One of the most fun features of novels based on the Bible is the clever and inventive ways the authors connect the dots left unconnected in the Bible. Also, the ways creative writers flesh out bit players in the biblical tales. It is the art of the docudrama: what might have been. Killing Jesus is such a novel. The trouble is that it presents itself as something else: a work of history, which it is very far from being. This chapter analyzes O’Reilly and Dugard's chapter 9 and shows how their narrative is the product of novelistic creativity and by no means of historical reconstruction. I don't think they know the difference.
PUMPKIN EATER
The material in the gospels about the Twelve is frustrating and tantalizing. I think that is because most of them are mere names on a list, only remotely connected, if at all, with real historical persons. The lists in the gospels and the Book of Acts do not even quite agree, though, as we will soon be seeing, defenders of biblical inerrancy have standard, if unconvincing, explanations at the ready, and O’Reilly and Dugard are happy to borrow them. The most developed character among the disciples is of course Simon Peter. This is not necessarily because anyone remembered the things he did and said. Rather, he is a literary foil. Peter plays the role of Ananda in the tales of the Buddha: he is well-meaning but a bit dense, and his dumb questions afford the opportunity for the storyteller to have the Buddha provide the true understanding for the readers’ benefit.
Or think of Dr. Watson in Arthur Conan Doyle's adventures of the Great Detective, Sherlock Holmes. The reader can be privy to Holmes's feats of ratiocination only if Holmes has someone alongside him to whom he can explain them, and this he does by answering the questions of the baffled Watson, who is the intra-narrative counterpart of the reader. “I say, Holmes. How did you deduce that the IRS targeted conservative political groups for harassment?” “Elementary, my dear Watson…” That's what Peter and Jesus do. “Then Peter came up and said to him, ‘How often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven’” (Matt. 18:21–22; cf. also Matt. 14:28–31; 15:15–20; 16:22–23; 17:24–26; Mark 9:5–6; 11:21–23; 14:29–31; Luke 8:45–46; 12:41ff.; John 13:6–11; 18:10–11; 21:21–22). The various gospel writers have used Peter wherever they needed a straight man, sometimes adding Peter's name when an earlier version simply had some unspecified disciple say or do something dumb.
The gospels are not completely consistent in their treatment of Peter, especially in the matter of when and how he met Jesus, became his disciple, and received the name “Peter” added onto his birth name Simon. Luke and John have major items regarding Peter that other, earlier, gospels lack. And by now you know what that means: they have been added to spruce up the story. Nor will you be very surprised to learn that this means nothing at all to O’Reilly and Dugard, who never met a gospel story they didn't like. And if they like it, it is ipso facto history, even if they have to tinker with it a bit.
To me, one of the most powerful gospel stories is that of the calling of the first disciples in Mark 1:16–20. Here these fishermen are, hard at work mending their nets, and a man suddenly appears on shore, someone they don't know from Adam, and he calls them to drop everything to follow him—on what mission, to what destination, who knows? And they do it. One thing they somehow know: destiny has just arrived and called their names. And they know they cannot turn away. Wow. Whether it happened or not, it is a perfect recruitment paradigm. And its power depends, I think, on Peter, Andrew, James, and John not knowing who Jesus is.1 Nor does Mark give any indication that they do, so I don't think I am reading anything into this.2
We will see how Luke ventures to rewrite Mark's episode (Matthew figures it ain't broke, so he doesn't try to fix it). But John's Gospel lacks any version of this recruitment story. Instead, he places Peter and Andrew down in Judea with John the Baptizer. Andrew is lucky enough to be standing beside the Baptizer as the latter notices Jesus passing by, then points him out to Andrew, encouraging him to follow him and introduce himself. Andrew obeys, is impressed with Jesus, then goes to invite Peter, at this point called just Simon, to meet Jesus, too. Jesus welcomes Simon and, on the spot, bestows on him the name Peter (Greek equivalent to the Aramaic Cephas, “the Rock”). From then on Peter is numbered among the disciples. This version does not fit with the Synoptic Gospels. For one thing, no gospel tells both tales. For another, Mark 3:13–19a has Jesus christen Simon “Peter” when he chooses twelve assistants from the greater number of his followers. Matthew 16:18 seems to locate the naming at Caesarea Philippi in the wake of Peter's confession of Jesus’ Messiahship.
John's version must be discarded as history if for no other reason than because it presupposes the fictive scene of the Baptizer publicly endorsing Jesus. In Mark and Luke, the Baptizer was and remained unacquainted with Jesus. In Matthew, in order to remove the stigma of Jesus submitting to the ministry of a superior, John is said to know Jesus as soon as he sees him, with the descent of the Spirit ensuing after the baptism. There is still no announcement about Jesus to the crowd. But in John, the Baptizer does not know Jesus as the Messiah until he sees the Spirit come down, and this is not even said to happen in conjunction with the baptism since Jesus is not said to have been baptized at all. John's Gospel makes the introduction of Peter and Andrew to Jesus a part of this complex, so, if the non-baptism sequence is the evangelist's own invention, the Andrew and Simon sequel goes down with the ship.
O’Reilly and Dugard try to solder the Synoptic and Johannine versions together, making nonsense of both. They want both versions to be true but wind up falsifying both. They figure that maybe Jesus did recruit Peter down in Judea in the days of John the Baptist, but then Peter had second thoughts and returned home to Capernaum in Galilee. When Jesus shows up there in Luke 5:1–11 (based on Mark's version), he is hoping to persuade Simon to come rejoin the team. While Luke does have Jesus already acquainted with Peter (Luke 4:38),3 it is clear that he is recruited as a disciple only as of 5:10–11, after the miraculous catch of fish. O’Reilly and Dugard are trying to shoehorn John's recruitment story into the Mark-Luke version where it has no place.
O’Reilly and Dugard are trying to pass off this artificial synthesis of John and Luke as history, but it will not work. And even as fiction it is a blunder, since the notion of a previous acquaintance between Jesus and Peter totally saps the power of the Markan original. But, then again, Luke already ruined it. He apparently did not like Mark's version because it lacked any sensible motivation for Peter, Andrew, James, and John to pull up stakes and go off with a Jesus they did not know. It must have taken something pretty darn convincing to get them to make such a total break with the past. Luke knew of a miracle story in which Jesus caused a huge catch of fish for his disciples, a story seemingly borrowed from the lore of Pythagoras.4 The same story appears in a variant version in the Johannine Appendix (John chapter 21). Luke decided, given the common element of Peter fishing just offshore, present in both Mark 1:16–20 and in the story of the miraculous catch of fish, he might as well take the opportunity to sandwich the latter into the former, with the result that now it is no big mystery why Peter and his buddies left their nets behind. And when a story can be dissected in this manner, we recognize it as a literary product, not a historical report.
O’Reilly and Dugard claim that they do not include gospel miracles except as (possibly true) rumors, but this is a major exception. With a straight face, they relate the essentials of the Luke 5 story, huge catch of fish and all. They don't actually say that Jesus caused the catch, but then neither does Luke. He doesn't have to. Do you think he figured it might be a coincidence? I assure you, O’Reilly and Dugard don't think so either.
Our authors once again transmute speculation into historical fact, just as Midas made lead into gold or Jesus turned water into wine, when it comes to Jesus’ reasons for choosing fishermen for disciples. “Jesus has specifically singled out men from this calling [i.e., fishermen] because their job requires them to be conversant in Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, and a little Latin, which will allow them to speak with a wider group of potential followers” (p. 139). This is sheer supposition, never even hinted at in the text. It is worth noting that the author of Acts must not have thought the disciples capable of such linguistic versatility, since when the time comes to declare the mighty works of God to an international audience on the Day of Pentecost, the same Holy Spirit who suggested to Bill that he write Killing Jesus became their translator. Who needs Rosetta Stone when you've got miracles?
Matthew suffers at the rude but dexterous hands of O’Reilly and Dugard, too. For one thing, they make him Peter's local tax collector in Capernaum. No gospel does this.5 For another, they adopt the Gospel of Matthew's gratuitous identification of Matthew the disciple (Mark 3:18) with Levi the tax collector (Mark 2:14). Levi and Matthew are two separate characters in Mark, nor does Mark ever call the disciple Matthew a tax collector. But when we get to Matthew's Gospel, the two have been fused, though even here it does not say anything like “Levi who was also called Matthew” or “Matthew who was also called Levi.” No, the evangelist Matthew (not the same man as the disciple character, by the way) simply changes the name from Levi to Matthew in the story where Jesus calls him to leave his toll booth to follow him (Matt. 9:9). And when we get to his list of the twelve disciples, suddenly we read what we never read in Mark: “Matthew the tax collector” (Matt. 10:3). Luke does not make Levi into Matthew, but this doesn't faze O’Reilly and Dugard, who assume Luke (and Mark?) hid Matthew's identity behind the pseudonym “Levi” because he was still alive at the time of writing (p. 144). What is that supposed to mean? The way they tell it, the “secret” had long been out, and Matthew must have gotten used to taking heat for his tax-collecting past. What a mess.
From some imaginary source our authors have pulled the “information” that Matthew “oversees all collections for Herod Antipas” (p. 139) and that the Jerusalem Pharisees “mock [Jesus] for selecting a much-despised tax-collector, Matthew, as a disciple” (p. 141). Oh, wait—they got it from the Gospel according to Bill.
JESUS’ TALKING POINTS
Our authors are utterly without historical sense. If we didn't know that already, it would become clear enough with their summary of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. chaps. 5–7). I think you can see one of the problems as illustrated in a famous scene from another gospel adaptation that is about as fanciful as Killing Jesus. Jesus is high atop the mountain in Galilee, preaching the Sermon. “Blessed are the peacemakers,” he shouts. But listeners at the distant edge of the crowd cannot be quite sure what he says. A man opines, “I think it was ‘Blessed are the cheesemakers.’” His wife replies, “What's so special about the cheesemakers?” Her husband, a skilled interpreter, says, “It's not meant to be taken literally. Obviously it refers to any manufacturers of dairy products.”6 Can we be sure that what Jesus may have said was correctly heard and transmitted in the first place, given the lack of amplification and recording equipment?7 And that brings up another difficulty: it would be virtually impossible for anyone in the crowd to memorize the whole darn sermon while Jesus was speaking it, but that is exactly what O’Reilly and Dugard tell us happened.
And this sermon is no sermon, no speech given on one occasion. Luke has a shorter version in his sixth chapter. It does not look like an abridgment of the same one Matthew set forth, but it is so close to it that it is evident that both were using a common source, again, the Q Source. Both evangelists added material of their own from other sources, but Matthew certainly added more. You can pretty easily tell which one added what, as each writer leaves certain stylistic and thematic “fingerprints.” But even the Q original was not the transcript of any single speech. The text is a compilation of self-contained sayings and maxims, strung together according to subject matter.8 Even at that, there is no coherent line of thought. It is in these respects exactly like the Dhammapada, a Buddhist collection of sayings. Or like the Book of Proverbs in the Old Testament.
O’Reilly and Dugard would have us believe that these sayings were shocking and revolutionary. “And the words he speaks are like an emotional rejuvenation in the hearts of these Galileans, who feel oppressed and hopeless” (p. 142). “The crowd is stunned as Jesus finishes” (p. 143). No one audience heard this compilation at one time, so it is gratuitous for O’Reilly and Dugard to read the minds of imaginary listeners. (Of course, they are writing a novel here, so I guess they are free to do what they want.)
But would such preachments have shocked, stunned, and astonished first-century Galileans? I love these sayings, but I think the imagined audience reactions are based on our authors’ ignorance of the fact that virtually the whole Sermon on the Mount is paralleled by well-known philosophical and religious wisdom freely circulating in those days. I am willing to bet that a lot more research about Roman road building and Herodian politics went into this book than study of Rabbinical, Stoic, Cynic, and other adjacent wisdom traditions. O’Reilly and Dugard are obviously laboring under the influence of a theological bias they don't even recognize as such. They repeatedly describe the Pharisees as obsessed with legalistic minutiae. The Pharisees made, we are told, Judaism into a spiritually bankrupt religion of rule keeping. “The folks” despaired because of such fanatical rigor and welcomed Jesus’ radical vision of God's fatherly love. This stereotype will not survive a close look at the Mishnah, the Wisdom of Sirach, or other ancient compilations of scribal piety. Yes, there was plenty of careful attention to the commandments of scripture. But Jews appear to have viewed the Torah as a precious gift of God, an instruction manual written for our benefit by life's Designer. The notion of Judaism as stifling and oppressive legalism9 arose as a polemical caricature by Christians who wanted to accentuate the need for their new faith.10 Too bad O’Reilly and Dugard mistake it for historical fact and go on to perpetuate it.
Who were those Jews who opposed the offer of grace to sinners? Where is there any indication that the parables were understood as blasphemy? Which Jews denied the fatherhood and mercy of God and held superstitious beliefs about his wrath? Where is the evidence that there was a connection between Jesus’ parabolic teaching, the accusation of blasphemy, and the crucifixion? One marvels at the sentence which begins “those who nailed him to the cross because they found blasphemy in his parables”: were the Romans offended by the “blasphemy” of the offer of grace to sinners? There is here an apparent loss of touch with historical reality.11
This single passage from E. P. Sanders's Jesus and Judaism might well stand as the epitaph for Killing Jesus.
O’REILLY AND DUGARD MAKE A CONVERT
Just a note here about a brief item our authors wedge in between the Sermon on the Mount and the next section.
There, soon after entering the city [Capernaum], a most amazing thing happens: the Roman military officer in charge of Capernaum declares himself to be a follower of Jesus. Jesus is astonished. This admission could end the man's career or even get him killed. But Jesus turns to the centurion. “I tell you the truth,” he says with emotion. “I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.” (p. 143)
This is supposed to be a “historical” account of the episode of the healing of the centurion's slave from Matthew 8:5–10.
As he entered Capernaum, a centurion came forward to him, beseeching him and saying, “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, in terrible distress.” And he said to him, “I will come and heal him.” But the centurion answered him, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” When Jesus heard him, he marveled, and said to those who followed him, “Truly I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.”…And to the centurion he said, “Go; be it done for you as you have believed.” And the servant was healed at that very moment.
Notice anything missing from the Killing Jesus version? Where's the miracle? Oh, yes—O’Reilly and Dugard are clipping out the miracles lest readers catch on that they are writing a tale of devotional hero-worship. But the original story was told simply as the lead-in for the miracle. O’Reilly and Dugard leave the impression that the Roman just came up to Jesus and affirmed his faith, I guess, in Judaism, since there was not yet any Christianity to belong to. And he did it for no stated reason, at least not in this version. Of course, Matthew does not say the centurion has “declared himself to be a follower of Jesus.” This is total fabrication on our authors’ part.
But even if he had, would he have been risking his neck? Absurd. Many Roman soldiers embraced the religion of Mithras while on duty in eastern portions of the empire. Many Romans converted to Judaism as well. O’Reilly and Dugard are picturing the centurion as a character in such sword-and-sandal movies as The Robe or Demetrius and the Gladiators. The whole thing's ridiculous. Given the sales figures, about which Bill crows every night, I suppose Killing Jesus counts as the world's number-one source of misinformation about Jesus.
SACRED STING OPERATION
Who was the “sinner” woman who barged into the house of Simon the Pharisee and made a show of washing Jesus’ feet with her weeping and of drying them with her long hair? Luke doesn't say. But O’Reilly and Dugard do. According to these gentlemen, she was none other than Mary Magdalene. How do they know this? Church tradition. That is a pretty weak link if you ask me. Ecclesiastical traditions of this kind are almost always no more than ancient guesswork, like that which identified Mary Magdalene with Mary of Bethany, the sister of Lazarus and of Martha in the Gospel of John chapter 11 (but just of Martha in Luke 10:38–42). The ancients combined all these characters as a way to harmonize three very different stories in which some woman anoints Jesus, but that's about all they have in common. The earliest version is found in Mark 14:3–9. The scene is the village of Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper.12 A woman anoints Jesus’ head with spikenard, and “some” present grouse that she has wasted the expensive ointment. She should have sold it and donated the cash to the poor (much like the scolding we hear from certain grumpy liberals today). Jesus replies, “Let her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you will, you can do good to them; but you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for burying. And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.” The concluding sentence sounds anachronistic, speaking of the preaching of Christianity throughout the Roman Empire. I am guessing this addition originally contained the woman's name; it is mighty peculiar to say the story will be told to commemorate, ah, you know, what's her name. It has been omitted, probably because her name was eventually associated with “heresy.” It would almost have to be Mary Magdalene, who was later made the patron saint of Gnosticism. But we don't know.
Matthew 26:6–13 hardly changes anything. Matthew just identifies the complainers as “the disciples.” The rest is virtually identical to Mark.
John 12:1–8 sets the scene in Bethany, as before, but this time the occasion is a celebration in honor of Jesus and the newly resurrected Lazarus. It seems possible that John read Mark as recounting a banquet in honor of Jesus curing a man named Simon of leprosy, though no such cure is actually mentioned (though that little detail wouldn't have stopped O’Reilly if he'd thought of it). And perhaps he changed the guest of honor into Lazarus, the star of the miracle story he had just related (John 11:1–44). From leprosy to decomposition: not a big leap. Who anoints Jesus? This time it is Mary of Bethany, sister of Martha and Lazarus, and she anoints Jesus’ feet, not his head, and dries them with her hair. And now the complainer is not just a bystander, not just a disciple, or rather a group of them as in Matthew, but—you guessed it: Judas Iscariot. His objection as well as Jesus’ response are virtually the same as in Mark and Matthew. You can see why ancient readers decided Mary Magdalene was the same Mary as in John 12. But did they imagine Mary, Lazarus’ sister, was a whore? Apparently not. It all hinges on what you think “Magdalene” means. I agree with John Lightfoot that “Magdalene” is based on an Aramaic term (m’gaddla) meaning “hairdresser,” implying the madam of a brothel.13 Hence the widespread characterization of Mary Magdalene as a reformed prostitute. But, as most do today, some ancient readers may have supposed “Magdalene” to denote Mary's home village, Magdala. We might wonder if John shared this assumption and so did not mean to portray Mary as a prostitute. But this doesn't help much, since she is, after all, located in Bethany, not Magdala. Granted, she could have been born in Magdala and moved subsequently to Bethany, but then why would her older sister not be called Martha Magdalene? Besides, the longer and more involved one of these explanations becomes, the less likely it becomes.
Now Luke: the feast takes place in the home of a man named Simon, all right, but this one is called Simon the Pharisee. Could he be the same Simon who was a (cured) leper? Could be. Pharisees were laymen, not clergy, and they held secular jobs, just like Hasidim today. But there is no hint in Mark that his Simon took a dim view of Jesus as Luke's Simon does. The use of the same name for the host implies that the two stories are variants of a single original. And it looks like Luke's is the later version, on account of its complications. If, like O’Reilly and Dugard, one wished to anoint Luke's version as the historical one, one has considerable explaining to do. Is it really plausible that no one stopped a known harlot from barging into the holy domicile of a pious Pharisee? And if she had burst in, hell-bent on anointing Jesus, wouldn't she have been marched out before she could have done it? And Luke 7:44–46 describes her as anointing and washing Jesus’ feet (not his head) for an extended period (“Ever since I came in, she has not stopped….”). This just could not have happened. It is bad storytelling.
But our historians have a solution. Luke is an “omniscient narrator” and so knows what his characters are thinking even when he doesn't bother having them say it. He has Simon observe this risqué spectacle and muse silently, “If this man were a prophet, surely he would know what sort of woman this is” (Luke 7:39). Of course, he thinks Jesus is a false prophet. Well, O’Reilly and Dugard have decided that it is all a set-up, a sting operation, orchestrated by Simon to see if Jesus has prophetic powers of discernment—much like the Amazing Randi trapping a fake psychic. Let me get this straight: Simon the pious legalist sends out a servant to engage a local prostitute to visit his house, filled with similarly pious guests, all for a Candid Camera stunt with Jesus? Talk about eating with tax collectors and sinners! Wouldn't he be ruining his precious reputation for piety? And besides this, would a “plant,” as O’Reilly and Dugard depict the woman, just happen to be gushingly repentant once she saw Jesus? Or was her repentance, too, part of the gag? Sorry, fellas. It just doesn't work.
Jesus’ response to Simon's suspicions, totally unlike his reply to the carping of the bystanders (or the disciples or Judas) in the other three versions of the anointing story, takes the form of a parable, which O’Reilly and Dugard omit. Why? Commentators have always gotten headaches over it because it fits the scene so badly. “A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he forgave them both. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon replies, “The one, I suppose, to whom he forgave more” (Luke 7:41–43). Then Jesus contrasts Simon's rudeness in failing to show Jesus the normal amenities due a dinner guest with the extravagant devotion shown him by the woman. She had been forgiven much more than the blue-nosed Simon and therefore was more loving. But then Jesus turns to the woman and says, “Your sins are forgiven.” But surely the point of the parable was that the woman's enthusiasm demonstrated that she had already been forgiven and she knew it. What need, then, for Jesus to forgive her on the spot? Critical scholars suggest that Luke has inserted a parable about forgiveness of big-time sinners into a story about Jesus forgiving such a sinner, without noticing it didn't really fit, even though it was on the same subject. I'm guessing O’Reilly and Dugard noticed the difficulty and couldn't explain it, so they simplified the story, omitting the problem parable.
One last note. It is interesting to ask if Luke has preserved two fragments of the otherwise untold story (mentioned in Luke 24:34 and 1 Cor. 15:5) of Jesus’ resurrection appearance to Simon Peter, one in this story, the other in the fish story in Luke 5. The version of that miracle that appears in John 21 makes it part of a resurrection appearance. Maybe Luke found it as a resurrection story, too, then transferred it over to the calling of the disciples. This would certainly give new meaning to Peter's lament in Luke 5:8, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” In that case he would be referring to his denials of Jesus only a few days before. Similarly, some have suggested that the “Simon” of Luke 7 was originally Simon Peter on Easter morning, and that the parable of the two debtors was meant to assure a repentant Peter that his great sin of denying Jesus had been forgiven, and that he will love his Lord more because of it. That, too, would parallel the version in John 21 where the risen Jesus asks Peter to reaffirm his love for him three times to make up for the three denials. If this theory is true (and we can never know), Luke 5:8 would at first have been Peter's first words to the resurrected Jesus, and Luke 7:40–43 would have been Jesus’ compassionate reply. Interesting. Who knows?
FOLSOM PRISON BLUES
Meanwhile, back in the Big House, John the Baptist is busy counting roaches and thinking about Jesus. Is he the Messiah after all? John was so sure before, but if Jesus were really the Anointed One, why the heck is John still languishing here, sitting in his own filth? So he dispatches a pair of his disciples to Jesus to ask him, “Are you he who is to come? Or should we keep looking?” (Luke 7:18–19; Matt. 11:2–3). Jesus lets them see a number of healings and tells the men to return to John with a report of what they have seen and heard. They do. O’Reilly and Dugard tell us that John is relieved by this news, his faith in Jesus happily restored. This is pretty much the standard Sunday school version of the story. But it is grossly erroneous.
As we have already seen, there is no reason to believe the Baptizer ever even knew who Jesus was until, while in prison, he heard reports about Jesus’ miracles. Mark, followed by Luke, gave no hint that John knew Jesus when he baptized him. Matthew and John added the recognition in their tendentious retellings. This story about John sending his disciples to ask Jesus comes from the Q Source shared by Matthew and Luke (all the material the two share in common that they did not take from Mark). And the story presupposes the same version of Jesus’ baptism we find in Mark and Luke. The Q Source did not assume John had recognized or endorsed Jesus at the Jordan. Thus when we get to this scene we are plainly supposed to understand that John is hearing of Jesus for the first time while John is behind bars, and it is these very reports that make him think, for the first time, “This man does miracles? Hey, maybe this is the Coming One!” D. F. Strauss put it well:
Could John, then, believe Jesus to be the Messiah before he had performed any messianic works [i.e., at the time of the baptism], and be seized with doubt when he began to legitimatize his claim by miracles such as were expected from the Messiah?…But how could he become uncertain about the Messiahship of Jesus, if he had never recognized it? Not indeed in the sense of beginning to suspect that Jesus was not the Messiah; but quite possibly in the sense of beginning to conjecture that a man of such deeds was the Messiah.14
So where do people get the idea that John, once strong in his faith in Jesus, had begun to have second thoughts? Basically the notion is an attempt to harmonize the contradiction between the baptism stories of Matthew and John, in which John knows or endorses Jesus, and this story of the imprisoned John sending to ask Jesus if he is indeed the Coming One. If John the Baptizer believed early on, then has to ask later on, then somewhere in the middle he must have begun to doubt. But that won't work, since if, like O’Reilly and Dugard, you do take the Matthew/John version(s) of the baptism story as accurate, you have only shifted the problem, because now you have to square the Matthew/John baptism story with the very different Mark/Luke version. Good luck.
But there is also Jesus’ parting shot as the Baptizer's men depart: “Blessed is he who does not take offense at me” (Luke 7:23; Matt. 11:6). It is not unreasonable to read this as implying that John will be blessed if he resigns his doubts and renews his faith in Jesus as the Coming One. But of course it doesn't actually say that. In fact it is a general blessing on all and sundry, whomever may hear it. It appears to be a general beatitude on Christians undergoing persecution and tempted to renounce Jesus in order to save their yellow hides, equivalent to Mark 13:13: “You will be hated by all for my name's sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved.” And John is not in prison for his supposed faith in Jesus. He is in the can because he dissed Herod Antipas.
O’Reilly and Dugard add new material to the story when they state matter-of-factly that John the Baptist was relieved to hear his disciples’ report. In fact, neither Matthew nor Luke gives us any idea of John's reaction. Why? For the same reason they leave it up in the air whether or not the rich young ruler (Mark 10:17–22) decided to sell his possessions and give the price to the poor.15 Again, for the same reason Luke does not tell us if the Prodigal Son's older brother finally put aside his resentment, as their father pleaded with him to do (Luke 15:27–32), and joined in the Welcome Home party. In all such cases, the stories are meant as a challenge aimed at the reader: how would you react? How will you react? For O’Reilly and Dugard to tell us that John's supposed doubts were happily resolved is wholly gratuitous.