On The Tools of the Trade

My new Bible Works 9 is already paying exegetical dividends

σπούδασον σεαυτὸν δόκιμον παραστῆσαι τῷ θεῷ, ἐργάτην ἀνεπαίσχυντον, ὀρθοτομοῦντα τὸν λόγον τῆς ἀληθείας.

2Ti 2:15¹

Over the last four years or so, my primary computer-based exegetical tools have been the online helps at Blue Letter Bible and the phenomenal & free Bible software The Word. Both have served me exceedingly well and I’ve been more than satisfied with them. In fact, I simply cannot recommend them highly enough. However, since being turned on to the science of textual criticism (see here), I’ve been coveting a more advanced Bible study platform. In particular, I wanted one with a critical apparatus of the Greek NT.

Well, by the grace of God, I’ve now got one: Bible Works 9.

Now, instead of boring you to bits by describing all the things BW9 can do, I thought it would be better to just embed the demonstration video into this post and let the folks at Bible Works bore you to bits themselves:



I was joking, of course—although I know a few people who would be seriously bored if they watched that (Hi, honey!)—I, myself, was rapt when I saw it for the first time. If you were, too, then you’re going to love what I’m about to do next. If you’re my wife, you’ll probably want to go back to looking at shoes on TradeMe.

Anyway, I thought it’d be interesting and informative to demonstrate how I used the critical apparatus feature of BW9 to examine and verify the contentions I’d made in the previous post regarding the textual variant of John 14:17. When I first prepared and published that post, I didn’t have BW; after I got BW, I went back, examined my evidence, then added footnote #3.

So, by way of reminder, here is John 14:17 in Greek as it appeared in the last post:

τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας, ὃ ὁ κόσμος οὐ δύναται λαβεῖν, ὅτι οὐ θεωρεῖ αὐτὸ οὐδὲ γινώσκει• ὑμεῖς γινώσκετε αὐτό, ὅτι παρ’ ὑμῖν μένει καὶ ἐν ὑμῖν ἔσται.

And, again, the word in red is the relative pronoun ho, which is translated “whom” in English. The word in yellow is auto, the neuter, accusative form of the 3^rd person singular pronoun, which is translated “him”, rather than the more correct “it”, in all the English NT’s.

Now here’s a snip of BW9’s critical apparatus entry for the first auto in the verse:

The first thing to note is that the text at the top is the reading with the most manuscript support (the big list of letters & numbers directly below the Greek verse); which is why, except for the punctuation, it mirrors the NA28 text that I cited. And, just as I said in my post, the pronoun in question is neuter in this reading.

Now notice that first highlighted word half way down on the left. This is the textual variant auton, the Greek masculine pronoun, that I mentioned in footnote 3. The highlighted P66 to the right of auton is the “extremely significant witness”. The asterisk means that auton is “the reading of the original hand of ” P66. Here’s a description of P66 from BW9’s CNTTS:²

The information on that blurb is basically what is conveyed by the chart beneath auton and P66 in the first pic. The “3 c.” means “the third century” and the placement of P66 in Category I means:

As I said, “him” is a textual variant from an extremely significant witness. Furthermore, P66 has auton in place of the second auto, too:

With regards to the significance of the witness to a variant, I hadn’t mentioned it, but there is a variant reading for the relative pronoun, too. Instead of ho, “it whom”, we have hos, “he whom”, in manuscript 579:

Here’s the description of 579 from the CNTTS:

Note when the manuscript was written—in the 13^rd Century, a thousand years after P66 and a full 1400 years after the Gospel of John itself was written.

Note also that it’s a Category III manuscript. Here’s the sad truth about Category III manuscripts regarding their relevance to “establishing the original text”:

With that, take another look at that pic of the 579 variant entry. Notice the first manuscript listed in support of the ho reading? That’s right, it's P66!

So, clearly, any challenge against the neuter “whom” in favour of the masculine “whom” would be entirely unsustainable. But, of course, we still have to contend with the mighty P66 with regards to auton.

Well, interestingly enough, many manuscripts had correctors, people who would check the original scribe’s work for errors—both omissions and additions—and then correct the manuscript themselves. In the CNTTS apparatus, a small superscripted “c” is placed beside the manuscript abbreviation wherever the reading was made by a corrector.

And P66 had a corrector.

Look at the first and fourth snips above, the ones showing the auton variants, you can see P66^c in support of the auto reading!

Seeing that in BW9’s apparatus made me want to check P66 myself to see if the corrector’s edits were visible. Unfortunately, P66 isn’t one of the searchable manuscripts BW9 has in its database, so I was forced to resort to Google; which came up with the early bible site (This is where I got that picture of P66 that I put up on the blog when I added footnote #3).

Here’s John 14:17 in P66 itself (between the two sets of double red lines). The highlighted words are, of course, HO, AUTON and AUTON (P66 is a majuscule, so all the words are uppercase):

Notice the corrector edited the first AUTON by putting a stroke through the “N”, turning it into AUTO:

He then did the same thing to the second AUTON:

So, thanks in no small part to the exegetical tools of Bible Works 9, we’ve been able to examine the manuscript evidence and see that it overwhelmingly supports the use of the neuter pronouns ho and auto to refer to the Holy Spirit. In other words, we have an airtight case for stating that, in John 14:17 at least, the Holy Spirit can rightly—and Biblically—be called “It”, rather than “He”.

I wonder what James White would make of that.






Footnotes:

1. Unless otherwise indicated, all English Scripture text is taken from the ESV2011 (the English Standard Version, 2011). Greek text is from NA28 (28th Edition of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece).

2. CNTTS refers to the Center for New Testament Textual Studies critical apparatus database used by BW9. It was developed by the H. Milton Haggard CNTTS.

It, the Holy Spirit

Why do most of the English Bible versions change “It” to “Him”?

καὶ τοῦτο εἰπὼν ἐνεφύσησεν καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς• λάβετε πνεῦμα ἅγιον•

John 20:22¹

We recently discussed the topic of the Trinity at our home church, because I’d been listening to a lot of James White’s The Dividing Line broadcasts on You Tube. James White puts a great deal of emphasis on the Doctrine of the Trinity and seeing as he's a Reformed Baptist and an avowed Calvinist, his view of this Doctrine is very strict and classical. He has fully articulated this view in a book called The Forgotten Trinity² (you can get a taste of it by reading his vintage Trinity article on the Alpha & Omega Ministries website). So, because I’ve never shared White’s particular take on the Trinity, I wanted to bring it to our fellowship and see what the others thought about it.

Now, I’m not going to review our whole six-hour discussion here—I prefer to keep my posts short (honest!)—but I do want to mention the main difference between my view of the Trinity and the classic position held by folks like James White. Then I want to re-ask the question I posed in the subtitle of this post.

Basically, I have never been able to believe that the Holy Spirit is a divine Person, co-equal with the Father and the Son. I have never been able to hear a Person being spoken of when the Old and New Testaments talk about the Holy Spirit. Even the primary metaphor used to describe It isn’t one denoting personhood: a father is a person; a son is a person; but a spirit—a wind or breath—is not a person! Why didn’t Scripture use a male family member metaphor for the Spirit? Why not the Holy Uncle or the Holy Brother?

Of course, the classic Trinitarian will say that the language of the Bible treats the Holy Spirit like a person in that it describes It as having agency, but this is an unsatisfactory argument. After all, the Scriptures anthropomorphize storms (Mark 4:37-41) and fevers (Luke 4:39), but no one seriously thinks of these as persons.

They would also say that the Spirit is treated like a male person throughout the New Testament by the use of masculine pronouns like he and him. Since the Greek word for spirit, pneuma (πνεῦμα), is grammatically neuter, the writers would've used the neuter pronoun “it”, rather than “he”, if the Holy Spirit wasn’t a person. But this use of the masculine pronoun was surely just a way for the writers to honour the One from whom the the Holy Spirit emanates, much in the same way we venerate Him in English through capitalisation. As our breath carries our voice, the Holy Breath carries the Voice of God. It is He, God, who is speaking whenever the Spirit is heard, therefore, to illustrate this relationship, the writers of the books of the NT sometimes used masculine pronouns when referring to the Holy Spirit.

Ah, yes, I did say sometimes! It turns out that only in some cases did the writers of the NT use masculine pronouns in reference to the Holy Spirit. For instance, in John 14:17, the Greek text uses a neuter pronoun for the Holy Spirit. Three times.

τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας, ὃ ὁ κόσμος οὐ δύναται λαβεῖν, ὅτι οὐ θεωρεῖ αὐτὸ οὐδὲ γινώσκει• ὑμεῖς γινώσκετε αὐτό, ὅτι παρ’ ὑμῖν μένει καὶ ἐν ὑμῖν ἔσται.

The word highlighted in red, ho, the word translated “whom” in English, is a relative pronoun. In Greek, unlike English, the relative pronoun carries grammatical gender, meaning it has different forms depending on whether the noun it refers to is masculine, feminine or neuter. This form is the neuter, accusative form. The masculine accusative form of the relative pronoun is hos. So, the actual meaning of this “whom” in the Greek is “It whom”, as opposed to “He whom”.

The word highlighted in yellow is auto, the neuter, accusative form of the 3^rd person singular pronoun and should be translated “It”. The masculine accusative form of this pronoun is auton, which would be translated “Him”.

This brings us to my question: Why does every English translation on Bible Gateway—the KJV, ASV, AMP, CEB, CJB, CEV, DARBY, DRA, ERV, ESV, ESVUK, EXB, GNV, GW, GNT, HCSB, PHILLIPS, JUB, KJV, AKJV, LEB, TLB, MSG, MOUNCE, NOG, NASB, NCV, NET, NIRV, NIV, NIVUK, NKJV, NLV, NLT, NRSV, NRSVA, NRSVACE, NRSVCE, OJB, RSV, RSVCE, VOICE, WEB, WE, WYC, YLT—read “Him” in this passage and not “It”?

Yes, yes, the critical apparatus of NA28 does give us a textual variant³ here that reads auton, but the NA28 text reads auto, just as the text of the Stephanus 1550 Greek NT does—and the Westcott & Hort text, and the 1894 Scrivener text, and the SBL text, and both the Blue Letter Bibles’ TR and GNT Morphological texts. All of which means that the preponderance of the manuscript evidence favours the auto reading, the “It” reading.

So, again, why do all the English versions change “It” to “Him”?

Eisegesis anyone…?






Footnotes:

1. Unless otherwise indicated, all English Scripture text is taken from the ESV2011 (the English Standard Version, 2011). Greek text is from NA28 (28th Edition of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece).

2. I haven’t read White’s book as of 06/04/14, but it is on order from The Nile online bookshop and should be here within the next few days. Lord willing, I’ll post a book review when I’m finished reading it.

3. It must be stated that this textual variant is found in an extremely significant witness, P66, a circa 200, fragmentary papyrus manuscript of the Gospel of John. Since this variant suits the Trinitarianism of the English version translators, it is no doubt the justification for their use of “him”. However, in the same venerable witness, the relative pronoun in the verse is neuter. Isn’t it convenient for them that the English relative pronoun doesn’t show gender?

Eligite Hodie 1

Before you hand-grenade the phrase “choose you this day” into an argument, you might want to read the whole verse.

οἵτινες μετήλλαξαν τὴν ἀλήθειαν τοῦ θεοῦ ἐν τῷ ψεύδει καὶ ἐσεβάσθησαν καὶ ἐλάτρευσαν τῇ κτίσει παρὰ τὸν κτίσαντα, ὅς ἐστιν εὐλογητὸς εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας, ἀμήν.

Romans 1:25 ²

Last post, I featured a YouTube video by Christian author, expositor, marathon debater and prolific vlogger, Dr James White. I’d been watching a lot of White’s videos since my recent conversion to the Critical Text Cult, gravitating to him the minute I’d exhausted all the videos of Daniel Wallace, because he is one of the best and more ubiquitous—well, on Youtube, anyway—apologists of the Critical Text of the New Testament and of Biblical Textual Criticism itself.

Along with discovering him to be a staunch defender of Textual Criticism, I was also extremely pleased to find out that Dr White is an impassioned proponent of Reform theology. Although I don’t consider myself a Reformer, per se, I do subscribe to the so-called Five Points of Calvinism and to the doctrines of Sovereignty and Election, albeit not in the classical sense, lacking as I do a classic theological education, but I’m definitely under the same, large tent and have been for some time.

Anyway, I only mention this because earlier today I was watching a video discussing the topic of being a servant of God (in it Dr White rebuts some nonsensical statements made by the late Christopher Hitchens) and it reminded me that, for some time, I've wanted to debunk an extremely common and persistent exegetical error made by believers in human free will on that very subject—an error which I'd made myself many, many times in the past: Namely, this bedrock conviction that when Joshua says to the Israelites “choose you this day whom ye will serve”, one of the choices before them is Yehovah. Nothing could be further from the truth!

The most amazing aspect of this erroneous idea is that it is so easily debunked. All one has to do is read the entire sentence where that phrase is found. You don’t even need to read it in Hebrew; the wrongness of the idea is clearly seen in any translation. Here’s Joshua 24:15 in English: ²

And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River , or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”

There are two points here that even the most ardent Arminian can't ignore (or miss, thanks to the yellow font):

1. That before choosing whom they would serve, they first had to find serving Yehovah “evil in their eyes”.

2. That the choice of whom they would serve is between two sets of false gods, not Yehovah.

Now, I don’t expect this little revelation to change anyone’s mind regarding the Free Will versus Predestination controversy, but I do expect it to stop those on the wrong side of the argument from misusing the phrase "choose you this day" to uncritically perpetuate their traditional—and erroneous—doctrine.







Footnotes:

1. Translation: Chose ye this day. I am currently learning Latin, using the 7^th edition of Wheelock’s Latin along with multiple online resources. Putting my blog titles in Latin is pure self-indulgence—ignosce me!

2. Unless otherwise indicated, all English Scripture text is taken from the ESV2011 (the English Standard Version, 2011). Greek text is from NA28 (28th Edition of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece).

De Texto Critico Novi Testamenti Graeci 1

The Nestle-Aland notes all the important variant readings; including the TR's.

ὃς καὶ ἱκάνωσεν ἡμᾶς διακόνους καινῆς διαθήκης, οὐ γράμματος ἀλλὰ πνεύματος• τὸ γὰρ γράμμα ἀποκτέννει, τὸ δὲ πνεῦμα ζῳοποιεῖ.

2 Cor 3:6²

For most of last month, I was in Canada visiting my 81-year old father for the very last time³. While I was there, I purchased a copy of the 28^th Edition of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece, the standard critical text of the Greek New Testament (NA28). Since my conversion from the TR Supremacy position that I mentioned in my last blog post, I’ve wanted a copy of this remarkable book.

The eclectic text of the Nestle Aland NT is its most important feature, certainly, but the critical apparatus accompanying the text has to be its defining feature. The listing of all the important variants, using an ingenious system of symbols and sigla, is the reason these editions of the critical text have become the standard Greek New Testaments for students and exegetes around the world.

The following video was made by Dr. James R. White, the director of Alpha & Omega Ministries, which Wikipedia describes as “an evangelical Reformed Christian apologetics organization based in Phoenix, Arizona”. Dr White is the foremost Christian Apologist in the United States today. What he has to say about the release of NA28 in particular, and textual criticism in general, is well worth hearing.



One of the main take home facts for me from this video is that, when a new edition of the NA comes out, nothing is lost. Even though the text is updated, no important readings from the previous versions have been left out of the NA28’s critical apparatus. In this sense then, the NA28 is technically not new, but better.

It is also important to realise that these important readings in the older versions have always including those of the Textus Receptus—a Majority Text type and the basis for the KJV. Every disputed word, verse or pericope that ties the critics of the modern Bible versions into knots is listed there. That’s because the editors of the NA have always considered the Majority Text to be a “consistently cited witness of the first order”; they could never ignore it.







Footnotes:

1. Translation: On the Critical Text of the Greek New Testament. I am currently learning Latin, using the 7^th edition of Wheelock’s Latin along with multiple online resources. Putting my blog titles in Latin is pure self-indulgence—īgnōsce mē!

2. Unless otherwise indicated, all English Scripture text is taken from the ESV2011 (the English Standard Version, 2011). Greek text is from NA28 (28th Edition of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece).

3. He had just been diagnosed with terminal and aggressive small-cell cancer—with tumours in his lungs, liver, bones, et al, which were expected to spread quickly to his brain—and so I’d returned to see him whilst he was still “himself”. I was there for three weeks and in that short time he went from being fit and active, to being confused, bed-ridden and barely conscious. As I was touching down at Auckland airport, he passed away peacefully in his sleep. In all, from the day of diagnosis until the end, he lasted exactly five weeks. And, alas, he died unsaved.

Confession of an Ex-TR Evangelist

The plain truth of the matter is that the supremacy of the Textus Receptus text-type is not supported by the manuscript evidence.

ἀφαιρήσει ὁ Θεὸς τὸ μέρος αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ βίβλου τῆς ζωῆς

Rev 22:19, Textus Receptus

ἀφελεῖ ὁ θεὸς τὸ μέρος αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ τοῦ ξύλου τῆς ζωῆς

Rev 22:19, NA28¹

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been doing a fair bit of reading about the science of Textual Criticism, the history of Greek New Testament translation, and the vast, manuscript evidence we have available to us today. As a direct result of this research, I have made a radical, 180° change in my thinking concerning the Greek New Testament.

Until now—and to my shame—I had ignorantly regarded every critical text as a warmed over version of the “damnable” Westcott & Hort text, and therefore apostate and inferior to the Textus Receptus, whilst arrogantly dismissing the entire field of Textual Criticism as an exercise in academic Nicolaitanism (see here and here to see just how convinced I was).

I no longer believe any of those things.

My belief in the supremacy of the Textus Receptus (TR) text-type began forming from the time I started to learn Koine Greek. It was, as I can see now, the typical opinion of Christians, like me, who are iconoclastic, distrustful of consensus and sceptical of any form of conventional wisdom. Being self-taught in Greek, in the cocoon of my own home, meant that I had never been personally exposed to the practitioners of NT Textual Criticism, or heard their side of the text-type debate. All of that, combined with my natural conservatism, ensured that I’d be drawn to the pro-TR message and its messengers.

So what happened to change my mind? Well, there was more than one thing, but it really began to change when I saw the following video of Dr. Daniel B. Wallace, professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary and founder and executive director of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts (CSNTM)², speaking about the reliability of the text of the New Testament. Listening to this man's reasoned and highly informed defence of the New Testament text was so exciting and inspiring I developed an instant respect and admiration for those who toil in the field of Textual Criticism!

Needless to say, I highly recommend you watch it all:³



By way of conclusion, I would like to draw your attention to the two different Greek readings of Revelation 22:19 at the top of this post. The words in yellow are book and tree respectively. The word book in the TR citation found its way into the KJV. Of all the Greek manuscripts around today, not one of them has the word book in this clause of this verse of Revelation. It was a Latin scribal error that made its way into the TR via Erasmus’ back-translation of the Vulgate for the last six verses of the Apocalypse in his Greek New Testament.

And there hasn’t been a genuine scholar for over 200 years who would defend it.







Footnotes:

1. Unless otherwise indicated, all English Scripture text is taken from the ESV2011 (the English Standard Version, 2011). Greek text is from NA28 (28th Edition of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece).

2. The purpose of the CSNTM is to digitize all known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament via digital photography.

3. The original video I saw has since been removed from Youtube, but Wallace apparently only gives one speech, so the information in this video is almost exactly the same as in the one I first watched.

Hearing the Logos in the Rhemata

When Apostles speak, only those who hear the Word in their words are saved.

Ἀπόστειλον εἰς Ἰόππην ἄνδρας, καὶ μετάπεμψαι Σίμωνα τὸν ἐπικαλούμενον Πέτρον, ὃς λαλήσει ῥήματα πρὸς σὲ ἐν οἷς σωθήσῃ σὺ καὶ πᾶς ὁ οἶκός σου.

Acts 11:13-14¹

In the 10^th Chapter of the Book of Acts, we read of the events surrounding the first time in history that Gentiles are baptized with the Holy Spirit. There are many wonderful theological and doctrinal insights to be garnered from this passage of Scripture, but I just want to highlight one which I think most people overlook simply because they’re not reading the NT in Greek.

The insight I’m referring to can be found in Acts 10:44. Here is that verse as it’s rendered in various translations:

KJV: While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word.

NIV: While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message.

ESV: While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word.

NASB: While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who were listening to the message.

RSV: While Peter was still saying this, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word.

Reina-Valera 1960: Mientras aún hablaba Pedro estas palabras [these words], el Espíritu Santo cayó sobre todos los que oían el discurso [the speech].

The Vulgate: Adhuc loquente Petro verba haec [these words], cecidit Spiritus Sanctus super omnes qui audiebant verbum [word] ².

Now compare the words in yellow and red to their counterparts in the Greek text:

Textus Receptus: Ἕτι λαλοῦντος τοῦ Πέτρου τὰ ῥήματα ταῦτα, ἐπέπεσεν τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον ἐπὶ πάντας τοὺς ἀκούοντας τὸν λόγον.

The yellow words in the Greek, ta rhemata tauta, are literally “the spoken-things these”; the ones in red, ton logon, are “the word”.

At first, there might not appear to be much difference between what the various translations say and what the Greek says. But if I tell you that “ton logon” is simply the direct object form of “the logos”, then throw in a capital “L” to give us The Logos, perhaps you’re now beginning to see a difference?

What if I was to show you John 1:1 with a helpful bit of editing?

In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God.

Yes, when reading the Greek, you can’t help but notice that the Holy Spirit fell on all those who heard The Word in Peter’s spoken words!












Footnotes:

1. Unless otherwise indicated, all English Scripture text taken from the King James Version (1769). Greek Text is from the Stephanus Edition of the Textus Receptus from 1550.

2. There are no articles in Latin; the context alone determines for the reader whether "a" word or "the" word was intended by the writer.

“To Baptize” Can Not Mean “To Immerse”

Believers are covered by, not immersed into, the Holy Spirit.

Ἐγὼ μὲν βαπτίζω ὑμᾶς ἐν ὕδατι εἰς μετάνοιαν, ὁ δὲ ὀπίσω μου ἐρχόμενος…αὐτὸς ὑμᾶς βαπτίσει ἐν πνεύματι ἁγίῳ καὶ πυρί.

Matthew 3:11¹

The second argument on this subject is drawn from the usage of the word. In the Classics; in the Septuagint and the Apocryphal writings of the Old Testament; in the New Testament and in the writings of the Greek fathers, the words βάπτω [baptō], βαπτίζω [baptizō] and their cognates, are used with such latitude of meaning, as to prove the assertion that the command to baptize is a command to immerse, to be utterly unauthorized and unreasonable.

Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol III, Ch XX, pg 527²

In the last post, citing heavily from the Baptism entry in McClintock & Strong’s Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature³, I examined the grammar of the Greek verb baptizō [βαπτίζω], “to baptize”, and proved to all but the irrepressibly disputatious that it does not mean “to immerse”.

In this post, I’ll give pagan and Scriptural examples of usage wherein the method of baptizing is such that baptizō cannot mean “to immerse”. These citations will be presented in this order: Classical Greek writers, the Septuagint (LXX) & Apocrypha, then, lastly, the New Testament.

Classical Greek Writers

The following is from the section of the Cyclopaedia entry on Baptism entitled “Philological Usage of the Word βαπτίζειν” [baptizein – the infinitive form of baptizō]:

By Classical Writers. — No instance occurs in these writers of the use of βάπτισμα, and only one in a very late author (Antyllus) of the use of its equivalent βαπτισμός; but the verb occurs frequently, especially in the later writers. It is used to designate:

The covering over of any object by the flowing or pouring of a fluid on it; and metaphorically (in the passive), the being overwhelmed or oppressed: thus the Pseudo-Aristotle speaks of places full of bulrushes and sea-weeds, which, when the tide is at the ebb, are not baptized (i.e. covered by the water), but at full tide are flooded over (Mirabil. Auscult. § 137, p. 50, in Westermann's edit. of the Script. Rer. Mir. Gr.); Diodorus Siculus (bk. 1) speaks of land animals being destroyed by the river overtaking them (διαφθείρεται βαπτιζόμενα); Plato and Athenaeus describe men in a state of ebriety [inebriation] as baptized (Sympos. p. 176 B.; and Deipnos.v.); and the former says the same of a youth overwhelmed with sophistry (Euthyd. 277 D.); Plutarch denounces the forcing of knowledge on children beyond what they can receive as a process by which the soul is baptized (De Lib. educ.); and he speaks of men as baptized by debts (Galbae, c. 21); Diodorus Siculus speaks of baptizing people with tears (bk. 1, c., 3); and Libanius says, “He who hardly bears what he now bears, would be baptized by a little addition” (Epist. 310), and “I am one of those baptized by that great wave” (Ep. 25).

Note that in every one of these forms of baptism, it is the medium that is “acting” on the object baptized, rather than the object entering into the medium.

There are other examples given in this section of the entry that are ambiguously³ said to be referring to “dunking”, “plunging” and “immersion”. They have been omitted here because of the ambiguous wording of the notations accompanying the examples, not because the examples themselves defeat my argument. Proof of that is the conclusion reached by the Cyclopaedia after considering all the examples found in the Classical writers:

From this it appears that in classical usage βαπτίζειν is not fixed to any special mode of applying the baptizing element to the object baptized; all that is implied by the term is, that the former is closely in contact with the latter, or that the latter is wholly in the former.

Furthermore, in Hodge’s Systematic Theology cited in the epigraph at the top of this post, we read:

As to the classic use of the words in question, it is clear that βάπτω means (1.) To dip. (2.) To dye by dipping. (3.) To dye without regard to the mode in which it is done; as a lake is said to be baptized (i.e., dyed) by the blood shed in it; a garment is spoken of as baptized by colouring matter dropping on it. (4.) It also means to gild; also to glaze, as when earthenware is covered with any vitreous matter. (5.) To wet, moisten, or wash. (6.) To temper, as hot iron is tempered; this may be done by plunging or pouring. “Tempered, ὑπὸ ἐλαίου,” does not mean plunged into oil. (7.) To imbue. The mind is said to be baptized with fantasies; not plunged into them, for it is ὑπὸ τῶν φαντασίων.

A man is said to be “imbued with righteousness.” This cannot mean “dipped.” It is obvious, therefore, that a command to baptize, made in the use of the word βάπτω, cannot be limited to a command to dip, plunge, or immerse.

We must not diminish the etymological link between baptō and baptizō. They are not two entirely different words. Since they share the same root, baptō, the latter is simply an intensive form of the former. Where baptō means “to dye”, baptizō means to “completely and utterly dye”.

As to the classic use of βαπτίζω, it means, (1.) To immerse⁴ or submerge. It is very frequently used when ships are spoken of as sunk or buried in the sea. They are then said to be baptized. (2.) To overflow or to cover with water. The sea-shore is said to be baptized by the rising tide. (3.) To wet thoroughly, to moisten. (4.) To pour upon or drench. (5.) In any way to be overwhelmed or overpowered. Hence men are said to be baptized with wine (οἱ βεβαπτισμένοι are the intoxicated), with opium, with debts, with puzzling questions. Wine is said to be baptized by having water poured into it.

The word βαπτίζω ... belongs to that class of words which indicate an effect to be produced without expressing the kind of action by which that effect is to be brought about…there is a given effect to be produced, without any specific injunction as to the manner; whether by immersion, pouring, or sprinkling.

Septuagint and Apocrypha

The Septuagint is a Koine Greek translation of the OT, the last book of which was completed approximately 130 years before the Lord’s advent. The Apocrypha are a group of slightly newer, non-canonical books often included with the LXX. Regardless of the controversies surrounding their canonicity, for a host of reasons, the books of the LXX and the Apocrypha are invaluable tools to New Testament scholarship.

The verb baptizō is used only 4 times in all the books of the LXX. In Isaiah 21:4, where the KJV reads “fearfulness affrighted me”, the LXX has ἀνομία με βαπτίζει [anomia me baptizei], which is literally “lawlessness baptizes me”. Here again there is no “immersion” of the object into the medium, but rather the medium (lawlessness) covering the object (me).

In 2 Kings 5:14, Judith 12:7 and Ecclesiasticus 31:25 the verb denotes the washing of oneself. Of baptizō in the last two instances, the Cyclopaedia remarks:

…the word merely denotes washed, without indicating any special mode by which this was done, though in the former the circumstances of the case make it improbable that the act described was that of bathing.

The New Testament

In my first post on this subject, I mentioned those verses relating to the ritual washing of the Pharisees which did not involve immersion, but rather dousing. In this post, I will only discuss the New Testament usages of the verb baptizō which unambiguously preclude the definition “to immerse”.

First, Mark 10:38-9:

³⁸ But Jesus said unto them, Ye know not what ye ask: can ye drink of the cup that I drink of? and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?

³⁹And they said unto him, We can. And Jesus said unto them, Ye shall indeed drink of the cup that I drink of; and with the baptism that I am baptized withall shall ye be baptized:

The subject and usage of baptizō here are identical to those in Matthew 20:22-23 and Luke 12:50. The Lord is speaking of His coming scourging and crucifixion. Here is a classical meaning of baptizō, that of being overwhelmed by affliction. There is no “immersion into” here.

It is said in several places in the NT that John the Baptist baptized with water, but the Lord baptizes with the Holy Spirit (the Holy Breath). In none of the examples of Holy Spirit baptism is the person being baptized immersed into the Spirit. The Holy Spirit—the medium of baptism—is said to descend, fall, fill, or be aspirated onto, over or into the one being baptized; it is never held down in order to be dunked into. The very idea is so self-evidently absurd, that there’s no need to present any evidence to refute it.

And with that I’ll conclude my examination of the grammar and usage of the verb baptizō. In a future post, I’ll tie everything up and explain what true Christian Baptism is and show why we shouldn’t be ritually dunking each other in H²O.

By way of conclusion, I’ll close with another quote from Hodge:

The fact is βαπτίζειν does not express any particular mode of action. As to dye, expresses any kind of action by which an object is coloured; to bury, any kind of action by which an object is hidden and protected; so to baptize, expresses any act by which a person or thing is brought into the state of being wet, purified, or even stupefied, as by opium or wine.

Footnotes:

1. All English Scripture text taken from the King James Version (1769). Greek Text is from the Stephanus Edition of the Textus Receptus from 1550.

2. Sytematic Theology, Volume III, Charles Hodge, D.D., WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, Grand Rapids, MI. 1940 (original publishers); text here cited is from online publishers: Christian Classics Ethereal Library.

3. Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, John McClintock and James Strong, Harper & Brothers, NY, 1880.

4. All the other examples of usage by the Classical writers given imply exactly what the conclusion of this section of the Cyclopaedia's Baptism entry says, that “βαπτίζειν is not fixed to any special mode of applying the baptizing element to the object baptized”. In every case the idea is “be baptized by”, rather than “be baptized into”.