How did John the Baptist's mother die?

Answer 1

Another answer from our community:

Elizabeth, wife of Zachariah.

Luke 1:5 (KJV): There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth.

Luke 1:13 (KJV): But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John.

Answer 2

A:Luke's Gospel says that Elizabeth was John's mother and Zechariah was his father. However, Uta Ranke-Heinemann (Putting Away Childish Things) believes that Elizabeth and Zechariah were literary creations and that the Lucan story of the birth of John was fictional.

Answer 3

According to Luke's Gospel, the mother of John the Baptist was Elisabeth, a cousin of Mary, mother of Jesus. On the other hand, Uta Ranke-Heinemann (Putting Away Childish Things) believes that Elisabeth was not a real person and that the author of Luke created the story of John's birth.

We can look at the evidence to see which of those views is most likely to be correct. All four New Testament gospels were originally anonymous, so we do not really know who wrote Luke's Gospel. It is known as a 'synoptic' gospel because when laid alongside Mark's Gospel (and Matthew's) and read synoptically ('with the same eye') in the original Greek language, it can be established that Luke was based on Mark. The 'Missing Block' demonstrates that where Luke's source was incomplete, he was unable to fill the gap with information from any other source or inspiration. Other evidence shows that Luke was written no earlier than the 90s of the first century.

What this means is that the author of Luke could not have known anything about the life of Jesus other than what he read in Mark, yet he confidently reported private family events that occurred at least a hundred years before the time of writing, providing the only gospel account of the birth of John the Baptist. Ranke-Heinemann would seem to have good grounds for assuming that Luke's story of the birth of John the Baptist was not really true, in which case we do not really know who his mother was.

Answer 4

Luke's Gospel says that John the Baptist was born miraculously to Elizabeth in her old age. The problem is that only the author of Luke's Gospel seems to have known anything about John's infancy or been aware of a family relationship between Jesus and John the Baptist, if such a relationship existed. Even the name of John's mother raises doubts as to the historicity of events that supposedly occurred many decades before Luke was written. John Shelby Spong (Born of a Woman) says he is suspicious because Elizabeth in Hebrew would be Elisheba', a name that appears only once in the Old Testament, as the wife of Aaron, brother of Moses. Luke 1:5 describes Elizabeth as the daughter of Aaron, so the author must have had Aaron and Moses in mind when he wrote his Gospel.

Until the historicity of this part of Luke's Gospel is resolved, we must acknowledge we really know nothing about the family of John the Baptist, including whether his mother was really called Elizabeth and how she may have died.

Answer 5

The cause of her death is unkown. The Bible has no records of her death. Very little information is given about her and her life.

Answer 6

She didn't die. She was assumed Body & Soul into Heaven, just like the Prophets Elijah & Enoch were.

Answer 7

It is believed that John the Baptist's parents were old when he was born so, he was orphaned at an early age and raised by Essene monks in the desert.