Yes, children were present in household baptisms. Biblical evidence.

[The Liturgist]

You are correct. The Bible does not specifically EXCLUDE INFANTS.

Now, are you comfortable in changing, or adding to the Word of God, because that is exactly what you are doing. If you want to do that --please go right ahead, but I will not because Deuteronomy 4:2-3 commands us....

Some people add to the Word of God through exaggeration. Some add to the Word of God to make it support what they want it to say. My advice is to Be careful! Differentiate between your opinions or views and what God says in His Word.

INFANTS ARE NOT found as being baptized and it is dangerous to stake out a theological position on ....."I think so"!

Deuteronomy 4:2-3 refers to specifically to the Torah. It is not a generalized statement about all of Scripture. If it were, the Jews would never have written any new books for the Old Testament, because the Torah predates the rest both according to tradition and scholarship (although scholarship indicates some parts of the Torah were composed more recently than others, indeed, the presence of Aramaic words in the Torah, even in Genesis, indicates revision happening less than 400 years before the birth of St. John the Baptist).

More specifically, Deuteronomy 4:2-3 is likely a statement reflective of the tensions between the Jews and the Samaritans, who mutually accused each other of having modified the Torah. The Jews contended the Samaritans added an eleventh commandment to the Decalogue, commanding worship at Mount Gerizim, and also modified other references to sacred places such as the future site of Jerusalem to refer to Mount Gerizim; conversely the Samaritans accused the Jews of deleting the eleventh commandment and changing the references to Mount Gerizim to instead refer to Jerusalem and other locations.

As to which side was right, our Lord does say “Salvation comes from the Jews,” and that combined with the important events that occurred in Jerusalem under King David and King Solomon, and later under the Holy Prophet Nehemiah and St. Ezra the Priest, and still later during the oppressive reign of Antiochus, and finally, the events in the Gospels and in Acts, including the Last Supper, the Passion and Resurrection of our Lord, the Arrival of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, the martyrdoms of the deacon St. Stephen the Illustrious Protomartyr, and the Holy Apostle St. James the Great, and the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15, just to name a few. So obviously the Samaritan Torah was corrupted, probably for purposes of propaganda, since after the Northern and Southern Kingdoms separated, it would have made sense for the corrupt Northern rulers and their Kohanim to relocate the center of worship and sacrifice to some place within their territorial borders.

And indeed a temple was built on Mount Gerizim, later to be destroyed, although to this day the Samaritans celebrate passover by slaughtering a large number of sheep in the area of the ruins atop Mount Gerizim, where many of them live in a tranquil, suburban setting. There is a Samaritan synagogue in Nablus at the base, and another inside Israeli territory. The approximately 800 surviving Samaritans (up from around 120 in the 1900s) have dual Israeli-Jordanian citizenship.

This all being said, as my friend @Valletta said, tampering with the contents of the Books of Scripture is prohibited. Indeed, it is the main problem with Samaritanism. Also, one of the few serious issues I have with Martin Luther is that he interpolated the word “alone” into a sentence in Romans, so it read “by faith alone” rather than “by faith.” Nonetheless on balance I have a positive view of Martin Luther: his defense of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the iconography, the theology of the Cross, and the veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary is inspiring. No one but God is truly perfect, not even the saints.

By the way, if anyone is interested, I have an extremely rare English translation of the Defter, the Samaritan prayerbook, which is similar in content to a Jewish Siddur. I might be able to upload it, or alternately I can e-mail it (it is strongly in the public domain).

 

[The Liturgist]

You can actually trace how and when infant baptism began. It started with parents baptizing their children when they were about to die so they wouldn't go to hell when they died. We have records of baptism and death dates from times of antiquity. Not disagreeing with what you say above, but this is simply a counter to infant baptism. I totally agree with you that "salvation" was more communal during the early church. It just doesn't explain how infant baptism started. Gavin Ortlund makes this argument in this video (if you are not familiar with Gavin or his YouTube channel "Truth Unites" I highly recommend you follow him).

I would note that his view is speculation, since we have no documentation from the early church that validates his hypothesis. I will say its an interesting idea.

 

[bbbbbbb]

Sure, but I would argue that the there is more relevance on OT stuff than what is often credited for. I would give an example of this reading Rick Warren's 1st big "The Purpose Driven Church" back in 1996 or so, actually I will post in something I blogged years ago and posted years ago here on that.


Independent Contractors for Christ

The Church is more than an Institution setup to fulfill the Great Commission

(This was an old Blog type post, that I released on Christian Forums and a friend liked it and thought I should release it again)

I was going to write a bit more. Nice to have my PC keyboard to do it. Anyway I have some writing in mind about Ecclesiology. The OP I think gets at a fundamental difference in the Ecclesiology of most Protestants (non-sacramental ones especially) and those Apostolic Tradition folks. The Church quite often is seen in Utilitarian terms. Books like the Purpose Driven Church and other ones quite often depict the Church almost as "Independent Contractors for Christ". The Church basically is just an institution setup by Christ to do his work, but more or less there is nothing really divine or supernatural about it. The Church basically is setup just to do "his work", as defined by various statements from "The Great Commission", "sermon on the Mount" and other important red letter statements. Those things essentially exist like a Corporate "Purpose Statement" for any for profit or nonprofit organization.

This understanding or model however is deficient. Because God himself most of the time is not a Utilitarian. He does things all the time that are not efficient or purely task orientated. The issue of the sacred is one area where this model is deficient, so many of models based on this format really have little appreciation for it, even dismissing it sometimes as "superstition" or "religion", "religious bondage" but the sacred exists as an important part of Judeo-Christian Spirituality.

Besides that, this model misses out on God's teaching us "the deeper lessons". God acts more like a Postmodernist than a modernist, in the classic saying "It's not about the End, it’s about the Journey". Much of what God does in the Bible is to teach us "About His ways" and his nature (“Economy” is the theological term for this). Things often are not really about the task at hand. So a Utilitarian only sees something like God's prohibition against eating pork in the OT as about "protecting them from eating something that could make them sick before the days of refrigeration". But someone with a more (true) Apostolic background would realize that God gave them that command, because he realized they would recognize the allegory in the old sense of "You are what you eat", and the pig of course in ancient and contemporary times is the incarnation of greed and gluttony and selfishness. Another example is the trip from Egypt to the Promised land. That should have only been two weeks but God went out of his way to make it last 40 years because the journey was more about unspoken objectives like establishing faith in God and teaching the people of Israel his ways than moving to the destination.

PS - After the fact, I realize that the saying "It's not about the End, it’s about the Journey". Does not apply to our Faith and the nature of the afterlife!

Thank you. I have never held Mr. Warren or others like him in particularly high regard, so we are in essential agreement.

Concerning the OT, I agree that the primitive Church incorporated much more of its culture than succeeding centuries. As I gaze at the historical record probably one of the earliest deviations was when the church became a utilitarian bureaucracy, particularly when one branch of it determined to establish its corporate headquarters in Rome.

 

[Daniel9v9]

Interesting definition of baptism from a credobaptism point of view.

Here are some definitions of baptism I have gather from the internet concerning the credobaptist definition of baptism.

• Baptism is an outward sign of an inward change.
• Baptism is an immersion in water as an expression of repentant faith in Jesus.
  
• A public proclamation and a testimony of God’s work in a believer’s life.
• Baptism is a required step of obedience for a disciple, that is, a person who is already saved.

What is the problem with these definitions? THEY ARE NOT FOUND IN SCRIPTURE.

This is not to say, the Sacraments are not a public testimony of a believers faith…they are. But the Baptists got the wrong Sacrament! It is the other Sacrament.

I Cor. 11:26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.

The Christian public proclamation of ones faith is in the Lord's Supper, NOT BAPTISM. And you will never find this kind of statement attach to any passage in Scripture about baptism.

The reason for public proclamation is that in the Lord’s supper you are active and in baptism you are passive. Receiving the Lord’s Supper is the most public act of worship we do on Sunday. We are active in receiving the Lord’s supper as Jesus says, “Take eat” and “Drink.” And yet we are passive in the its blessings.

Baptism contains at least three elements: 1) water, 2 in the true name of God, 3) and another Christian baptizing you. Baptism is not a good work we do, because it is done to us. We are purely passive. We never baptize ourselves, therefore we can't get credit before God by it.

Baptism itself (the application of water, with accompanying words) is a statement by God (through the church) to and about the person being baptized, not a statement by that person.

In Baptism God is doing; we are receiving. Baptism is neither the work of the one being baptized nor of the man baptizing, but rather it is solely the work of God. This work of God is done through human hands.

For the credobaptist, baptism is just an empty sign, signifying nothing.

Yeah I enjoyed requoting @Daniel9v9 post from 2019, where mentions that. Technically speaking that would be something like a Eisegesis interpretation of certain Gospel and Pauline passages right?

Hey, thank you @Pavel Mosko!

Yeah, that's right! Baptism is not our work, but it's God's work through His Church. And it's no different from the Gospel, which He also communicates through His Church. So, in a way, it would be arbitrary to call Baptism a human work and the proclamation of the Gospel a gift, for they are both gifts, worked by God through believers. And in fact, they are not two different things, but contain the same Gospel promise. Only one is heard, and the other is heard in connection to water, that is, it's tangible.

To anyone who may be interested, here's a copy of an overview I wrote before — things I think can be helpful to consider:

Original thread:
Attending An LCMS Church But Have Some Problems With Their Theology

I also expand a bit on it here:
Question about Adult Baptism

Overview:

Baptism
It may be good to start with that God's Word does not forbid Baptism of infants. That's only assumed if we think that Baptism is a work that we do for ourselves or for God. But this is not how Baptism is expressed in Scriptures. The Christian Church is commanded to Baptise in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but the individual receives Baptism as a gift. That is, God gives the gifts of His Word and Sacraments through the Church. So God is the one doing the work, and His Law and Gospel, and Baptism and the Eucharist are gifts.

Who can receive Baptism?
Everyone. Christ has commanded us to make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and that certainly includes children. We can think of it this way: Make disciples and then baptise them. And also, make disciples by baptising them. Both are true.

God wishes to save children
God's love for children is apparent throughout the Bible. In Matthew 19:14 and Matthew 18:10-14, our Lord teaches us that He invites children into His kingdom.

The Gospel is for all
It’s true that children are pure relative to adults, but every human being is a sinner before God. We are all born in sin and are by nature children of wrath (Ephesians 2:3). Psalm 51:5 we read: “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” Yet, we are not without hope, for the Gospel is also for all. In Acts 2:38-39, we read that Baptism is for us and for our children, and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to Himself. That is, God's promise of grace is for all, regardless of age, and it is given through His Word and Sacraments as gifts to us. An adult and a child are equally helpless to save themselves — they both need Jesus.

One must be born of water and the Spirit
Our Lord says in John 3:5: “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” To be in the kingdom of God means to have been born of water and the Holy Spirit, which means Baptism. So we can rightly understand from this that children are ordinarily adopted and welcomed into the kingdom of God through Baptism. An adult may hear the Gospel and believe, or he may hear the Gospel, be baptised and believe, but a child can receive the Gospel through Baptism and be raised in the faith.

Children are to be raised in the faith
The model for Church membership in the Bible is not that children should give their life to Jesus when they reach a certain age. That idea is foreign to the Scriptures. In the Great Shema, in Deuteronomy 6:4-8, we get a clear command and picture of what it means to be God's people and that this very much includes children. The Bible does not command children to wait to accept God, but rather that children can belong to God and be raised in the faith.

Baptism and its relationship to circumcision
If we understand what circumcision is and consider how central it is in the Old Testament, it gives us context for Baptism in the New Testament. When Paul in Colossians 2 connects circumcision to Baptism, we should contemplate the whole body of doctrine regarding circumcision, and understand that it found its fulfilment in Christ, who gives us Baptism as a new kind of circumcision; a circumcision of the heart by the Holy Spirit (Romans 2). According to the old Law, circumcision was ordinarily for baby boys, though also for adult men, however, we can rejoice in that the gift of Baptism is certainly nothing less than that — it is greater! It is a gift for everyone!

Children can have faith
It would be a mistake to confuse faith with intellectual ability, because we know from God's Word that the Holy Spirit can work faith in children, even in the womb. We can call to mind Psalm 71:5-6 or Matthew 21:16, for example. Or consider how John, filled with the Holy Spirit, leapt for joy in Elizabeth's womb in Luke 1! He certainly had faith. Faith, as we learn in Ephesians 2:8 is a gift from God, and this gift is ordinarily given to children through Baptism, but also through God’s Word.

God bless!

 

[Pavel Mosko]

Indeed I was baptized as an infant, and I feel greatly blessed for it.

It seems to me that your baptism was indeed efficacious!

 

[Pavel Mosko]

don’t believe in penal substitutionary atonement.

lol yeah it is funny the kinds of requirements people make on this stuff. And just think some of us don't just believe in infant baptism but also infant Communion as well that probably will cause some heads to explode!

 

[Pavel Mosko]

I realize that you do not care what Spurgeon said, and just so you know, I care even less than that about what any Catholic apologist said.

All of your responses are classic Catholic and not Biblical.

Congratulations.....You are a Catholic.

That's true but not the way you mean it.

Hey speaking a few previous posts back of past blogging projects here is another entry!


4) God is on His Own Side


Joshua 5:13 Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?”
14 “Neither,” he replied, “but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.” Then Joshua fell face down to the ground in reverence, and asked him, “What message does my Lord[e] have for his servant?” (Trinity doctrine note. Joshua was not rebuked for prostrating himself so this was a Parousia and not the appearance of an angel).



This passage is surprising to me. Many Christians tend to believe that God is on the side of their particular country, church or group. In this case, however there is something more to it than just everyday narcissism. Joshua actually came from a group specifically chosen by God to be his literal “people” and liberated them from slavery with a series of impressive miracles. If that doesn’t warrant believing that God would automatically “be on your side” than I don’t know what would! But strangely, while Joshua is on mission doing what God called him to do God still asserts that He is above it all.


This is message for our time. Because It seems almost ubiquitous that Christians assume that God is always on the side of whatever group they are a member of. In the churches I’ve attended in the past, it seemed pretty clear to us that God while being “self-existent and beyond space and time”, strangely also seems to identify himself as being dual citizen of both the United States and Israel, as well as being American Evangelical Protestant and a Messianic Jew!


This is of course is nonsense. If God really is beyond time and space as creator that would mean he also is above our own identity culture politics as well. The Church is termed “Catholic” or Universal because it is made up of all believers not just in all parts of the World now simultaneously, but across all ages of time as well. God likewise is the most Catholic being embracing all aspects of humanity that He saved and not just those our own little corner of the World.

 

[Ain't Zwinglian]

Confirmation Bias and Immersion Only Baptism.

Confirmation bias is the tendency to interpret Scripture which conforms to a persons prior beliefs while rejecting or ignoring any conflicting data. It is the tendency of the human brain to filter out and ignore evidence while at the time focusing focus on the things that confirm our notions.

So if a Baptist were taught from cradle to grave before opening up the Bible, all baptisms in the NT are only by immersion…then they are! And no investigation is necessary. But how do you know all baptisms are immersion unless you study each passage that applies baptism to the person?

Post #47 was written to help demonstrate to an immersionist, not all baptisms are immersions in the NT. Paul was baptized in a standing position.

 

[Pavel Mosko]

That is a great concept that I like to bring up too, actually more with atheists believe it or not @Ain't Zwinglian who like to pretend to be objective. I usually bring it up only when people seem very knee jerk at dismissing everything I say out of hand, and often when they are newbies to many topics, but trying to use their so called logic skills which probably should be called strawman and reduction to absurdity skills much of the time.

The typical response when doing so is to say "Well this applies to you too?" At this time, I agree as a basic principal, but mention how it can be mititgated against in different ways and relate this concept to the Joehari window, and point out that I got much more familiarity with the topic at hand than they do etc.

I also like to talk about the Biblical Lexical concepts of truth in Greek and Hebrew (Alethia and Emeth), and how I use that in my personal epistemology, and that I am not just looking for stuff that helps my side in the short term, but want to actually know more how things actually are and based my views on that.

 

[Ain't Zwinglian]

Difficulties with the Administration of Immersion Only Baptism

The mode of baptism should never be a stumbling block to the new Christian. Baptism is of universal application; it is a cosmopolitan command in which the differences such as of nationality, race, age, sex, social or civil status or unique cultural norms are leveled. Baptism must be administered in such a way as not to disturb any cultural norm or violate the consciences of new believers in the thousands of isolated communities of humanity since the first baptism occurred in Jerusalem.

I have gathered a listing of the difficulties in administering immersion only baptism from the internet.

• Obstacles have to be overcome in order to be baptized by immersion. Finding a suitable water supply, extra change of clothes, a towel, a place to change, proper thermal and weather conditions. John the Baptist baptized dressed in camel hair clothing. I wonder if he had spare camel hair suits if he practiced immersion baptism.
• To render baptism by immersion difficult, if not impracticable in many cases. For example, immersion may be nearly or entirely impossible for desert nomads or Eskimos.
• Historical feminine modesty around large crowds of men must be considered. Great cultural differences have to be over come for immersion baptism. Immersion baptism has massive societal implications, which in some cases immersion baptism would be abhorrent.
• People might have to travel for many miles together for a human body to be immersed in any natural stream or pool of water.
• Even today practical difficulties can render immersion nearly or entirely impossible for some individuals: for example, people with certain medical conditions—the bedridden; quadriplegics; individuals with tracheotomies (an opening into the airway in the throat) or in negative pressure ventilators (iron lungs).
• Again, those who have recently undergone certain procedures (such as open-heart surgery) cannot be immersed.
• Or consider those in a hostile setting, such as a Muslim regime, where baptisms must be done in secret, without adequate water for immersion.
• Perhaps some of the saddest immersion baptism are of the aquaphobic. Some look at immersion as pure dread and hence don't get baptized. The sensitive Christian must realize aquaphobic is the way that God created most of us. We all have a primal fear of fire and drowning. In fact, the farther away from the ocean or large bodies of water you live, the more likely you are to fear water. Aquaphobics should never be immersed, because God created specifically that way.

Physical preparation for baptism was recorded only once in the NT: that of Saul of Tarsus. He was told to “arise and be baptized” (Acts 22:16), and he “arose and was baptized” (Acts 9:18). That is the whole record of the ceremony. All other recorded baptismal ceremonies in the NT are of simpler fashion.

Tension must be resolved between the cumbersonness and difficulty of immersion baptism and the simplicity of all the baptismal accounts in the NT.

It is strange that those who make so much of the method of Baptism, should make so little of its content.

 

[Ain't Zwinglian]

Understanding Prescriptive and Descriptive Statements Concerning Baptism.

Prescriptive texts in Scripture prescribe what Christians are to do. They are commands. The greatest prescriptive example in the NT is where Jesus says the two greatest commandments are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Other examples would include:

• The Great commission;
  
• “Do this in remembrance of me.”
  
• Paul exhorts us to love one another.
  
• “Do not steal.”

These statements are a straightforward call on our lives.

But a descriptive statement is just that, a description of what happened. Examples would be: On Palm Sunday, Jesus entered Jerusalem riding a donkey. Mary and Joseph fleeing to Egypt. Jesus was born in a manger in Bethlehem. The early church meeting in houses for worship, and casting lots for Judas’ replacement.

The difference is this: a passage is descriptive if it is simply describing something that happened, while a passage in prescriptive if it is specifically teaching that something should happen in the lives of Christians.

The problem comes when we interpret descriptive texts as prescriptive.

• David committed adultery with Bathsheba. Is this text prescribing committing adultery?
• Example of David killing Goliath because he was blaspheming God. This is a Descriptive text . If it were prescriptive then we might make the error of slinging rocks at blasphemers everywhere. The Bible relates the account of David’s victory as an example of faith, but the Bible never commands us to follow David’s actions on the battlefield.
• Early church met in homes. Some interpret this to mean that Christians today should only meet in homes, and, therefore, meeting in church buildings is wrong. The Bible describes believers meeting in homes, but there is no command to do so.
• The process by which they choose Matthias is by casting lots. Luke is not prescribing for us how to choose our leadership in the church—he is simply describing to us what happened.

In the Book of Acts, baptism is presented descriptively nine times, such as Jesus being baptized in the Jordan River or the Ethiopian eunuch, etc. The context of these nine baptism are purely descriptive. There is no positive command that baptisms are to be performed, say in the Jordan River.

However, baptism in Acts is mentioned prescriptively only once. Acts is 2:38-39 is the prescriptive text and it was preached by Peter before any Christian baptism took place.

We know it is prescriptive from its context. For these two verses contain:

• A Command: “Repent and be Baptized.
• Dual Promises: “For the forgiveness of sins” and “You shall receive the Holy Spirit.”
• Baptismal continuance: “This promise is for you and your children.”
• Geographical or Missional significance: “For all those to are far off and away.”
  
  The interpretative key here is Acts 2:38-39 does not prescribe a mode of baptism.
  There is no “Thou shalt be immersed" or “Thus saith the Lord”

There is no clear-cut command in the Bible as to how the Church is to perform baptism, and anyone who asserts that there is such a command is not examining the text properly.

What would convince me to believe in immersion only baptism?

• Demonstrate a prescriptive command to immerse only.
• Demonstrate a prescriptive command not to sprinkle or pour.

 

[Major1]

Confirmation Bias and Immersion Only Baptism.

Confirmation bias is the tendency to interpret Scripture which conforms to a persons prior beliefs while rejecting or ignoring any conflicting data. It is the tendency of the human brain to filter out and ignore evidence while at the time focusing focus on the things that confirm our notions.

So if a Baptist were taught from cradle to grave before opening up the Bible, all baptisms in the NT are only by immersion…then they are! And no investigation is necessary. But how do you know all baptisms are immersion unless you study each passage that applies baptism to the person?

Post #47 was written to help demonstrate to an immersionist, not all baptisms are immersions in the NT.

Very true. In other words.......we like what we know and even if what we know is wrong, we like it anyway no matter what is shown to us.

The term "baptize" is from the Greek, "to dip."

In the early church, candidates were baptized by immersion in natural or existing sources of water such as rivers, fountains, pools, and the sea.

The Apostles permitted sprinkling in cases of extreme health issues and where no water was available.

 

[Major1]

Deuteronomy 4:2-3 refers to specifically to the Torah. It is not a generalized statement about all of Scripture. If it were, the Jews would never have written any new books for the Old Testament, because the Torah predates the rest both according to tradition and scholarship (although scholarship indicates some parts of the Torah were composed more recently than others, indeed, the presence of Aramaic words in the Torah, even in Genesis, indicates revision happening less than 400 years before the birth of St. John the Baptist).

More specifically, Deuteronomy 4:2-3 is likely a statement reflective of the tensions between the Jews and the Samaritans, who mutually accused each other of having modified the Torah. The Jews contended the Samaritans added an eleventh commandment to the Decalogue, commanding worship at Mount Gerizim, and also modified other references to sacred places such as the future site of Jerusalem to refer to Mount Gerizim; conversely the Samaritans accused the Jews of deleting the eleventh commandment and changing the references to Mount Gerizim to instead refer to Jerusalem and other locations.

As to which side was right, our Lord does say “Salvation comes from the Jews,” and that combined with the important events that occurred in Jerusalem under King David and King Solomon, and later under the Holy Prophet Nehemiah and St. Ezra the Priest, and still later during the oppressive reign of Antiochus, and finally, the events in the Gospels and in Acts, including the Last Supper, the Passion and Resurrection of our Lord, the Arrival of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, the martyrdoms of the deacon St. Stephen the Illustrious Protomartyr, and the Holy Apostle St. James the Great, and the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15, just to name a few. So obviously the Samaritan Torah was corrupted, probably for purposes of propaganda, since after the Northern and Southern Kingdoms separated, it would have made sense for the corrupt Northern rulers and their Kohanim to relocate the center of worship and sacrifice to some place within their territorial borders.

And indeed a temple was built on Mount Gerizim, later to be destroyed, although to this day the Samaritans celebrate passover by slaughtering a large number of sheep in the area of the ruins atop Mount Gerizim, where many of them live in a tranquil, suburban setting. There is a Samaritan synagogue in Nablus at the base, and another inside Israeli territory. The approximately 800 surviving Samaritans (up from around 120 in the 1900s) have dual Israeli-Jordanian citizenship.

This all being said, as my friend @Valletta said, tampering with the contents of the Books of Scripture is prohibited. Indeed, it is the main problem with Samaritanism. Also, one of the few serious issues I have with Martin Luther is that he interpolated the word “alone” into a sentence in Romans, so it read “by faith alone” rather than “by faith.” Nonetheless on balance I have a positive view of Martin Luther: his defense of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the iconography, the theology of the Cross, and the veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary is inspiring. No one but God is truly perfect, not even the saints.

By the way, if anyone is interested, I have an extremely rare English translation of the Defter, the Samaritan prayerbook, which is similar in content to a Jewish Siddur. I might be able to upload it, or alternately I can e-mail it (it is strongly in the public domain).

So then by your reasoning, if there is a Bible Scripture that convicts us or tell us that WE ARE WRONG, then we simply make up a story such as...It is in the Torah so that we can then do or say what we want to.

That is essence is what you are saying.

Since Deuteronomy is the 1st reading of the Law and it is in the Torah,
we can reject murder, and adultery, and homosexual activity and say that those laws can be reject or ignored.

IT is the WORD of God!

By your comment above YOU are doing exactly what the command in Duet. says NOT TO DO..........
"Neither shall ye diminish, by rejecting or neglecting any thing which I have commanded, though it seem never so small.

 

[bbbbbbb]

Very true. In other words.......we like what we know and even if what we know is wrong, we like it anyway no matter what is shown to us.

The term "baptize" is from the Greek, "to dip."

In the early church, candidates were baptized by immersion in natural or existing sources of water such as rivers, fountains, pools, and the sea.

The Apostles permitted sprinkling in cases of extreme health issues and where no water was available.

I also view baptism as being "washing". There is a gospel reference to the baptism of pots, pans and tables. One does not merely sprinkle pots and pans to get them clean, but, then, one does not immerse tables to get them clean (nor sprinkle them, for that matter). In the case of humans at that time, merely sprinkling water on the head did not clean (baptize) the person. Immersion (mikvah) was, and is, still the standard Jewish means of cleansing the human body.

Speaking to the allegation of bias, I was raised in a Presbyterian church where baptism was always by sprinkling on the head. It was not until I actually studied the use of the word in the New Testament that i changed my understanding.

 

[Major1]

There is nothing in your link about Constantine, nor names of historians writing about him. Still zero evidence.

When I have more time, I will do the work for you.

 

[Ain't Zwinglian]

I also view baptism as being "washing".

I would say this is the primary usage of the word in the NT. We see Paul's usage of "wash" as a synonym for baptism in I Cor. 6, Titus 3, Eph. 5 and Acts 22.

 

[bbbbbbb]

I would say this is the primary usage of the word in the NT. We see Paul's usage of "wash" as a synonym for baptism in I Cor. 6, Titus 3, Eph. 5 and Acts 22.

Thank you.

 

[Major1]

I also view baptism as being "washing". There is a gospel reference to the baptism of pots, pans and tables. One does not merely sprinkle pots and pans to get them clean, but, then, one does not immerse tables to get them clean (nor sprinkle them, for that matter). In the case of humans at that time, merely sprinkling water on the head did not clean (baptize) the person. Immersion (mikvah) was, and is, still the standard Jewish means of cleansing the human body.

Speaking to the allegation of bias, I was raised in a Presbyterian church where baptism was always by sprinkling on the head. It was not until I actually studied the use of the word in the New Testament that i changed my understanding.

Being raised a Presbyterian then your bias is evident.

I was raised a Baptist so I have the opposite bias.

Personally I do not care as the act itself has nothing to do with salvation. All I am saying is that the Scriptures seem to indicate to ME that immersion was the accepted method .

I actually see no reason why this should be a contention among believers. Some here seem to just want to argue their PET project at the expence of all others.

From what I have read in the past, the early church, at least in the second and third centuries, seems to have preferred full immersion—not the sprinkling of water, or the baptism of infants.

There were 2 exceptions-----------

First, the Didache allows for the pouring of water three times instead of full immersion. This was allowed for in the absence of sufficient water for immersion.

Second, in the third century, Cyprian defended both sprinkling and pouring instead of full immersion in cases where a person was expected to die soon.

Those were exception and were not supposed to become the rule, but it seems that it has done exactly that.

 

[Major1]

No, I would never add the words "excluding infants." The Word of God is not to be changed. Infants were baptized before the Catholic Church chose the 73 books of the Bible in the late 300s. Practices did not change because the Bible came into existence.

But that is exactly what you did!!!!

FACT is.......There is NO Bible record of INFANT baptisms.

 

[bbbbbbb]

Being raised a Presbyterian then your bias is evident.

I was raised a Baptist so I have the opposite bias.

Personally I do not care as the act itself has nothing to do with salvation. All I am saying is that the Scriptures seem to indicate to ME that immersion was the accepted method .

I actually see no reason why this should be a contention among believers. Some here seem to just want to argue their PET project at the expence of all others.

From what I have read in the past, the early church, at least in the second and third centuries, seems to have preferred full immersion—not the sprinkling of water, or the baptism of infants.

There were 2 exceptions-----------

First, the Didache allows for the pouring of water three times instead of full immersion. This was allowed for in the absence of sufficient water for immersion.

Second, in the third century, Cyprian defended both sprinkling and pouring instead of full immersion in cases where a person was expected to die soon.

Those were exception and were not supposed to become the rule, but it seems that it has done exactly that.

Actually, we are in essential agreement. The standard means of washing a human body is by immersion. Other means such as showering or sprinkling came much later in history. I think you will find that immersion is the most common means used, even in the EOC which immerses infants.

I struggled with the Reformed sacramental view of baptism and finally rejected it in favor of a symbolic understanding.