Phil D.
ὁ βαπτιστὴς
I think you answered your own quetion in this last paragraph. The issue is that, ceremonially, the person being ceremonially cleansed was not necessarily immersed. A thing may be immersed in order to perform the ritual rite - the sprikling of blood as an example. The rite itself was a cleansing rite.
My point simply had to do with how various renderings of the word baptizō are the best way to convey certain contextual connotations, even while one particular physical action is in view. So I’m not quite sure how that implies I unwittingly agreed with what you’ve been saying.
In terms of relating things to OT practice, yes, various procedures were used for various cleansings. Sprinkling, pouring, and bathing were each involved in certain circumstances. Does that mean the Old Testament people of God were free to mix and match at their own whim? No, of course not. Particular substances, mixtures, practices, sequences, and timing were meticulously prescribed for particular situations. And surely there was intention, purpose, worth, and duty in implementing each of these components as designed.
Nevertheless, I believe we must ultimately look to the NT to determine proper Christian practice. And in light of all the historical and linguistic evidence that has been presented, to somehow conclude that baptizō merely, or in essence means “to use water in whichever of several modes one may variously prefer” is simply, in my estimate, not credible.
This also brings to mind the time I personally witnessed a Presbyterian pastor administer baptism by touching his thumb to some water, and then lightly touching his thumb to the infant’s forehead. When later asked about this, tepid appeal was made to Lev. 8:22-24 (where the verb nathan—put; place—is used) to justify the practice (!?). Yet if a virtual any-method-of-applying-any-liquid-that-is-seen-in-OT-ritual-practice-is-also-good-for-Christian-water-baptism approach is taken, then it seems little objection can be raised.
Even when you're reading of someone washing themselves, would they not be "washed" by being next to a body of water.
I think a better question is, do we have any historical evidence (specific or suggestive literary descriptions) that people were ever taken next to (or for that matter, into) a body of water just in order to have it ceremonially sprinkled or poured on them? Not that I know of, at least not in Jewish culture. I know a few modern diehards claim this to have been the case with John the Baptist, but now we’re back having to implement unnatural exegesis to try and discredit evidence to the contrary.
For example, John 3:23. A simple, straightforward reading of this account would seem to be that it’s indicative of John’s baptism being performed by immersion—at least that’s what has been ascertained by virtually all non-anti-immersionist exegesis that I have ever seen. On the other hand, a few apologists (John Murray comes to mind) have posited that it merely indicates such a place was chosen in order to ensure that the great crowds coming to John’s baptism, and their accompanying animals, had enough water for drinking, and to perhaps have their sanitary needs met. Apparently, we are to further suppose making such basic provision wasn’t really possible elsewhere in Palestine (see, however, Deut. 8:7; 11:10-12).
Yet the following question must certainly be put to such a view: Is it really to be thought that it was out of a sense of providing domestic amenities, that the camel-skin-clothed, locust-and-honey-eating, voice-crying-in-the-wilderness, laying-an-axe-to-the-root prophet chose a place of abundant water, only to administer a baptism of pouring or sprinkling? No other Gospel account that involves a large gathering of people ever suggests that such domestic concerns factored into its given location. Yet in the lone instance where it is expressly stated that the very reason a particular place was chosen was in order to facilitate water baptism, and then explicitly provides the additional information this was because it was a place with plentiful water, we are supposed to believe that these naturally complimentary facts are, for all intents and purposes, only very secondarily, if at all related.
For one thing, such an interpretation never seems to have occurred to anyone outside of a relatively tiny parochial segment of the modern Christian church. So, again, this is what Schaff meant by unnatural exegesis of descriptive passages, like this one.
Do you supose, for instance, that Judith was going into the living spring, up to her head, in order to bathe and coming back soaking wet or having taken all of her clothes off with soldiers nearby?
This is a relatively old though, if I may say, not particularly well-conceived objection (or is it more of a jab?) that has been lodged by a few non-immersionists. But, yes, I do believe simply taking baptizō in its native and normal sense of immersion is both the most natural, and circumstantially the best-justified exegesis of this account.
It might first be noted that it is not entirely certain whether or not OT ceremonial bathings were carried out while completely unclothed. Rabbinic and Hebraist scholarship is divided on the matter. In any event, the Mosaic law doesn’t ever stipulate that these washings were to be performed in the nude. Still, in the event that such may have been the case, then the following facts relevant to Judith’s story certainly deserve due consideration.
1. Judith explicitly chose to perform her bathing at night, which is contrary to normal procedure for Jewish purifications (viz. the typical accompanying “…and at evening they shall be clean…”). If her state of dress in fact made it necessary to take steps to maintain modesty, then this timing would have gone a long way toward facilitating that need. At the same time, if maintaining modesty was indeed an important factor, then that very dynamic strongly militates against the procedure merely entailing a limited daubing, sprinkling, or pouring.
2. Upon Judith’s request, the commanding Assyrian general specifically ordered his soldiers not to hinder her activities, which by any reasonable standard would include, if necessary, protecting her personal privacy while she purified herself.
3. Why would Judith need to travel to a well or spring* at all, unless accessing a substantial amount of water was necessary for her baptizō? (*These terms can also carry the meaning of “a naturally-fed pool”—cf. the KJV’s rendering: “Thus she abode in the camp three days, and went out into the night into the valley Bethulia, and washed herself in a fountain of water by the camp.”)
4. Judith 7:3 specifically defines the parameters of the Assyrian camp: (NRSV) “They [the Assyrian army] penetrated the valley in the neighborhood of Bethulia, near the spring, and deployed on a wide front from Dothan to Balbaim and, in-depth, from Bethulia to Cyamon, which faces Esdraelon.” These geographical markers indicate the larger encampment was approximately 15 miles long and 4 miles wide, or covering about 40,000 acres. As such there were almost certainly areas within that were not densely occupied, if even occupied at all. As biblical geographers further observe, this particular area of Israel is relatively mountainous and well-watered.
It is also notable that one of the oldest Greek manuscripts of Judith (designated #8), and the two oldest non-Greek versions (the Syriac and Latin) omit “in the camp,” as a footnote in the NRSV alludes to (“other ancient authorities lack ‘in the camp’”).
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