Jesus was born, um, somewhere around this time

[DeistPaladin]

Oh, dear...except Phillip wasn't dead until late 33/34 AD which means that Antipas could not have married his brother's wife and he didn't divorce Aretas IV's daughter until about 34 also....Josephus then tells us that Lucius Vitellius, the newly installed governor of Syria was directed by Tiberius to punish Aretas but Vitellius was not consul until 34 and could not have been governor of Syria until 35 at the earliest which doesn't leave an awful lot of time for ole jebus to do his schtick, does it?

And we have to figure that JtB couldn't have been an overnight success. He had a massive following, so much that his Mandaen followers were rivals of the early Christians. Ken speculates, quite aptly I think, that the whole reason for JtB making an appearance at all is to place him in a subservient position to their god figure.

Side note, do you notice with later and later Gospels, JtB sinks lower and lower on his knees?

Mark: JtB baptizes Jesus, but only after putting himself down.
Matt: JtB first asks why he should baptize Jesus instead of the other way around.
Luke: It doesn't say JtB baptizes Jesus. Luke uses the passive voice and there is no conversation between them.
John: JtB never baptizes Jesus but only recognizes him as the "Lamb of God"

In any case, one doesn't build such a following overnight as JtB had. In order to shoe-horn JtB's entire ministry into one year, on Christian apologist I'm currently exchanging videos with actually invoked the "power of God" card. Seriously. So God made JtB an overnight success? Apparently free will isn't all it's cracked up to be.

I always find it interesting when a Christian is backed into a corner and forced to play the "power of God" card. It's a tacit admission that the story makes no sense.