Ironic this discussion since it was John the Baptist seen as the righteous one that even Jesus followed first.
Jesus is the one who had his friend & follower Salome hand John over to be beheaded so he could steal his flock. Can this story just be coincidental or used for the demonization of Jews through Judas which happened to be the name of Rome's threat, the tax revolter Galilean Christ of Herods time period?
Jesus' ministry and end plan really took a different life after John's beheading. He took over for John.
For many John was supposed to be the messiah. Even after his death John was the one invoked and his body parts were held in reverence, even more so than Jesus.
What if John is also a new name given for someone like Theudas the christ by the Jordan or one of the Yehuda christ?
What if one of the 2 Yehudas called christ of that era was the Judas who handed over John who was christ Theudas or the other christ Yehuda?
There's even a 3rd Yehuda which was confused with Yehuda of Galilee because he was called Yehuda the Galionite.. I often suspected the Jesus with Jesus barabbas story was borrowed from these 2 Yehudas since the Galionite was a thief and murderer who ransacked the Temple matching description of Barabbas and Jesus overturning the tables at the temple.
That would make an interesting twist nobody would ever figure out which is why they always change the names and dates.
Example: the NT changes the order of the 2 christs death Yehuda the Galilean died in 6bc and Theudas in 45ad but the NT accounting these 2 christ figures claim Theudas died first? Why would they lie? Or did they prove how easy it is to confuse figures telling stories passed down the line?
Another explaination and more likely is they took many stories from many sources in creating their character which shows in these plagiarized accts that never fit historical accuracy nor their story line properly.
Sort of like how they added the figure into later copies of Josephus they never quite fit the sequence properly and they also make Josephus seem like a Christian when they word things only a Christian would say in placing at a later time into a Jewish writers texts. This is seen in the NT where you realize the writer of Matthew can't be Jewish.