# Convert Baptism?



## no1special18 (Apr 6, 2006)

My Historical Theology professor said in class that the Jews would have understood baptism as convert baptism and not in connection with a the Old Covenant sign of circumcision. If he is right, that would seem to drive a wedge into the Infant baptism view (which I hold to). What do you guys think? Is he in anyway right, or does he really have no foundation for this claim? Next class period I am going to ask if he can provide support for this idea.


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## RamistThomist (Apr 6, 2006)

Deny the assertion.
After several thousand years of children being in the covenant and receiving the sign, Scripture would have said something about the alleged discontinuity.


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## no1special18 (Apr 6, 2006)

I do think that argument is powerful, but I have also often questioned how confident we should be that Scripture would have mentioned such and such an issue. I did not think my professor's argument held much weight, but I was just curious what everyone else thought.


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## Pilgrim (Apr 6, 2006)

> _Originally posted by Draught Horse_
> Deny the assertion.
> After several thousand years of children being in the covenant and receiving the sign, Scripture would have said something about the alleged discontinuity.



And it would seem that it would have caused quite a stir among the Jews as well. 

Your professor is probably trying to link baptism to Jewish proselyte baptism, and this is one of their arguments on mode too. Leonard Coppes makes some interesting points about this in his _Are Five Points Enough_ pp. 122-123. 



> John's preaching centered in repentance and the removal of sin (defilement). This removal was symbolized in baptism. This could not have been proselyte immersion because such immersions symbolized entry into a _new_ religion. The message of John was not that there should be a new religion, but that the Jews should repent in view of what had already been laid down by God in the Old Testament. Purification within the existing structure, not abandonment of that structure, was John's message. To have preached and/or symbolized abandonment would have been to give the Pharisees and other opponents biblically legal grounds for declaring John heretical. They did not use this argument because John preached and practiced what they preached and practiced in this regard, that is, sprinkling symbolizing ritualistic (in John's case, spiritual) cleansing from sin.
> 
> This is further strengthened when one realizes that under Roman rule only legally recognized religions were allowed to go unopposed by the state. Judiasm was one of those religions, but a new religion would not have been. Later when the separation between Judiasm and Christianity became apparent Christianity ceased to enjoy legal protection and Christians were persecuted by the Romans as criminals. Immersion would have given the Pharisees unquestionable legal grounds (before Roman law) to see John and the Christians put to death.


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## Pilgrim (Apr 6, 2006)

> _Originally posted by no1special18_
> My Historical Theology professor said in class that the Jews would have understood baptism as convert baptism and not in connection with a the Old Covenant sign of circumcision. If he is right, that would seem to drive a wedge into the Infant baptism view (which I hold to). What do you guys think? Is he in anyway right, or does he really have no foundation for this claim? Next class period I am going to ask if he can provide support for this idea.



I'm thinking he will likely appeal to the Talmud or other extra-biblical sources.


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## no1special18 (Apr 7, 2006)

Would that not be proper in determining the view that the Jewish people would have had toward a certain subject?


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## Archlute (Apr 7, 2006)

Historically speaking, it really doesn't matter what he thinks. If he has no documentation, he may speculate by inference, but there is no proof for his assertion. Unless he can point to primary sources showing what they actually thought (or secondary historical sources citing them honestly), your guess is as good as his.

As well, just because the Jews may have recoiled and been ignorant of the connection of the signs instituted by Christ with those of the Old Covenant does not necessarily drive a wedge between them. Remember, the Jews were also ignorant and blinded to the fulfillment of their own prophetic oracles in Christ. They wanted (and many still want) to drive a wedge between Christ and the OT ("the Only Testament" I once heard a Jewish girl say in class), but ignorance and hard-heartedness do not a strong wedge make!

[Edited on 4-7-2006 by Archlute]


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## blhowes (Apr 7, 2006)

> _Originally posted by no1special18_
> My Historical Theology professor said in class that the Jews would have understood baptism as convert baptism and not in connection with a the Old Covenant sign of circumcision. If he is right, that would seem to drive a wedge into the Infant baptism view (which I hold to).


Why would it being a convert baptism drive a wedge into your view of infant baptism? I thought when OT strangers were converted to Judaism that they and their whole families were circumcised. If they thought of it as a convert baptism, in your view wouldn't the family have been in mind?


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## WrittenFromUtopia (Apr 7, 2006)

The same Jews who killed Jesus as a criminal? I'm not sure we should care too much about what they "thought" about baptism, being blinded by the darkness of Satan during such a time.


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## Contra_Mundum (Apr 7, 2006)

James,
I'm not sure that your initial question has been directly addressed. For my part, I'm perfectly willing to grant that some Jews would have recognized a connection of some sort between the baptism of John (or even the apostles) and prostelyte-baptism. However, it must be noted that the Law of Moses knows nothing of prostelyte baptism, either by immersion or sprinkling. Coming to be identified outwardly in covenant with God's people was not through a ritual washing, but by circumcision. It is implausible that God would take the "traditions of men" that were encroaching on his statutes and sanctify one of them to his holy ends.

We might also note that ritual washings, both prescribed and traditional, are called (not exclusively) in both the NT and LXX "baptisms." So it is far too reductionistic to choose one type of "baptism", particularly a traditional one and not even one prescribed by Moses or otherwise described in Scripture, and arbitrarily decide that this must have dominanted the thinking of the people. The more familar ritual cleansings from the Law are far more likely to have resonated with people who grew up listening to the Law read. Those would more likely have dominated their thinking.

How many Jews would have even been familiar with _the various_ prostelyte initiation rites (belonging to the differing sects of the Jews, sometimes including a ritual cleansing) beside circumcision, alone prescribed in the Law? How many of them even knew Jews who were not born into the community? To understand why the NT data is as limited as it is requires only that one accept the full scriptural background to that data, that supplies it and informs it. Suddenly, the data does not look so small after all. We do not need accounts of "prostelyte baptism," of which Scripture knows and mentions *not so much as a single word*, in order to understand a Jewish mindset relative to baptism.

John's baptism was associated with repentance and cleansing. John was saying, in effect, "Your circumcision act of ritual cleansing (see Rom. 2:29; Col. 2:11) is not sufficient; you need repentance within. If you realize this, if you know the imminent Messiah will not take you solely on the basis of your ritual possession, then repent and come be cleansed." The major news (though far from brand-new news, cf. Deut. 10:16) is: *Circumcision is not enough.*

So it is this baptism by John that begins the process of supplanting circumcision--not overnight, not in a moment. But as the New Covenant breaks in, it brings change. Circumcision is demonstrably insufficient--on the basis of Moses' own testimony and that of John the Baptist. That which goes beyond circumcision (baptism), therefore, has at least a surface claim to replacing it through superiority. But it is Jesus himself who necessarily _commands_ baptism as the visible sign of New Covenant inclusion (Mt. 28:19), thus replacing circumcision in fact.

Whether baptism is immediately recognizable by all as _fully replacing_ circumcision is not of tremendous significance. That is the task of preaching the New Covenant. And even the apostles grow in their comprehension and ability to pull the issues together into clarity. For we know that both rites are practiced side by side for some time in the prdominantly Jewish church. It is the dawning of Gentile inclusion that forces the church to face the issue squarely. This is followed by the explicit declaration of the church (Acts 15; Gal. 2:3,15, 5:2), that circumcision is of no more spiritual import.

Yet one can see, as early as Pentecost, the church (via Peter) proclaiming a connection between repentance, baptism, and promise/covenant (Eph. 2:12). It is Peter who connects the new era to the old by invoking the language of Gen. 17 (Acts 2:29). And Paul who verbally makes clear the connection between baptism's significance and circumcision's (Col. 2:11-12).

So even if there were _a few_ who did make connections between one form of "prostelyte initiation" and baptism, that in and of itself does not establish any bona fide biblical connection between the two. The former has exactly ZERO religious significance in the Old Economy, biblically. The latter has the force of law under the New.


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