Did you notice it today – those of you who attended an ordinary form Roman rite mass for the festival of St Matthias? There is an error in the first reading, and it has gotten into all editions that I can find of the weekday lectionary in English. The error is in the quotation of Acts 1:21-22. In the (New Jerusalem) bible it reads
“21 ‘Out of the men who have been with us the whole time that the Lord Jesus was living with us, 22 from the time when John was baptising until the day when he was taken up from us, one must be appointed to serve with us as a witness to his resurrection.'”
In the lectionary as read today, it reads:
21 ‘Out of the men who have been with us the whole time that the Lord Jesus was living with us, 22 from the time when Jesus was baptising until the day when he was taken up from us, one must be appointed to serve with us as a witness to his resurrection.’
Of course, as far as we know, Jesus did not perform any baptisms. Funny how long this has been read – once a year for how many years? – and no-one has corrected it. (Nb. the lection is correct in the Missal for Easter 7, Year B).
John 3:22 tells of Jesus baptising with his disciples.
You are of course quite right. John 3:22 does say that Jesus baptised. (which doesn’t change the fact that the lectionary translation of Acts 1:21 is an error).
Also this is the only reference to Jesus administering baptism in any of the Gospels, and it does seem rather out of character for Jesus to have a ministry of baptism. I wonder what kind of baptising Jesus was doing? Obviously not Christian baptism. Was it a baptism of repentance like John’s? What did Jesus’ baptism signify? Was it a call to discipleship, or a purificaiton rite?
It would probably have been the same baptism that his cousin John administered.