Here we say farewell to John the Baptist, his demise left unspoken (for now), and the scene shifts to a fellow named Jesus now coming into Galilee and preaching the gospel of God. Since the first Jesus we encountered was from Galilee, one might expect the verb here would have been ‘returned’ rather than ‘came’, which implies an initial visit. So that’s weird. In the last verse, we read that Jesus went into Galilee almost immediately after his baptism and stayed there for a long time, so either this is a story about his arrival in Galilee, or it’s a story about another man.

It’s possible that this is the introduction of “Rebel Jesus”, who is another teacher in Galilee at the time that “Anointed Jesus” (as I call him) was there. This Jesus is also a Zealot, and regularly advocates for rebellion against Rome. When he says “kingdom of God”, he’s talking about Judean self-rule (by the Temple priests, naturally). This was the Zealot goal. We see him collect up fishermen as followers, who were the primary supporters of the Zealot movement. He’s notable in that he doesn’t want any credit or publicity for the work he does, unlike “Anointed Jesus”, who can’t get enough publicity.

The word in Greek that identifies the fate of John is παραδίδωμι which is usually translated here as ‘taken into custody’, ‘put into prison’, or ‘delivered up’. The literal Greek meaning is ‘delivered up’, but also has meanings like ‘given up’ and ‘betrayed’, but also ‘brought forth’ and ‘recommended’. There is a story about John the Baptist apparently from Aramean sources located at 6:14-29, in which his beheading is explicitly described. The way this verse is written it appears that the writer expected the story of the demise of John the Baptist to already be well known.