Ted Hoffman

This is an excellent question in spite of spin's equally good answer.

No Robots

According to Acts, Paul proselytized among followers of John the Babtist, rebatizing them in the name of Christ:

And it came to pass, while Apollo was at Corinth, that Paul having passed through the upper coasts, came to Ephesus, and found certain disciples.
And he said to them: Have you received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? But they said to him: We have not so much as heard whether there be a Holy Ghost.
And he said: In what then were you baptized? Who said: In John's baptism.
Then Paul said: John baptized the people with the baptism of penance, saying: That they should believe in him who was to come after him, that is to say, in Jesus.
Having heard these things, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

--Acts 19:1-5

gstafleu

How certain is it that Paul was talking about baptism by water a la JtB? E.g. 1 Corinthians 10:2 "They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea." The sea is watery, but the cloud?

There were all kinds of things you could be baptized by: water, blood, fire,... Does Paul ever make it explicit what his medium was?

1 Corinthians 12:13 "For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink." It almost sounds as if this refers to baptism by spirit. Maybe it was the spirit doing the baptizing, but are we to think that it did so by water?

Gerard Stafleu

spin

If you'll notice here Apollos was part of my initial post on the subject. There is a non-christian baptism tradition that has survived until today (if the Mandaeans in Iraq have survived the salvation of that country). It was part of my consideration. It shows that there was a baptismal tradition that was separate from christianity and, according to christian tradition, it was in operation before christianity. We have a good candidate for the source of Paul's use of baptism.

If we take note of Acts, why wasn't John's baptism sufficient? If we are to believe the gospels it was for emission of sins.

The whole issue of baptism seems to be so important in christian tradition, yet Jesus didn't baptize (ie with water) except for the slip in Jn 3:22ff corrected in 3:22ff, and John is the only gospel in which his followers are said to have baptized. There is no example set by Jesus to baptize. It's fundamentally irrelevant to the gospel tradition. It's only when we come to Acts that baptism is the go for the new religion.

It's true that even Paul downplays it: he did baptize the household of Stephanas (1 Cor 1:16), but doesn't remember anyone else. Still he later says with initiation impact "we are all baptized into the one body" (1 Cor 12:13) and similar in Gal 3:27. (Then there's the arcane 1 Cor 15:29.)

It may be that Paul took it up from the Johannine lead, yet had misgivings, maybe seeing its utility in uniting his conscripts, but little else.


spin

No Robots

This is the best explanation, imo.

spin

"[E]mission of sins". Bwe-he-he, Natasha. That sound like internet mission for sins -- you know, committing them. Now that's my sorta mission.

Just think, Boris. They could send us out again and that would be for remission of sins.

Bwe-he-he.

No Robots

Does that include nocturnal emissions?