fasting alone were not enough to make people think John was possessed, any more than Jesus drinking and eating were enough to make them think he was a glutton. However, those inclined to oppose John could point to his fasting as a sign of demonic influence, especially combined with his other habits.

Loss of appetite is still seen as a symptom of spirit possession. But abstinence from wine or occasional fasting were not unusual, and were even typical for those under a vow. However, if we take these facts together with his custom of spending long periods in the desert dressed in camel hair and surviving on locusts and wild honey, the idea makes more sense.

The desert was thought to be a place haunted by evil spirits. Indeed, the story of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness tends to confirm the idea that those who fasted in the desert were prone to attempts at seduction by evil spirits. This tradition continued in the Christian era with such stories as St. Anthony's many battles against demons who resided there.

Conclusion: Opponents of John the Baptist looked for a reason to accuse him of demon possession. His fasting and abstinence from wine alone were insufficient reasons for this accusation, but his manner of dress and spending long periods in the wilderness while fasting made the accusation more reasonable.

Answer 3

I would be grateful to offer a brief answer in case it jogs the OP into a smoother reading from the same translation and the same text.

I believe this may be a specific spoken dialect issue of the reading, which I might have in common with the OP in my own dialect.

Considering a (somewhat exaggerated) construction like:-

"So I takes the bins out, yeh? And she says..."

In my dialect and perhaps the OP's "and" often has a much stronger consecutive sense than the Greek καί, especially with a verb of speech which produces a distinct local idiom. For me, the second 'arm' of the construction just above is (or may be) taken to have been as introduced as a consequence of the first.

But if I try to make myself take καί more as a simple/neutral conjunction, then Jesus is drawing a contrast-by-juxtaposition, between the two arms, of this form:-

John was good - - You called him possessed

The option exists in the grammar: that the two aren't associated, but dissociated: perhaps so as to call out the injustice and hypocrisy of the Pharisees, versus the piety and temperance of John the Baptist.

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I am not a historian at all, and my stereotype of the Pharisees is only a popular conception from my own space and time: that these were people with strict dietary requirements but no grasp of the underlying wisdom and mercy and truth and divine will underpinning them: 'letter of the law' people.

So there is also perhaps a contrast being drawn between the Pharisees and themselves, by the grammar, if we may admit of its including a suppressed premise on part of the Word, of the form:-

John was good [on your exact definition] - - You called him a demon

I am new to the site and still not at all sure if Biblical Hermeneutics admits of suppressed premises or nuances on part of Jesus in direct speech, but if I have managed to limit myself from suppressing premises here in this answer, it at least will be possible for other users who are (as it were) on the jury to read what I said about what was said, and to vote.

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The former of these points about καί I can look up a reference for if needed. The latter is conjectural and would require much study, but the OP is the one reading I don't here prescribe.

lastly, NKJV and all the other major translations (on biblehub) read "and" here and:-

• they are right to do so
• one imagines they do so because English offers no better idiom
• as major translations they can't account for every dialect variation of a spoken language with nearly a billion speakers
• this is not unanimity but convergence, between them they have reached the same result by virtually every conceivable translation methodology under the sun

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EDIT (07/08/24 - 8pm)

• for this usage of καί I submit Arndt & Gingrich (1952) usage 2a. It might be contended that 2f (which they call "to introduce a result" and I call "consecutive") is also felt. This gives rise to an interesting argument:-

John was good > You called him possessed

Reframing the OP's reading as an entailment. However this is either counterfactual or has lost a required premise.

This would have Jesus presenting an incomplete idea which is incapable of completion. (we can never know why the entailment is true)

Whereas,

John was good - - You called him possessed

Does not present this problem. The two ideas are not mutually-exclusive and so can stand side-by-side without obscurity or incompleteness.