Question 101: Did John the Baptist eat bugs? (“Question on the Locust John the Baptist Ate”)

Kindly advise me on what type of locusts John the Baptist ate. Some people say that the locusts mentioned are insects, while others say there were wild fruits called locusts.101Q 218.1

The truth is that neither English translations of the passage nor the Greek in which the New Testament was originally written tells us clearly what John ate. While the Greek word favors the insect, there is a substantial body of evidence from the ancient world that favors the carob pod. The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary has quite an extensive discussion of this in volume 5, note 1, in “Additional Notes on Chapter 3” on Matthew 3.101Q 218.2

Mrs. White makes the following comment about John the Baptist in Testimonies for the Church, volume 3, page 62: “John separated himself from friends and from the luxuries of life. . . . His diet, purely vegetable, of locusts and wild honey, was a rebuke to the indulgence of appetite and the gluttony that everywhere prevailed.” 101Q 218.3