Matthew 3:1 is the first verse of the third chapter of the Gospel of Matthew

Gospel of Matthew

The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...

 in the New Testament

New Testament

The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

. This verse takes up the narrative some thirty years after Matthew 2:23

Matthew 2:23

Matthew 2:23 is the twenty-third verse of the second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. The young Jesus and the Holy Family have just returned from Egypt and in this verse are said to settle in Nazareth. This is the final verse of Matthew's infancy narrative...

 beginning the description of Jesus

Jesus

Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...

' ministry. This verse introduces the figure of John the Baptist

John the Baptist

John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher and a major religious figure mentioned in the Canonical gospels. He is described in the Gospel of Luke as a relative of Jesus, who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River...

.

In the King James Version of the Bible the text reads:

In those days came John

the Baptist, preaching in

the wilderness of Judaea,

The World English Bible

World English Bible

The World English Bible is a public domain translation of the Bible that is currently in draft form. Work on the World English Bible began in 1997 and was known as the American Standard Version 1997...

 translates the passage as:

In those days, John the

Baptizer came, preaching

in the wilderness of Judea, saying,

For a collection of other versions see BibRef Matthew 3:1

Unlike the infancy narrative this verse begins a section that is closely paralleled in Mark 1

Mark 1

Mark 1 is the first chapter of the Gospel of Mark of the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It begins "The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God" stating right from the start Mark's belief. However, because there is no article in the Koine Greek some have suggested be...

 and Luke 3

Luke 3

Luke 3 is the third chapter of the Gospel of Luke in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It contains an account of John the Baptist as well as a Genealogy of Jesus.- John the Baptist :...

. According to the theory of Markan Priority

Markan priority

Markan priority is the hypothesis that the Gospel of Mark was the first written of the three Synoptic Gospels, and that the two other synoptic evangelists, Matthew and Luke, used Mark's Gospel as one of their sources. The theory of Markan priority is today accepted by the majority of New Testament...

 both Matthew and Luke are rewritten versions of Mark. Keener notes that the hypothetical Q source

Q source

The Q source is a hypothetical written source for the Gospel of Matthew and Gospel of Luke. Q is defined as the "common" material found in Matthew and Luke but not in the Gospel of Mark...

 also likely begins with John, explaining the overlap between Matthew and Luke in the non Markan-material, and why there is so little overlap in the nativity story.

The phrase "in those days" marks a substantial shift of time frame from the previous verse. Matthew nowhere indicates how long this break is, but Luke places it as some thirty years. Hill notes that "in those days" is frequently used as an indication that important events are taking place. To him the phrase thus more accurately means "in those crucial days." Other scholars, such as France and Nolland, take a different view. They see the word those as a direct reference to Matthew 2:23

Matthew 2:23

Matthew 2:23 is the twenty-third verse of the second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. The young Jesus and the Holy Family have just returned from Egypt and in this verse are said to settle in Nazareth. This is the final verse of Matthew's infancy narrative...

 and thus sees the phrase as meaning "in those days that he lived in Nazareth."

This verse introduces the character of John the Baptist. Guthrie notes that John likely does not need much of an introduction to Matthew's largely Jewish readers as he was a well known figure at the time. Matthew gives none of his early history, unlike Luke. John is a much less important character in Matthew than in the other gospels, appearing only in a supporting role to Jesus. While Matthew and Luke refer to John the Baptist, Mark refers to him by the slightly different title "John the Baptizer." The word baptist is also somewhat controversial. To Anabaptists the correct translation is "John the Immerser."

The wilderness of Judea

Judea

Judea or Judæa was the name of the mountainous southern part of the historic Land of Israel from the 8th century BCE to the 2nd century CE, when Roman Judea was renamed Syria Palaestina following the Jewish Bar Kokhba revolt.-Etymology:The...

 mentioned in this verse is generally taken to refer to the region of Judea slopping down from the highlands to the Dead Sea

Dead Sea

The Dead Sea , also called the Salt Sea, is a salt lake bordering Jordan to the east and Israel and the West Bank to the west. Its surface and shores are below sea level, the lowest elevation on the Earth's surface. The Dead Sea is deep, the deepest hypersaline lake in the world...

. This was an arid area not well suited to habitation. The term is occasionally translated as desert, but there was enough moisture to allow for pastoralism, so some consider this translation incorrect. According to Pliny

Pliny the Elder

Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...

 this region was home to the Essenes

Essenes

The Essenes were a Jewish sect that flourished from the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century CE which some scholars claim seceded from the Zadokite priests...

 it was also home to Qumran

Qumran

Qumran is an archaeological site in the West Bank. It is located on a dry plateau about a mile inland from the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, near the Israeli settlement and kibbutz of Kalia...

 where the Dead Sea Scrolls

Dead Sea scrolls

The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of 972 texts from the Hebrew Bible and extra-biblical documents found between 1947 and 1956 on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, from which they derive their name...

 were found. Many feel that John the Baptist was influenced by these groups. The phrase "in Judea" does not exist in the comparable verse in Mark, and is an addition by the author of Matthew. Matthew previously used the same qualifier for Bethlehem in 2:5

Matthew 2:5

Matthew 2:5 is the fifth verse of the second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. The magi have informed King Herod that they had seen portents showing the birth of the King of the Jews. Herod has asked the leading Jewish religious figures about how to find out where Jesus was to...

 and 2:6

Matthew 2:6

Matthew 2:6 is the sixth verse of the second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. The magi have informed King Herod that they had seen portents showing the birth of the King of the Jews. Herod has asked the leading Jewish religious figures about how to find out where Jesus was to...

. While John may have been in Judea in this period, it is clear he was on the other side of Jordan River at a later date when he was captured and executed by Herod Antipas

Herod Antipas

Herod Antipater , known by the nickname Antipas, was a 1st-century AD ruler of Galilee and Perea, who bore the title of tetrarch...

 who ruled Galilee

Galilee

Galilee , is a large region in northern Israel which overlaps with much of the administrative North District of the country. Traditionally divided into Upper Galilee , Lower Galilee , and Western Galilee , extending from Dan to the north, at the base of Mount Hermon, along Mount Lebanon to the...

 and Perea

Perea (Holy Land)

Perea , a portion of the kingdom of Herod the Great occupying the eastern side of the Jordan River valley, from about one third the way down from the Sea of Galilee to about one third the way down the eastern shore of the Dead Sea; it did not extend too far inland...

. It could also be that Matthew is vague, and referring to the immediate east side of the Jordan as also being Judea.

The wilderness had other connotations to the early readers of Matthew. Guthrie notes that at this time the wilderness was considered much closer to God in contrast with the corruption of the cities. An exile to the wilderness also links to Exodus

The Exodus

The Exodus is the story of the departure of the Israelites from ancient Egypt described in the Hebrew Bible.Narrowly defined, the term refers only to the departure from Egypt described in the Book of Exodus; more widely, it takes in the subsequent law-givings and wanderings in the wilderness...

, and later prophets such as Hosea

Hosea

Hosea was the son of Beeri and a prophet in Israel in the 8th century BC. He is one of the Twelve Prophets of the Jewish Hebrew Bible, also known as the Minor Prophets of the Christian Old Testament. Hosea is often seen as a "prophet of doom", but underneath his message of destruction is a promise...

 predicted that the Israelites would one day be forced back to the wilderness. It was thus widely accepted that new prophets and religious leaders would come out of the wilderness. Other schlars disagree and see the wilderness as desolate and forbiding. In Matthew 4:1

Matthew 4:1

Matthew 4:1 is the first verse of the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. This verse opens the section in Matthew dealing with the temptation of Christ by Satan...

the wilderness will be introduced as the location to encounter the Devil.