John the Baptist

====Syrian-Egyptian Gnosticism====
Among the early Judeo-Christian Gnostics the [[Ebionites]] held that John, along with Jesus and [[James the Just]] – all of whom they revered – were vegetarians.<ref name="Verheyden">J Verheyden, ''Epiphanius on the Ebionites'', in ''The image of the Judaeo-Christians in ancient Jewish and Christian literature'', eds Peter J. Tomson, Doris Lambers-Petry, {{ISBN|3-16-148094-5}}, p. 188 "The vegetarianism of John the Baptist and of Jesus is an important issue too in the Ebionite interpretation of the Christian life. "</ref><ref>[[Robert Eisenman]] (1997), ''[[James the Brother of Jesus (book)|James the Brother of Jesus]]'', p. 240 – "John (unlike Jesus) was both a '[[Rechabite]]' or 'Nazarite' and vegetarian", p. 264 – "One suggestion is that John ate 'carobs'; there have been others. Epiphanius, in preserving what he calls 'the Ebionite Gospel', rails against the passage there claiming that John ate 'wild honey' and 'manna-like vegetarian cakes dipped in oil. ... John would have been one of those wilderness-dwelling, vegetable-eating persons", p. 326 – "They [the Nazerini] ate nothing but wild fruit milk and honey – probably the same food that John the Baptist also ate.", p. 367 – "We have already seen how in some traditions 'carobs' were said to have been the true composition of John's food.", p. 403 – "his [John's] diet was stems, roots and fruits. Like James and the other Nazirites/Rechabites, he is presented as a vegetarian ..".</ref><ref>[[James Tabor]], ''[[The Jesus Dynasty]]'' p. 134 and footnotes p. 335, p. 134 – "The Greek New Testament gospels says John's diet consisted of "locusts and wild honey" but an ancient Hebrew version of Matthew insists that "locusts" is a mistake in Greek for a related Hebrew word that means a cake of some type, made from a desert plant, similar to the "manna" that the ancient Israelites ate in the desert on the days of Moses.(ref 9) Jesus describes John as "neither eating nor drinking," or "neither eating bread nor drinking wine." Such phrases indicate the lifestyle of one who is strictly vegetarian, avoids even bread since it has to be processed from grain, and shuns all alcohol.(ref 10) The idea is that one would eat only what grows naturally.(ref 11) It was a way of avoiding all refinements of civilization."</ref><ref name="Ehrman 2003 on Gospel of the Ebionites">{{Cite book|author=Bart D. Ehrman|title=Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew|pages=[https://archive.org/details/lostchristianiti00ehrm/page/102 102, 103]|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2003|isbn=978-0-19-514183-2|url=https://archive.org/details/lostchristianiti00ehrm/page/102}} p. 102 – "Probably the most interesting of the changes from the familiar New Testament accounts of Jesus comes in the Gospel of the Ebionites description of John the Baptist, who, evidently, like his successor Jesus, maintained a strictly vegetarian cuisine."</ref><ref>James A. Kelhoffer, [https://books.google.com/books?id=uzTcB8yMnrcC&q=The+diet+of+John+the+Baptist:+%22Locusts+and+wild+honey%22+in+synoptic+and+patristic+interpretation ''The Diet of John the Baptist''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230406111305/https://books.google.com/books?id=uzTcB8yMnrcC&q=The+diet+of+John+the+Baptist:+%22Locusts+and+wild+honey%22+in+synoptic+and+patristic+interpretation |date=6 April 2023 }}, {{ISBN|978-3-16-148460-5}}, pp. 19–21</ref><ref name="Mead 2007">{{cite book|author=G.R.S. Mead|title=Gnostic John the Baptizer: Selections from the Mandæan John-Book|page=104|publisher=Forgotten Books|year=2007|isbn=978-1-60506-210-5|url=http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/gno/gjb/gjb-3.htm|access-date=17 April 2011|archive-date=13 March 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200313222252/http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/gno/gjb/gjb-3.htm|url-status=live}} p. 104 – "And when he had been brought to Archelaus and the doctors of the Law had assembled, they asked him who he is and where he has been until then. And to this he made answer and spake: ''I am pure; [for] the Spirit of God hath led me on, and [I live on] cane and roots and tree-food.''"</ref> [[Epiphanius of Salamis]] records that this group had amended their [[Gospel of Matthew]] – known today as the [[Gospel of the Ebionites]] – to change where John eats "locusts" to read "honey cakes" or "[[manna]]".<ref>Tabor (2006) ''Jesus Dynasty'' p. 334 (note 9) – "''The Gospel of the Ebionites'' as quoted by the 4th-century writer Epiphanius. The Greek word for locusts (''akris'') is very similar to the Greek word for "honey cake" (''ekris'') that is used for the "manna" that the Israelites ate in the desert in the days of Moses (Exodus 16:32)" & p. 335 (note 11) – "There is an old Russian (Slavic) version of Josephus's ''Antiquities'' that describes John the Baptizer as living on 'roots and fruits of the tree' and insists that he never touches bread, even at Passover."</ref><ref name="Ehrman 2003 Gospel of the Ebionites translation">{{Cite book|author=Bart D. Ehrman|title=Lost Scriptures: Books that Did Not Make It into the New Testament|page=[https://archive.org/details/lostscripturesbo00ehrm/page/13 13]|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2003|isbn=978-0-19-514182-5|url=https://archive.org/details/lostscripturesbo00ehrm/page/13}} p. 13 – Referring to Epiphanius' quotation from the ''Gospel of the Ebionites'' in ''Panarion'' 30.13, "And his food, it says, was wild honey whose taste was of ''manna'', as cake in oil".</ref>