[Footnote a: One can easily put together all that we are told of John the Baptist in John 1:6-15 and in Sections 4, 6, 8, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 33, 34, 49, 57, 71, 86, 132. See also Acts 1:5, 22; 10:37; 13:24; 18:25; 19:1-7. For a full discussion of the Baptist see my _John the Loyal_. These months of John's ministry prepared the way for the Messiah.] PART VI THE BEGINNING OF CHRIST'S PUBLIC MINISTRY THE YEAR OF OBSCURITY[a] Probably Part of A.D. 26 and 27 _In all parts of the Holy Land (the first Perean Ministry, the first Galilean Ministry, the first Judean Ministry, the first Samaritan Ministry). §§ 24-36. This early ministry includes the baptism, the temptation, John's witness to Jesus, the first disciples, the first miracle and work in Galilee, the first work in Judea, the arrest of John, the work in Samaria, and the return to Galilee._ [Footnote a: The precise duration of this early ministry cannot be determined. Our Lord's baptism must have been at least two months _before_ the Passover, and may have been some weeks or months earlier. Then the highly successful ministry in Judea _after_ the Passover must have lasted several months (John 3:22; 4:1-3). If the "yet four months" in John 4:35 be understood to be not a common saying as to the usual interval between seedtime and harvest, but a statement that it was _then_ just four months before harvest, that would make the Judean ministry extend eight months after the Passover. But this interpretation is upon the whole improbable, and we can only say that the opening ministry lasted several months. The time occupied makes very little difference for our understanding the events and discourses. All of the incidents during this period after the temptation are given in John's Gospel. But for the Fourth Gospel we should not know that Jesus did not plunge at once into the great Galilean Ministry.] § 24. JESUS BAPTIZED BY JOHN IN THE JORDAN Bethany beyond Jordan. Probably A.D. 26