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

[bbbbbbb]

But that is exactly what you did!!!!

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

Actually, more to the point, infants are quite incapable of repentance of sin and faith in Jesus Christ - two aspects of baptism which are clearly recorded in Acts. Lutherans, and others, shift this burden to the godparents who act as proxies for the infants, answering the standard questions required in the baptismal rite. Thus, their faith is accounted as righteousness for the infant.

 

[Ain't Zwinglian]

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.

Actually it is just the opposite. There are many articles on the internet on the history of personal hygiene through out the centuries. Check history of swimming and bathing also. But for the ancients, baths were very rare for the common people as far as DAILY HYGIENE. If there was bathing, water temp and climate interplay. But they do happen in Roman. Louis XIV of France, for example, is said to have taken only two baths in his adult lifetime — both times recommended by his doctors. The colonists hardly ever bathed. Too much firewood.

Even swimming was rare except in Greece among the ancients. Many the ancients myths associated evil with the underworld of large bodies of water. We see this with the crossing of the Red Sea. Pharoah, son of Ra the sun god, is swallowed up by the gods of the underworld. The militaries of the ancient world always camped next to rivers. No enemy would cross any river. Lack of swimming skills. Plus military commanders knew their soldiers would not retreat...fear of drowning.

Modern showers and bathing comes into existence with plumbing (18C) Coal for heating water. Modern swimming comes with heated pools. Swimming becomes a recreational sport with heated water. We should not confuse our modern culture of personal hygiene with that of the ancients.

It is interesting that when Ananias baptized Paul. He said and wash away your sins (Acts 22). Seems "wash" as a synonym for baptism was employed widely though out the Mediterranean.

 

[Major1]

Actually, more to the point, infants are quite incapable of repentance of sin and faith in Jesus Christ - two aspects of baptism which are clearly recorded in Acts. Lutherans, and others, shift this burden to the godparents who act as proxies for the infants, answering the standard questions required in the baptismal rite. Thus, their faith is accounted as righteousness for the infant.

And that is exactly what I have posted on at least 3 occasions for all to read!

There is absolulty NO Bible record for the idea of the faith of others as accounted as righteousness for the infant.

That is a complete idea of man.

 

[Major1]

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.

I agree!

 

[Ain't Zwinglian]

Lutherans, and others, shift this burden to the godparents who act as proxies for the infants, answering the standard questions required in the baptismal rite. Thus, their faith is accounted as righteousness for the infant.

This is NOT true at all. You are confusing Lutheranism with Reformed Covenant theology. Reformed covenant theology affirms the family as the basis of the covenant for baptism (I Cor 7:14). Lutherans don't believe in Covenant theology are quite adamant about this. They never use I Cor 7 as a key text for teaching anything about baptism.

Reformed Covenant theology is a theory of biblical interpretation that sees redemptive history articulated through at least six successive covenants (Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and the New). Added to this you have theological covenants such as Redemption, Works, and Grace are also seen as organizing principles for biblical theology.

For Lutherans, the Law/Gospel distinction is the organizing principle of theology.

 

[bbbbbbb]

Actually it is just the opposite. There are many articles on the internet on the history of personal hygiene through out the centuries. Check history of swimming and bathing also. But for the ancients, baths were very rare for the common people as far as DAILY HYGIENE. If there was bathing, water temp and climate interplay. But they do happen in Roman. Louis XIV of France, for example, is said to have taken only two baths in his adult lifetime — both times recommended by his doctors. The colonists hardly ever bathed. Too much firewood.

Even swimming was rare except in Greece among the ancients. Many the ancients myths associated evil with the underworld of large bodies of water. We see this with the crossing of the Red Sea. Pharoah, son of Ra the sun god, is swallowed up by the gods of the underworld. The militaries of the ancient world always camped next to rivers. No enemy would cross any river. Lack of swimming skills. Plus military commanders knew their soldiers would not retreat...fear of drowning.

Modern showers and bathing comes into existence with plumbing (18C) Coal for heating water. Modern swimming comes with heated pools. Swimming becomes a recreational sport with heated water. We should not confuse our modern culture of personal hygiene with that of the ancients.

It is interesting that when Ananias baptized Paul. He said and wash away your sins (Acts 22). Seems "wash" as a synonym for baptism was employed widely though out the Mediterranean.

The history of human bathing is very curious, indeed. Enlightened "Christian" (i.e. Western) cultures were light years behind so-called pagan cultures. Hinduism has a large set of examples of bathing for cleansing purposes, as in the Ganges River and other sacred rivers, not to mention tanks of water.

Perhaps it was the colder climate in much of Christendom that was the incentive to avoid bathing. Thus, we see that being wet and going outside in winter is associated with "catching a cold". It became a mark of class as to how infrequently one bathed. The higher your class the less you came into contact with water. It is reported the Queen Elizabeth I, upon her death, had approximately 1" of makeup on her face, as a result of decades of not washing. Only peasants, who were engaged in work which soiled them, took to bathing, usually in rivers. Such bathing was considered scandalous because there were no swimming suits (to be fair, river bathing was segregated by gender). In the late middle ages and perhaps earlier communal facilities such as saunas, steam baths, and what we would call hot tubs, were introduced from Islamic cultures where cleansing remains a religious duty, especially when entering a mosque.

As for Christianity, there is an extremely long history of relatively huge baptismal pools associated with churches, as at Pisa, Italy (see below). It seems to have been an immense effort to construct such a container for such an immense volume of water if, in fact, the need could just have easily (and far more cheaply) been met by a bowl (albeit a fancy bowl) of water.

 

[The Liturgist]

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.

No its not. You need to reread my post because my thesis is nothing like what you described.

You greatly hurt my feelings by accusing me of “making up a story.”

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.

I never said that nor would I. Nothing in my post declared the moral code of the Torah to be inapplicable. I am profoundly annoyed that you did not bother to read my post and are accusing me of horrible anomialism based on an argument I did not make and would not make.

IT is the WORD of God!

Indeed, it typologically represents the Only Begotten Son and Incarnate Word of God, our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ.

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.

Again, that is completely untrue. Since you didn’t read my argument, I will spell it out one more time, and failing that, perhaps @prodromos or @Ain't Zwinglian might be able to explain it.

The statement in Deuteronomy refers to the five books of the Pentateuch, or Torah. It is a self-referential statement that applies specifically to those five books. It exists so that the oldest, most sacred, and important part od the Old Testament, which represents the basis for all human morality, and also contains the only story of creation in any religion which is not contrary to science, the miraculous Genesis Chapter 1, and it also contains the first prophecies of our Savior, God the Son, and the first evidence of the Holy Spirit, and it contains the first prophecy of the eucharist, and it contains a vital moral and social code including the Noachide Laws, the Decalogue, and a moral code that prohibits homosexuality, incest and inappropriate behavior with animals, which the liberal mainline churches want to pretend doesn’t exist.

It is partially because of attempts to limit the applicability of the Torah, or gloss over the ban on homosexuality because our society has forgotten that homosexuality is a perversion, a dangerous paraphilia linked with child abuse, and ignores the fact that it is comorbid with a number of serious mental and physical illnesses, including HIV, and also is the primary risk factor for the deadly Monkey Pox pandemic sweeping the globe, that this verse exists. It also exists because of attempts to expand the Torah, for example, the Samaritan Torah’s obvious interpolation of a convenient eleventh commandment ordering worship at their holiest site, Mount Gerizim. This was clearly not part of the original, but was added by the Northern Kingdom after it broke away from Judah and Benjamin in the South.

Now that we have established the defensive purpose the verse in question is meant for, that is, to discourage modification of the Torah, we need to establish what it is not meant for:

1. Everyone agrees the Pentateuch, the five books of the Torah, comprise the oldest part of the Old Testament.
2. If the verse in Deuteronomy means what you suggest it means, then no other scripture could have been written. Indeed, the Samaritans interpret it the way you do, and as a result their canonical scripture consists only of the five books of the Torah. They have their own version of Joshua, but it is not regarded as sacred scripture but rather as a historical narrative.
3. Because other scripture has been written and recognized as canonical, and indeed, in Christianity we added an entire New Testament, whose structure in many respects resembles the Old (the Gospels being like the Torah, Acts being like the Historical Books, the Epistles like the Prophets, and Revelation being an Apocalypse, like Daniel, with which it shares common thematic elements), the verse in the Torah does not mean what you think it means.
4. Therefore, just as the Torah was not violating by adding additional books to the Old Testament, or adding the New Testament, the Torah is not violated by advocating for the baptism of infants; on the contrary, since the Torah specifies that infants be circumcised on the Eighth Day, and since Jesus Christ rose from the dead on the Eighth Day, the Torah combined with the Resurrection and Great Commission at the end of Matthew, and our Lord commanding His Apostles in Mark to “Suffer the little ones to come to me,” provides a compelling scriptural argument for the Baptism of Infants.

That was my argument. Whether you agree or not, nothing in that argument, which I have reduced to a simple four part statement, constitutes a deprecation of the importance of the Torah, a denial of its moral authority, an endorsement of sodomy, murder or other crimes prohibited in the Torah and elsewhere in the Bible, a denial that the Torah is the word of God, or a “made-up story,” a term I felt particularly hurt by, as stated previously.

Forgive me for the agitated tone of this message, but I feel like you either didn’t read my earlier post, or didn’t care what I had to say. I have paid close attention to all of your posts and I beg your forgiveness if I have catastrophically failed in my analysis of any of your replies.

 

[Valletta]

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.

In the first century, if immersion was not available then pouring water on the head three times and saying "In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" was used.

 

[The Liturgist]

The history of human bathing is very curious, indeed. Enlightened "Christian" (i.e. Western) cultures were light years behind so-called pagan cultures. Hinduism has a large set of examples of bathing for cleansing purposes, as in the Ganges River and other sacred rivers, not to mention tanks of water.

Perhaps it was the colder climate in much of Christendom that was the incentive to avoid bathing. Thus, we see that being wet and going outside in winter is associated with "catching a cold". It became a mark of class as to how infrequently one bathed. The higher your class the less you came into contact with water. It is reported the Queen Elizabeth I, upon her death, had approximately 1" of makeup on her face, as a result of decades of not washing. Only peasants, who were engaged in work which soiled them, took to bathing, usually in rivers. Such bathing was considered scandalous because there were no swimming suits (to be fair, river bathing was segregated by gender). In the late middle ages and perhaps earlier communal facilities such as saunas, steam baths, and what we would call hot tubs, were introduced from Islamic cultures where cleansing remains a religious duty, especially when entering a mosque.

As for Christianity, there is an extremely long history of relatively huge baptismal pools associated with churches, as at Pisa, Italy (see below). It seems to have been an immense effort to construct such a container for such an immense volume of water if, in fact, the need could just have easily (and far more cheaply) met by a bowl (albeit a fancy bowl) of water.

As Arthur C. Clarke liked to say, “The Truth, as always, is far stranger.”

You are correct insofar as baptism by aspersion is a recent invention, and baptism by affusion is also a recent invention.

@Ain't Zwinglian - you might be surprised to note that the traditional way of baptizing infants, still performed in the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Catholic, and Assyrian churches, is the same as for baptizing adults, via threefold triple immersion. Threefold immersion is particularly important to the Oriental Orthodox, who will not recognize as valid a baptism without three immersions, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

This is remarkably a safe and effective procedure. To my knowledge, no one in the United States has ever drowned in a traditional infant baptism. I am aware of only one fatality off the top of my head, and the priest in that instance was defrocked and arrested by the police, who with the aid of the church authorities, charged and convicted the man of the local equivalent of first degree murder.

There are actually two different techniques Orthodox priests are trained to use, both of which are equally safe. The infants usually enjoy the baptism. I remember being taken swimming when I was less than two years old, and enjoying it greatly.

These baptisms are immediately followed by Chrismation, also known as confirmation, and then follows the Divine Liturgy, at which the newly baptized and confirmed member of the Body of Christ will be mystically united with the Head of that Body, our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ, by partaking of His actual body and blood in the Eucharist. The Eastern Orthodox communicate infants the same as anyone else: a particle of the Precious Body of our Lord is placed in a spoon which contains the Precious Blood of our Lord, and the Blood of our Lord, during the final stages of the Consecration, well before the distribution to the clergy faithful is mixed with xenon, which is boiling hot water. By the time the laity are served, the temperature of the contents of the chalice is warm but not hot, and it will cool to room temperature by the end of the liturgy, when the celebrants perform the Ablutions, consuming any of the body and blood of our Lord that remains that has not been reserved in the Tabernacle for the communion of the sick at home, or for use in the Pre-sanctified Liturgy during Lent and Holy Week.

 

[The Liturgist]

In the first century, if immersion was not available then pouring water on the head three times and saying "In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" was used.

Indeed, affusion remains an emergency technique in the Eastern churches. I once read that it was the normal practice in the Serbian Orthodox Church but I find this claim doubtful.

 

[Ain't Zwinglian]

Indeed, affusion remains an emergency technique in the Eastern churches. I once read that it was the normal practice in the Serbian Orthodox Church but I find this claim doubtful.

My own personal belief is no mode is any more pleasing God than another. But they are more pleasing to some people.

But what really irks me is 99.44% credobaptists ministers insist on immersion baptism.

They bind the consciences of the people of God to something that He has left free, they offend Christian liberty and divide the body of Christ. They convert a gospel ordinance into a new legalism.

 

[concretecamper]

Withholding the Sacrament of Baptism from infants is not only a novel idea, it goes against Scripture and Church Tradition.

 

[Valletta]

Withholding the Sacrament of Baptism from infants is not only a novel idea, it goes against Scripture and Church Tradition.

Yes, Jesus wants the children to come to Him.

 

[bbbbbbb]

In the first century, if immersion was not available then pouring water on the head three times and saying "In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" was used.

We really don't have any information about the church in the first century apart from the New Testament. We do have later writings by various people who claimed a linkage to first-century Christians, but many of these writings were rejected, such as the (in)famous Gospel of Thomas.

Concerning pouring of water for baptism, I see the point. As a matter of necessity it will suffice, but the normative means seems to have been immersion.

 

[Valletta]

We really don't have any information about the church in the first century apart from the New Testament. We do have later writings by various people who claimed a linkage to first-century Christians, but many of these writings were rejected, such as the (in)famous Gospel of Thomas.

Concerning pouring of water for baptism, I see the point. As a matter of necessity it will suffice, but the normative means seems to have been immersion.

The Didache provides information about the Church in the first century, indeed immersion is the norm but pouring water on the head three times was used when immersion was not available.

 

[Ain't Zwinglian]

The Didache provides information about the Church in the first century, indeed immersion is the norm but pouring water on the head three times was used when immersion was not available.

The Didache is extra biblical material and should not be used to interpret Scripture. We use other extra biblical material to test whether or not the Didache is providing accurate statements. The test is relatively simple. Do an internet search. Search for Baptism+early church+list. When selecting listing, do a command F for Find. Search for the term "immerse" then "wash."

We find the early church fathers were NOT interested in the mode of baptism. They overwhelming use the word "wash" to describe what baptism does.

The Didache is basically a document about mode. The church fathers record information about what baptism does.

 

[prodromos]

The test is relatively simple. Do an internet search

Ugh! Only a fraction of the works of Church Fathers have been translated into English, and not much of that is available online.

 

[Ain't Zwinglian]

Ugh! Only a fraction of the works of Church Fathers have been translated into English, and not much of that is available online.

Yes. So much debate over a minute amount of data. And the Christian or the historian do to make judgment calls about the practice of baptism in the early. Credos tend of emphasize the Didache with it's usage of the immerse, paedos emphasis the commentary of the church fathers of the word "wash" for "washing away of sins."

And the debate continues.

 

[bbbbbbb]

The Didache is extra biblical material and should not be used to interpret Scripture. We use other extra biblical material to test whether or not the Didache is providing accurate statements. The test is relatively simple. Do an internet search. Search for Baptism+early church+list. When selecting listing, do a command F for Find. Search for the term "immerse" then "wash."

We find the early church fathers were NOT interested in the mode of baptism. They overwhelming use the word "wash" to describe what baptism does.

The Didache is basically a document about mode. The church fathers record information about what baptism does.

Yes, I agree. The focus really was on the significance of baptism, not the mode. I still stand with you concerning "wash".

 

[Major1]

No its not. You need to reread my post because my thesis is nothing like what you described.

You greatly hurt my feelings by accusing me of “making up a story.”



I never said that nor would I. Nothing in my post declared the moral code of the Torah to be inapplicable. I am profoundly annoyed that you did not bother to read my post and are accusing me of horrible anomialism based on an argument I did not make and would not make.



Indeed, it typologically represents the Only Begotten Son and Incarnate Word of God, our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ.



Again, that is completely untrue. Since you didn’t read my argument, I will spell it out one more time, and failing that, perhaps @prodromos or @Ain't Zwinglian might be able to explain it.

The statement in Deuteronomy refers to the five books of the Pentateuch, or Torah. It is a self-referential statement that applies specifically to those five books. It exists so that the oldest, most sacred, and important part od the Old Testament, which represents the basis for all human morality, and also contains the only story of creation in any religion which is not contrary to science, the miraculous Genesis Chapter 1, and it also contains the first prophecies of our Savior, God the Son, and the first evidence of the Holy Spirit, and it contains the first prophecy of the eucharist, and it contains a vital moral and social code including the Noachide Laws, the Decalogue, and a moral code that prohibits homosexuality, incest and inappropriate behavior with animals, which the liberal mainline churches want to pretend doesn’t exist.

It is partially because of attempts to limit the applicability of the Torah, or gloss over the ban on homosexuality because our society has forgotten that homosexuality is a perversion, a dangerous paraphilia linked with child abuse, and ignores the fact that it is comorbid with a number of serious mental and physical illnesses, including HIV, and also is the primary risk factor for the deadly Monkey Pox pandemic sweeping the globe, that this verse exists. It also exists because of attempts to expand the Torah, for example, the Samaritan Torah’s obvious interpolation of a convenient eleventh commandment ordering worship at their holiest site, Mount Gerizim. This was clearly not part of the original, but was added by the Northern Kingdom after it broke away from Judah and Benjamin in the South.

Now that we have established the defensive purpose the verse in question is meant for, that is, to discourage modification of the Torah, we need to establish what it is not meant for:

1. Everyone agrees the Pentateuch, the five books of the Torah, comprise the oldest part of the Old Testament.
2. If the verse in Deuteronomy means what you suggest it means, then no other scripture could have been written. Indeed, the Samaritans interpret it the way you do, and as a result their canonical scripture consists only of the five books of the Torah. They have their own version of Joshua, but it is not regarded as sacred scripture but rather as a historical narrative.
3. Because other scripture has been written and recognized as canonical, and indeed, in Christianity we added an entire New Testament, whose structure in many respects resembles the Old (the Gospels being like the Torah, Acts being like the Historical Books, the Epistles like the Prophets, and Revelation being an Apocalypse, like Daniel, with which it shares common thematic elements), the verse in the Torah does not mean what you think it means.
4. Therefore, just as the Torah was not violating by adding additional books to the Old Testament, or adding the New Testament, the Torah is not violated by advocating for the baptism of infants; on the contrary, since the Torah specifies that infants be circumcised on the Eighth Day, and since Jesus Christ rose from the dead on the Eighth Day, the Torah combined with the Resurrection and Great Commission at the end of Matthew, and our Lord commanding His Apostles in Mark to “Suffer the little ones to come to me,” provides a compelling scriptural argument for the Baptism of Infants.

That was my argument. Whether you agree or not, nothing in that argument, which I have reduced to a simple four part statement, constitutes a deprecation of the importance of the Torah, a denial of its moral authority, an endorsement of sodomy, murder or other crimes prohibited in the Torah and elsewhere in the Bible, a denial that the Torah is the word of God, or a “made-up story,” a term I felt particularly hurt by, as stated previously.

Forgive me for the agitated tone of this message, but I feel like you either didn’t read my earlier post, or didn’t care what I had to say. I have paid close attention to all of your posts and I beg your forgiveness if I have catastrophically failed in my analysis of any of your replies.

In post #142 YOU said which is what I responded to.............

"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.

My advise is that you be more careful as to what you SAY then you will not feel bad when anyone points out what YOU DID SAY!

You SAID that the law of the 1st reading is not applicable to ALL SCRIPTURE.

Is 2 Timothy 2:16 true or false?
"All Scripture is inspired by God and beneficial for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness; "

Is Deuteronomy included in ALL Scripture???????

That is what I SAID and responded to.

How that effects you is your problem my friend and it has nothing to do with me..