John the Baptist

[DeistPaladin]

That they don't mention ministry for a time doesn't mean that there wasn't any.

Well, if you're going to invoke this argument from ignorance, that Jesus had an entire ministry that the Synoptics chose to omit for some reason, then you also need to be prepared to claim that:

1. There were two baptisms by John the Baptist
2. That there were two times that Jesus drew Andrew and Peter into discipleship.
3. That there were two temple cleansings*

*Actually, apologists are already forced to make this claim, since John has Jesus kick off his ministry with this event while the Synoptics make it the conclusion.

And while you're at it, you can rationalize how prominent JtB is in the earlier, Synoptic Gospels and how irrelevant he became by the time John was penned. I've posted before how the Mandaens, the Jewish sect that followed JtB continued to be rivals with the early Christians for centuries. Evidently, followers of JtB didn't get the memo.

Mark begins with a put-down of JtB as being merely a forerunner of JC. This same tactic was used by Muhammad who claimed JC was his forerunner. It's a way to assimilate the religion you're in competition with.

Matthew has JtB sink further on his knees, expressing discomfort with the idea that he should baptize Jesus (Matt 3:14), since JC outranks him so much.

John doesn't have JtB baptize Jesus at all. JtB is completely submissive by this point in the evolution of JC's story.

It thus makes sense that the original Gospel writers needed JtB out of the way before JC could begin his ministry. By the time John was written, JtB was almost irrelevant to the story and could be shoved aside for JC to take center stage.