{"id":638,"date":"2015-04-20T12:00:42","date_gmt":"2015-04-20T12:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/?p=638"},"modified":"2015-03-11T20:30:01","modified_gmt":"2015-03-11T20:30:01","slug":"matthew-111-19-jesus-and-john-the-baptist-historical-backgrounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/04\/matthew-111-19-jesus-and-john-the-baptist-historical-backgrounds.html","title":{"rendered":"Matthew 11:1-19; Jesus and John the Baptist (Historical Backgrounds)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Matthew 11:2-3 reported that, while in prison, John the Baptist heard about what his Jesus was doing, and wanted to know more. What Matthew didn\u2019t report was the conditions John endured in prison.<\/p>\n<p>Historians tell us that John the Baptist was imprisoned in the castle fortress of Machaerus, located just east of the Dead Sea in Judea. King Herod Antipas (also known as Herod the tetrarch) had committed sins of marital corruption and John the Baptist preached publicly against the king\u2019s immorality. Antipas exacted vengeance, locking John up indefinitely in the dungeon of his fortress.<\/p>\n<p>Although we don\u2019t know exactly what John\u2019s prison cell in Machaerus was like, we can make a reasonable guess about this kind of \u201cRoman hospitality\u201d based on the Tullianum prison in the center of the city of Rome (where Simon Peter would later be jailed). The only prison in Rome proper, Tullianum was \u201ca conical, windowless chamber of rough-hewn tufa, the only entrance to which is a hole in the floor of the room above.\u201d According to historians, \u201cPrisoners were flung through this hole into the prison, and on occasion left there to starve and rot.\u201d A Numidian king named Jugurtha was imprisoned here in 104 BC, and his first comment was that it was unbearably cold.<\/p>\n<p>In Machaerus, it\u2019s likely that John\u2019s prison cell was comparable to Tullianum\u2014and the Baptist suffered more than a year imprisoned there, until he was unceremoniously decapitated in his cell simply to please the whims of Antipas\u2019 cruel wife, Herodias (Matthew 14:1-12).<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/workscited.html\">Works Cited<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>[GSM, 101-102; ZB1, 71; ARF, 78]<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u2126\u2126\u2126<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"About: Bible Study Nerds\" href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/about-for-bible-study-nerds.html\">About: For Bible Study Nerds\u2122<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"About: Mike Nappa\" href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/about-mike-nappa.html\">About: Mike Nappa<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2014 to present by\u00a0<a title=\"Nappaland Communications Inc. official website\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nappaland.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Nappaland Communications Inc<\/a>. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Matthew 11:2-3 reported that, while in prison, John the Baptist heard about what his Jesus was doing, and wanted to know more. What Matthew didn\u2019t report was the conditions John endured in prison. Historians tell us that John the Baptist was imprisoned in the castle fortress of Machaerus, located just east of the Dead Sea&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":571,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,2],"tags":[67,62,292,293],"class_list":["post-638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-historicalbackgrounds","category-matthew","tag-herod-antipas","tag-john-the-baptist","tag-machaerus","tag-tullianum"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Matthew 11:1-19; Jesus and John the Baptist (Historical Backgrounds) - For Bible Study Nerds<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/04\/matthew-111-19-jesus-and-john-the-baptist-historical-backgrounds.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Matthew 11:1-19; Jesus and John the Baptist (Historical Backgrounds) - For Bible Study Nerds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Matthew 11:2-3 reported that, while in prison, John the Baptist heard about what his Jesus was doing, and wanted to know more. 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What Matthew didn\u2019t report was the conditions John endured in prison. Historians tell us that John the Baptist was imprisoned in the castle fortress of Machaerus, located just east of the Dead Sea&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/04\/matthew-111-19-jesus-and-john-the-baptist-historical-backgrounds.html","og_site_name":"For Bible Study Nerds","article_published_time":"2015-04-20T12:00:42+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-03-11T20:30:01+00:00","author":"Mike Nappa","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/04\/matthew-111-19-jesus-and-john-the-baptist-historical-backgrounds.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/04\/matthew-111-19-jesus-and-john-the-baptist-historical-backgrounds.html","name":"Matthew 11:1-19; Jesus and John the Baptist (Historical Backgrounds) - For Bible Study Nerds","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-04-20T12:00:42+00:00","dateModified":"2015-03-11T20:30:01+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#\/schema\/person\/a0ce37903172885871b0c504c6694575"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/04\/matthew-111-19-jesus-and-john-the-baptist-historical-backgrounds.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/04\/matthew-111-19-jesus-and-john-the-baptist-historical-backgrounds.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/04\/matthew-111-19-jesus-and-john-the-baptist-historical-backgrounds.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Matthew 11:1-19; Jesus and John the Baptist (Historical Backgrounds)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/","name":"For Bible Study Nerds","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Mike Nappa","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#\/schema\/person\/a0ce37903172885871b0c504c6694575","name":"Mike Nappa","description":"Mike Nappa is an entertainment journalist at FamilyFans.com, a bestselling author\u2014and a notorious Bible Study Nerd. He's a former youth pastor who shepherded kids on staff at Chuck Swindoll's church in Southern California\u2014and he's a bestselling and award-winning author with more than a million copies of his books sold worldwide. Plus, he holds a degree in Christian Education with an emphasis in Bible Theology. So, you know, he\u2019s got that going for him. Mike is also a pop culture dork who watches too much TV, reads too many comic books, utters too many bad words, laughs at all the wrong jokes, and often gets in trouble because he says whatever he happens to be thinking at the moment\u2014like quoting an R-rated movie in the middle of a sermon. Yeah, he\u2019s a mess (just like you!), but he kind of likes it that way. Most of all, Mike Nappa loves Jesus, and he figures that covers over a multitude of sins. Learn more at nappaland.com\/mikenappa.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.biblestudynerds.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/author\/mnappa"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/571"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":657,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638\/revisions\/657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}