Page "John the Baptist" Paragraph 13

There is no mention of a family relationship between John and Jesus in the other Gospels, and the scholar Raymond E. Brown has described it as " of dubious historicity ".

Géza Vermes has called it " artificial and undoubtedly Luke's creation ".

Conversely, John Calvin, Albert Barnes Adam Clarke, John Gill, and John Wesley amongst many other have affirmed this as divine truth and found no problem with its historicity.

On the basis of the account in Luke, the Catholic calendar placed the feast of John the Baptist on June 24, six months before Christmas.