Poll: Modes of Baptism

[Neto]

I would note that arguments from symbolism don’t really hold a lot of water with me, so to speak. If we just stick to the text. The NT doesn’t really speak to mode at all.

I agree that the "mechanics" of it is not in focus. I think that Westerners tend to think in terms of formulas, and are distracted from the spiritual meanings behind the things we are told to do. (On the other hand, shamanism is also super focused on exact repetition of prescribed ceremonial acts.)

I think that all of these "modes" of baptism supply a unique spiritual meaning, and so I do not think that one method is prescribed or intended to be indicated in Scripture. (I translated "batidzo" as "wash" in Banawa. A literal rendering of "to immerse" as a transitive verb would mean "to kill by drowning". "To make wet" is an option, but I chose to go with the underlying spiritual meaning as closely as possible. And this choice passed all of the translation consultants who served in that capacity for our translated Scripture. There were at least 5 different consultants who helped me. on different NT books. I don't know if the word 'baptize' occurs in all of them, however. The easiest way would of course is to just wimp out like the translators for all of the languages I can read in - just twist the Greek word around until it SOUNDS like a word in the target language, then attempt to accurately teach the people what it means.)

EDIT: I admit that some of my "aversion" to specifying immersion is the role the choice for only that method in the MB beginnings drove a deep wedge between them and all of the other Plautdietsch Mennonite people. And it was 100 years before they would accept a Believer's baptism by any other mode. That is an over-emphasis on 'mechanics', and I think it was a very unfortunate "hill to die on".

[gcdonner]

I would note that arguments from symbolism don’t really hold a lot of water with me, so to speak. If we just stick to the text. The NT doesn’t really speak to mode at all.

I agree that the "mechanics" of it is not in focus. I think that Westerners tend to think in terms of formulas, and are distracted from the spiritual meanings behind the things we are told to do. (On the other hand, shamanism is also super focused on exact repetition of prescribed ceremonial acts.)

I think that all of these "modes" of baptism supply a unique spiritual meaning, and so I do not think that one method is prescribed or intended to be indicated in Scripture. (I translated "batidzo" as "wash" in Banawa. A literal rendering of "to immerse" as a transitive verb would mean "to kill by drowning". "To make wet" is an option, but I chose to go with the underlying spiritual meaning as closely as possible. And this choice passed all of the translation consultants who served in that capacity for our translated Scripture. There were at least 5 different consultants who helped me. on different NT books. I don't know if the word 'baptize' occurs in all of them, however. The easiest way would of course is to just wimp out like the translators for all of the languages I can read in - just twist the Greek word around until it SOUNDS like a word in the target language, then attempt to accurately teach the people what it means.)

EDIT: I admit that some of my "aversion" to specifying immersion is the role the choice for only that method in the MB beginnings drove a deep wedge between them and all of the other Plautdietsch Mennonite people. And it was 100 years before they would accept a Believer's baptism by any other mode. That is an over-emphasis on 'mechanics', and I think it was a very unfortunate "hill to die on".

Romans 6 supports your averted meaning (highlighted above). Immersion is "death".

[Neto]

I would note that arguments from symbolism don’t really hold a lot of water with me, so to speak. If we just stick to the text. The NT doesn’t really speak to mode at all.

I agree that the "mechanics" of it is not in focus. I think that Westerners tend to think in terms of formulas, and are distracted from the spiritual meanings behind the things we are told to do. (On the other hand, shamanism is also super focused on exact repetition of prescribed ceremonial acts.)

I think that all of these "modes" of baptism supply a unique spiritual meaning, and so I do not think that one method is prescribed or intended to be indicated in Scripture. (I translated "batidzo" as "wash" in Banawa. A literal rendering of "to immerse" as a transitive verb would mean "to kill by drowning". "To make wet" is an option, but I chose to go with the underlying spiritual meaning as closely as possible. And this choice passed all of the translation consultants who served in that capacity for our translated Scripture. There were at least 5 different consultants who helped me. on different NT books. I don't know if the word 'baptize' occurs in all of them, however. The easiest way would of course is to just wimp out like the translators for all of the languages I can read in - just twist the Greek word around until it SOUNDS like a word in the target language, then attempt to accurately teach the people what it means.)

EDIT: I admit that some of my "aversion" to specifying immersion is the role the choice for only that method in the MB beginnings drove a deep wedge between them and all of the other Plautdietsch Mennonite people. And it was 100 years before they would accept a Believer's baptism by any other mode. That is an over-emphasis on 'mechanics', and I think it was a very unfortunate "hill to die on".

Romans 6 supports your averted meaning (highlighted above). Immersion is "death".

I have already said that 'immersion' as a mechanical process is symbolically 'death, burial, and resurrection', but it does not mean death in the literal (physical) sense, an dI do not think that it means only death in the figurative sense, either. What I can recall of what you've said in the past goes along the lines of identification with the Jewish purification rites, which I also will not contest.

Linguistic factors must also be considered. The Banawa use very little figurative language. I only know of one symbolic usage - calling a person who steals a 'sawa'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tayra Everything else is understood in only the literal sense. The only place in Scripture where I used a similar type of symbolism was where Jesus called Herod a 'fox', and I added an explanation of the figurative connection. (They also do not have foxes there - I was forced to use a transliteration of the Portuguese name. In that case, because it is a single instance, it was permissible under the rules of Bible translation to insert an explanation. But that cannot be done in all occurrences of all forms of the word 'baptize'.)
There are other implications with such a translation approach that are too difficult to fully explain in a setting like this.

[Sudsy]

I would note that arguments from symbolism don’t really hold a lot of water with me, so to speak. If we just stick to the text. The NT doesn’t really speak to mode at all.

Do you believe water baptism is essential for salvation regardless of mode ?

If no, then how do you understand these texts - Acts 2:38 says “for the remission of sins” and Acts 22:16 says “wash your sins away” (Acts 2:38; 22:16).

If mode is not important then what about the reason for baptism as it appears to say in these texts ?

No, I believe salvation comes from accepting the gospel and believing in Jesus and then seeking to follow him.

Seekers who want to follow him will pursue being baptised tho.

I asked this because you have some relationship with Oneness Pentecostals and support them in some of their practises and they use these verse to say that salvation requires being immersed and this immersion remits or washes away our sins. Sometimes referred to as baptismal regeneration.

I think those who believe in baptismal regeneration are the Roman Catholics, Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy, Mormons, United Pentecostals, Lutherans, Anglican, and most Churches of Christ. I may have missed some but to my understanding these believe water baptism is necessary for salvation.

No comment on these texts in Acts above ? Perhaps others have comments on them ?

[MaxPC]

I think it might be helpful to look back at the opening post from time to time, to refresh our collective memory as to what the topic is really about. As I understand both the thread title, and the first post, this is about MODES of baptism, not about the TIMING of baptism. So really, the subject of infant baptism does not apply to this particular discussion.

(As I understand, some infant baptizers DO use different modes, so if the discussion involves comparing these different modes of infant baptism, fine by me, but Ask the thread starter. It is not that there cannot be discussions of infant baptism here - there have been many - but it is not the subject of this discussion, and these "bunny trails" inflate the discussion, and it can be hard to follow the intended topic. I'm also not a moderator or Admin here, so no one is obligated to listen to anything I say. It's only a friendly request from a fellow member.)

Indeed and agreed. Amen.

[gcdonner]

I agree that the "mechanics" of it is not in focus. I think that Westerners tend to think in terms of formulas, and are distracted from the spiritual meanings behind the things we are told to do. (On the other hand, shamanism is also super focused on exact repetition of prescribed ceremonial acts.)

I think that all of these "modes" of baptism supply a unique spiritual meaning, and so I do not think that one method is prescribed or intended to be indicated in Scripture. (I translated "batidzo" as "wash" in Banawa. A literal rendering of "to immerse" as a transitive verb would mean "to kill by drowning". "To make wet" is an option, but I chose to go with the underlying spiritual meaning as closely as possible. And this choice passed all of the translation consultants who served in that capacity for our translated Scripture. There were at least 5 different consultants who helped me. on different NT books. I don't know if the word 'baptize' occurs in all of them, however. The easiest way would of course is to just wimp out like the translators for all of the languages I can read in - just twist the Greek word around until it SOUNDS like a word in the target language, then attempt to accurately teach the people what it means.)

EDIT: I admit that some of my "aversion" to specifying immersion is the role the choice for only that method in the MB beginnings drove a deep wedge between them and all of the other Plautdietsch Mennonite people. And it was 100 years before they would accept a Believer's baptism by any other mode. That is an over-emphasis on 'mechanics', and I think it was a very unfortunate "hill to die on".

Romans 6 supports your averted meaning (highlighted above). Immersion is "death".

I have already said that 'immersion' as a mechanical process is symbolically 'death, burial, and resurrection', but it does not mean death in the literal (physical) sense, an dI do not think that it means only death in the figurative sense, either. What I can recall of what you've said in the past goes along the lines of identification with the Jewish purification rites, which I also will not contest.

Linguistic factors must also be considered. The Banawa use very little figurative language. I only know of one symbolic usage - calling a person who steals a 'sawa'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tayra Everything else is understood in only the literal sense. The only place in Scripture where I used a similar type of symbolism was where Jesus called Herod a 'fox', and I added an explanation of the figurative connection. (They also do not have foxes there - I was forced to use a transliteration of the Portuguese name. In that case, because it is a single instance, it was permissible under the rules of Bible translation to insert an explanation. But that cannot be done in all occurrences of all forms of the word 'baptize'.)
There are other implications with such a translation approach that are too difficult to fully explain in a setting like this.

Isn't your job as a translator to give the "true sense"? Implying anything other than immersion is not the true sense of the word. Conveying traditions only is not helpful when translating.

[Neto]

Romans 6 supports your averted meaning (highlighted above). Immersion is "death".

I have already said that 'immersion' as a mechanical process is symbolically 'death, burial, and resurrection', but it does not mean death in the literal (physical) sense, an dI do not think that it means only death in the figurative sense, either. What I can recall of what you've said in the past goes along the lines of identification with the Jewish purification rites, which I also will not contest.

Linguistic factors must also be considered. The Banawa use very little figurative language. I only know of one symbolic usage - calling a person who steals a 'sawa'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tayra Everything else is understood in only the literal sense. The only place in Scripture where I used a similar type of symbolism was where Jesus called Herod a 'fox', and I added an explanation of the figurative connection. (They also do not have foxes there - I was forced to use a transliteration of the Portuguese name. In that case, because it is a single instance, it was permissible under the rules of Bible translation to insert an explanation. But that cannot be done in all occurrences of all forms of the word 'baptize'.)
There are other implications with such a translation approach that are too difficult to fully explain in a setting like this.

Isn't your job as a translator to give the "true sense"? Implying anything other than immersion is not the true sense of the word. Conveying traditions only is not helpful when translating.

The etymological meaning is not always the "true sense". Also, which is the true sense, the literal translation or the meaning? We may well not agree on this point, but I believe that the applied meaning is more important than the mechanical meaning.

But another important factor in Bible translation for a pre-literate society is that they do not yet have the tools to do in-depth study. (I am not suggesting that they were not "smart enough" - their knowledge of their 'world' far exceeded anything one might encounter in any book.) No other books existed at all in that language, except for the few we were able to transcribe (from their own stories) and print, and the Scripture. It is a matter of meeting them where they are, then realizing that the Scripture version we are producing needs to be more like a children's Bible. They had no written language style. Everything was oral. Even in English, oral presentation style is not like written style. In writing you can utilize much more complex grammatical structures, because the reader can re-read a paragraph or a section to get the meaning. Those written styles will eventually develop, but they were not yet there for us to use. There will come a time when a new translation will be needed, when they will be able to do the work themselves. That era is perhaps beginning, but it will still take some time to come to full bloom.

[I have mentioned some of this here before, but the Banawa were, around just 25 years before we arrived there, an isolated nomadic jungle tribe, with absolutely no contact at all with the outside world (not even with "back-water Brazilians" of mixed heritage). They had some limited contact previous to that, in the years of the rubber boom, but not for somewhere around at least 20 years, and never with any kind of "advanced society" where there were provisions for formal education. Some young men, who were toddlers or not yet born when we arrived there, have been out to an indigenous Bible school, so there IS a beginning, something to continue building on.]

[gcdonner]

I have already said that 'immersion' as a mechanical process is symbolically 'death, burial, and resurrection', but it does not mean death in the literal (physical) sense, an dI do not think that it means only death in the figurative sense, either. What I can recall of what you've said in the past goes along the lines of identification with the Jewish purification rites, which I also will not contest.

Linguistic factors must also be considered. The Banawa use very little figurative language. I only know of one symbolic usage - calling a person who steals a 'sawa'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tayra Everything else is understood in only the literal sense. The only place in Scripture where I used a similar type of symbolism was where Jesus called Herod a 'fox', and I added an explanation of the figurative connection. (They also do not have foxes there - I was forced to use a transliteration of the Portuguese name. In that case, because it is a single instance, it was permissible under the rules of Bible translation to insert an explanation. But that cannot be done in all occurrences of all forms of the word 'baptize'.)
There are other implications with such a translation approach that are too difficult to fully explain in a setting like this.

Isn't your job as a translator to give the "true sense"? Implying anything other than immersion is not the true sense of the word. Conveying traditions only is not helpful when translating.

The etymological meaning is not always the "true sense". Also, which is the true sense, the literal translation or the meaning? We may well not agree on this point, but I believe that the applied meaning is more important than the mechanical meaning.

But another important factor in Bible translation for a pre-literate society is that they do not yet have the tools to do in-depth study. (I am not suggesting that they were not "smart enough" - their knowledge of their 'world' far exceeded anything one might encounter in any book.) No other books existed at all in that language, except for the few we were able to transcribe (from their own stories) and print, and the Scripture. It is a matter of meeting them where they are, then realizing that the Scripture version we are producing needs to be more like a children's Bible. They had no written language style. Everything was oral. Even in English, oral presentation style is not like written style. In writing you can utilize much more complex grammatical structures, because the reader can re-read a paragraph or a section to get the meaning. Those written styles will eventually develop, but they were not yet there for us to use. There will come a time when a new translation will be needed, when they will be able to do the work themselves. That era is perhaps beginning, but it will still take some time to come to full bloom.

[I have mentioned some of this here before, but the Banawa were, around just 25 years before we arrived there, an isolated nomadic jungle tribe, with absolutely no contact at all with the outside world (not even with "back-water Brazilians" of mixed heritage). They had some limited contact previous to that, in the years of the rubber boom, but not for somewhere around at least 20 years, and never with any kind of "advanced society" where there were provisions for formal education. Some young men, who were toddlers or not yet born when we arrived there, have been out to an indigenous Bible school, so there IS a beginning, something to continue building on.]

All this is fine and good, but it tacitly does not apply to language translation to English in the 1400+ years. English was a known quantity and the translators of 1611 of the KJV, knew the difference between pour, sprinkle and submerge, since they would have been dealing with 3 different words in the Greek. There was also the pattern already set down by YHWH in dealing the the OC people, ie, the Jews. Your illustration strains at a knat to swallow an elephant me thinks.

[Neto]

Isn't your job as a translator to give the "true sense"? Implying anything other than immersion is not the true sense of the word. Conveying traditions only is not helpful when translating.

The etymological meaning is not always the "true sense". Also, which is the true sense, the literal translation or the meaning? We may well not agree on this point, but I believe that the applied meaning is more important than the mechanical meaning.

But another important factor in Bible translation for a pre-literate society is that they do not yet have the tools to do in-depth study. (I am not suggesting that they were not "smart enough" - their knowledge of their 'world' far exceeded anything one might encounter in any book.) No other books existed at all in that language, except for the few we were able to transcribe (from their own stories) and print, and the Scripture. It is a matter of meeting them where they are, then realizing that the Scripture version we are producing needs to be more like a children's Bible. They had no written language style. Everything was oral. Even in English, oral presentation style is not like written style. In writing you can utilize much more complex grammatical structures, because the reader can re-read a paragraph or a section to get the meaning. Those written styles will eventually develop, but they were not yet there for us to use. There will come a time when a new translation will be needed, when they will be able to do the work themselves. That era is perhaps beginning, but it will still take some time to come to full bloom.

[I have mentioned some of this here before, but the Banawa were, around just 25 years before we arrived there, an isolated nomadic jungle tribe, with absolutely no contact at all with the outside world (not even with "back-water Brazilians" of mixed heritage). They had some limited contact previous to that, in the years of the rubber boom, but not for somewhere around at least 20 years, and never with any kind of "advanced society" where there were provisions for formal education. Some young men, who were toddlers or not yet born when we arrived there, have been out to an indigenous Bible school, so there IS a beginning, something to continue building on.]

All this is fine and good, but it tacitly does not apply to language translation to English in the 1400+ years. English was a known quantity and the translators of 1611 of the KJV, knew the difference between pour, sprinkle and submerge, since they would have been dealing with 3 different words in the Greek. There was also the pattern already set down by YHWH in dealing the the OC people, ie, the Jews. Your illustration strains at a knat to swallow an elephant me thinks.

If I wrote previous comments in such a way that it can be inferred that I was speaking about major languages like English, then I apologize for allowing that false impression, although I do think that we can all benefit from a reminder to step away from interpretations that focus on the mechanics of Christian observances and doctrines, and focus more acutely on the "whys", and seek to understand what God is accomplishing through these things - the spiritual side.

I don't really understand what you are referring to as "my illustration". If you mean my reference to the Banawa, then that's all I was ever talking about. It is my point of reference for all of my thinking regarding Bible translation. I learned a great deal them, to look past the mechanics of how we observe Christian "ordinances" and attempt to internalize the spiritual meaning, to see it from God's point of view - what He wants to do in our lives as we obey His commands. (I say "look past" because I am not saying that the formulaic or ritualistic practices are bad in themselves, or should be abandoned, but to go deeper.)

[Josh]

Translating baptise as “be drowned” would seem to be a very strange translation indeed