International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Banid — Bear, the (Arcturus)
Banid
Banid - ba'-nid (1 Esdras 8:36): In the Revised Version (British and American) BANIAS, which see.
Banishment
Banishment - ban'-ish-ment.
See PUNISHMENTS.
Bank
Bank - bank:
(1) (saphah, "lip," "edge"): "By the bank of the Jordan" (2 Kings 2:13); "Upon the bank of the river were very many trees" (Ezekiel 47:7, 12).
(2) (gadhah, "cuttings"): Always of banks overflowed (Joshua 3:15; 4:18; Isaiah 8:7), as also
(3) (gidhyah, 1 Chronicles 12:15).
(4) (solelah, "mound," "rampart"): "Cast up a bank against the city" (2 Samuel 20:15, the English Revised Version "mount," the American Standard Revised Version "mound"; compare 2 Kings 19:32; Isaiah 37:33). "Banks of sweet herbs" (Song of Solomon 5:13); "the marginal rendering is the right one, `towers of perfumes,' i.e. plants with fragrant leaves and flowers trained on trellis-work" (Speaker's Commentary in the place cited.).
(5) ((charax, "a stake," "entrenchment"): "Thine enemies shall cast up a bank about thee" (Luke 19:43 the King James Version "trench"). It is probably a military term and stands for a "palisade" (so the Revised Version, margin), i.e. probably an embankment of stakes strengthened with branches and earth, with a ditch behind it, used by the besiegers as a protection against arrows or attacking parties (Latin vallum), such, no doubt, as was employed by Titus in the siege of Jerusalem, 70 AD (Josephus, BJ, V, vi, 2).
(6) BANK, BANKING (which see).
M. O. Evans
Bank; Banking
Bank; Banking - 1. Introductory: "Banking" in the full modern sense, of taking money on deposit and lending it out on interest, is of comparatively recent origin. A few "banks of deposit" were founded in Italy in the Middle Ages, but the earliest "banks of issue," of the modern sort, were those of Amsterdam (1609) and Hamburg (1619), beginning in the 17th century. The law of Moses forbade Israelites to charge each other interest (Exodus 22:25; Leviticus 25:35, 37; Deuteronomy 23:19), but let them lend on interest to Gentiles (Deuteronomy 23:20), though this law was often evaded or disregarded (Nehemiah 5:10, 12). Banks and banking, however, are found in operation in the Greek cities; "moneychangers ," sitting at their tables (trapezai) in the market place, both changed coins and took money on deposit, giving high interest; and banking of a sort, in its incipient stages, existed among the ancient Hebrews. But the Phoenicians are now thought to have been the inventors of the money-changing, money-lending system which is found in more or less modified and developed forms among ancient peoples and in full development and operation in the palmy days of the Roman Empire. In the Greek-Roman period, without doubt, bankers both received money on deposit, paying interest, and let it out at a higher rate, or employed it in trade, as the publicani at Rome did, in farming the revenues of a province (Plumptre).
2. Banking among the Ancient Hebrews: (1) The Hebrew money-changer, like his modern Syrian counterpart, the saraf (see PEFS , 1904, 49 ff, where the complexity of exchange in Palestine today is graphically described), changed the large coins current into those of smaller denominations, e.g. giving denarii for tetradrachms, or silver for gold, or copper for silver.
(2) But no mean part of his business was the exchanging of foreign money, and even the money of the country of a non-Phoenician standard, for shekels and half-shekels on this standard, the latter being accepted only in payment of the temple dues (see MONEY). The "money-changers" of Matthew 21:12, as the Greek signifies, were men who made small change. Such men may be seen in Jerusalem now with various coins pried in slender pillars on a table (compare epi trapezan, Luke 19:23), ready to be used in changing money for a premium into such forms, or denominations, as would be more current or more convenient for immediate use.
(3) "Usury" in English Versions of the Bible is simply Old English for what we today call "interest," i.e. the sum paid for the use of money, Latin usura; and "interest" should take the place of it in all passages in the Old Testament and New Testament, where it has such significance.
3. Banking in New Testament Times: The Greek word rendered (tokos), "usury" in the New Testament (see Luke 19:23 f) means literally, "what is born of money," "what money brings forth or produces." "Usury" has come to mean "exorbitant interest," but did not mean this at the time of the King James Version, 1611.
(1) In Christ's time, and immediately following, there was great need for money-changers and money-changing, especially on the part of foreign Jews whom custom forbade to put any but Jewish coins into the temple treasury (see Mark 12:41). It was mainly for the convenience of these Jews of the Dispersion, and because it was in order to a sacred use, that the people thought it proper to allow the money-changers to set up their tables in the outer court of the temple (see Matthew 21:12 ff).
(2) The language of Matthew 25:27, `Thou oughtest to have put my money to the bankers,' etc., would seem to indicate the recognition by Christ of the custom and propriety of lending out money on interest (compare Matthew 19:23). The "exchangers" here are "bankers" (compare Matthew 25:27). The Greek (trapezitai) is from a word for "bank" or "bench" (trapeza), i.e. the "table" or "counter" on which the money used to be received and paid out. These "bankers" were clearly of a higher class than the "small-change men" of Matthew 21:12, etc. (compare "changers of money," John 2:14, and "changers," John 2:15, English Versions). Christ upbraids the "slothful servant" because he had not given his pound to "the bank" (or "banker," epi trapezan, literally, "on a banker's table"), who, it is implied, would have kept it safe and paid interest for it (Luke 19:23 f). It is noteworthy that the "tenminae" of Luke 19:24 are those acquired by "the good servant" from the "one" which was first lent him. So these wealthier bankers even then in a way received money on deposit for investment and paid interest on it, after the fashion of the Greeks.
4. Interpretations, Figurative Uses, etc.: (1) In Christ's parable (Luke 19:23 ff) "the bank" (literally, "a bank," "table") is taken by some to mean "the synagogue," by others to mean "the church" (Lange, LJ, II, 1, 414); i.e. it is thought that Christ meant to teach that the organized body, "synagogue" or "church," might use the gifts or powers of an adherent or disciple, when he himself could not exercise them (compare DCG , article "Bank").
(2) Then some have thought that Christ was here pointing to prayer as a substitute for good works, when the disciple was unable to do such. Such views seem far-fetched and unnecessary (compare Bruce, Parabolic Teaching of Christ, 209 f).
(3) The "money-changers," then as now, had ever to be on guard against false money, which gives point to the oft-quoted extra-scriptural saying (agraphon) of Jesus to His disciples: "Be ye expert money-changers" (Greek ginesthai trapezitai dokimoi; see Origen, in Joam,XIX ), which was taken (Clem., Hom.,. III, 61) to mean, "Be skillful in distinguishing true doctrine from false" (HDB, 1-vol).
George B. Eager
Bannaia
Bannaia - ba-na'-ya.
See SABANNEUS.
Bannas
Bannas - ban'-as (Bannos; the King James Version, Banuas): A name occurring in the list of those who returned from the captivity with Zerubbabel (1 Esdras 5:26). Bannas and Sudias are represented by Hoodaviah in the lists of Ezra and Nehemiah.
Banneas
Banneas - ban-e'-as (Bannaias; the King James Version Baanias (1 Esdras 9:26) = Benaiah (Ezra 10:25)): Banneas put away his "strange wife."
Banner
Banner - ban'-er (ENSIGN, STANDARDS): The English word "banner" is from banderia, Low Latin, meaning a banner (compare bandum, Latin, which meant first a "band," an organized military troop, and then a "flag"). It has come to mean a flag, or standard, carried at the head of a military band or body, to indicate the line of march, or the rallying point, and it is now applied, in its more extended significance, to royal, national, or ecclesiastical "banners" also. We find it applied sometimes to a streamer on the end of a lance, such as is used by the Arab sheik today. "Banner" occurs in the following significant Old Testament passages: (1) in the singular, "Lift ye up a banner upon the high mountain" (Isaiah 13:2 the King James Version); "a banner to them that fear thee" (Psalms 60:4); and (2) in the plur., "In the name of our God we will set up our banner" (Psalms 20:5); "terrible as an army with banner" (Song of Solomon 6:4).
1. Military Ensigns among the Hebrews: The Hebrews, it would seem, like the Assyrians, the Egyptians, and other ancient nations, had military ensigns. As bearing upon this question, a very significant passage is that found in Numbers 2:2: "The children of Israel shall encamp every man by his own standard, with the ensigns of their fathers' houses." "Standard-bearer" in Isaiah 10:18 the King James Version, "They shall be as when a standard-bearer fainteth," is not a case in point, but is to be rendered as in the Revised Version, margin, "as when a si ck man pineth away."
In this noted passage a distinction seems intentionally made (another view is held by some) between "the ensigns of their fathers' houses" (literally, "signs"; compare Psalms 74:4, where the reference is thought by some today to be to the standards of Antiochus' army), and "the standards" of the four great divisions of the Hebrew tribes in the wilderness (compare the "banner" of Song of Solomon 2:4 and Song of Solomon 6:4, 10).
2. A Distinction with a Difference: The relation of these to the "standard" of Numbers 21:8 f (Hebrew nec, the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American) "standard") is by no means clear. The word nec, here translated "standard," seems to have meant at first a pole set up on an eminence as a signal for mustering troops (compare "mast" Isaiah 30:17 the English Revised Version, margin). But it occurs frequently in the prophets both in this literal and original sense, and in the figurative or derived sense of a rallying point for God's people (see Isaiah 5:26; 11:10; Jeremiah 4:21 and elsewhere). Here the rendering in English Versions of the Bible alternates between "ensign" and "banner" (see HDB , 1-vol, article "Banner").
George B. Eager
Bannus
Bannus - ban'-us (Bannous (1 Esdras 9:34) = Bani or Binnui (Ezra 10:29-30)): The sons of Bannus put away their "strange wives."
Banquet
Banquet - ban'-kwet.
1. The Ancient Hebrew Customs: (1) "Banquet" and "banqueting" in the King James Version always include and stand for wine-drinking, not simply "feast" or "feasting" in our sense. Thus (Song of Solomon 2:4), "He brought me to the banqueting-house" is literally, "the house of wine," and Esther 7:2 has in the Hebrew "a banquet of wine." In the New Testament we see a reflection of the same fact in 1 Peter 4:3 the King James Version, "We walked in .... excess of wine, banquetings" (Greek "drinkings"; the Revised Version (British and American) "carousings"). Compare Amos 6:7 the King James Version, "The banquet of them that stretched themselves," where the reference seems to be to reclining at wine-drinkings.
See MEALS.
The Hebrew of Job 1:4, "make a banquet," may refer to a social feast of a less objectionable sort (compare Job 41:6 the King James Version), though the Hebrew for "to drink" yayin "wine," was used as synonymous with "banquet."
See SYMPOSIUM .
Music, dancing and merriment usually attended all such festivities. Certainly the ancient Hebrews, like other peoples of the ancient East, were very fond of social feasting, and in Christ's day had acquired, from contact with Greeks and Romans, luxurious and bibulous habits, that often carried them to excess in their social feasts.
2. In Christ's Teaching and Practice: Among the Greeks the word for "feast" (doche) is from dechomai "to receive" (compare our English usage, "to receive" and "reception"). This word doche is used with poiein "to make," to signify "to make" or "give a feast." Compare Luke 5:29 where Levi "made a feast."
(1) In view of existing customs and abuses, Christ taught His followers when they gave a banquet to invite the poor, etc. (Luke 14:13), rather than, as the fashion of the day called for, to bid the rich and influential. Much in the New Testament that has to do with banquets and banquetings will be obscure to us of the West if we do not keep in mind the many marked differences of custom between the East and the West.
(2) "Banquets" were usually given in the house of the host to specially invited guests (Luke 14:15; John 2:2), but much more freedom was accorded to the uninvited than we of the West are accustomed to, as one finds to be true everywhere in the East today. The custom of reclining at meals (see MEALS; TRICLINIUM, etc.) was everywhere in vogue among the well-to-do in Christ's day, even in the case of the ordinary meals, the guest leaning upon the left arm and eating with the aid of the right (compare Matthew 26:20 m "reclining," and 1 Corinthians 11:20, "the Lord's supper").
(3) "Banquets" were considered normal parts of weddings as they are now throughout the East. Jesus and His disciples were bidden to one at Cana in Galilee, and accepted the invitation (John 2:2 ff), and wine-drinking was a part of the feast. The "banquet" Levi gave was in Christ's honor (Luke 5:29). There were numbers present and marked gradations in the places at table (Matthew 23:6; Mark 12:39; Luke 14:7; 20:46). Guests were invited in advance, and then, as time-pieces were scarce, specially notified when the feast was ready, which helps to explain Christ's words (Matthew 22:4), "All things are ready: come to the marriage" (compare Luke 14:17; Esther 5:8; 6:14).
(4) Matthew tells us (23:6) that the Pharisees "love the chief place ("uppermost rooms" the King James Version) at feasts."
In Matthew 22:3-4 "made a marriage feast," is rendered by some simply "a feast," because Greek gamos, "marriage," was used by Septuagint to translate the Hebrew for feast" in Esther 1:5. But, as this is the only known example of such a use compare gamos, it is better to take it here in the literal sense of "marriage feast," as would seem to be required by the words "for his son" (Messiah). The Greek is plural (gamous) to indicate the several parts or stages of the feast (Button, 23; compare English "nuptials").
The "ruler of the feast" (architriklinos, John 2:8-9), was usually one of the guests, and his business was to see that wine was provided, superintend the drinking, etc. (compare Luke 22:27).
3. A Distinction Giving Rise to a Question: (1) In Matthew 22:4, "I have made ready my dinner," "dinner" in Greek is ariston (compare Luke 11:38). "Supper" (Greek deipnon) is found in Matthew 23:6 and often in the New Testament. Both words are found in Luke 14:12. The question arises, What was the distinction? Thus much may be said in answer: The ariston (English Versions "dinner") was a meal usually taken about the middle of the forenoon, with variations of earlier or later; the deipnon (English Versions "supper"), the one taken at the close of the day, often after dark. In Ant, V, iv, 2 Josephus supposes Eglon's guards (Judges 3:24) were negligent about noon, "both because of the heat and because their attention was turned to dinner" (ariston). So the "dinner" (ariston) was sometimes as late as noon. Yet Jn (Judges 21:12, 15) shows, on the other hand, that the ariston was on some occasions taken shortly after dawn.
(2) Another question raised is this, Were the ancient Jews accustomed to have two or three meals a day? Vambery, quoted by Morison, gives a saying of the Turks that is in point: "There are only two meals a day, the smaller at 10 or 11 o'clock in the morning, the second and larger after sunset." There seems no evidence to sustain the view, maintained by Grimm and entertained by others, that the Jews of Christ's day were accustomed to take a separate and slight meal on rising, as the later Greeks and some of the later Romans did. There is certainly no clear evidence that the Jews of that day had more than two meals a day (see DB , article "Meals").
(3) The marriage feast of Matthew 22:3 f was an ariston, somewhat like an English "wedding-breakfast"; but that in Luke 14:16 f was a deipnon, which was as usual delayed till after dark (Luke 14:17). Perhaps the ariston in this case was preliminary, while the marriage with its accompanying deipnon was after dark; such things are not unheard of today (compare Matthew 26:20 and 1 Corinthians 11:20, "the Lord's deipnon").
George B. Eager
Banuas
Banuas - ban'-u-as (1 Esdras 5:26): A misprint for BANNAS (Revised Version), which see.
Baptism (Lutheran Doctrine)
Baptism (Lutheran Doctrine) - I. THE TERM
1. The Derivation
2. The Meaning
3. The Application
4. Equivalent Terms
II. THE ORDINANCE
1. The Teaching of Scripture
(1) An Authoritative Command
(2) A Clear Declaration of the Object in View
(3) A Definite Promise
(4) A Plain Indication of the Scope
(5) A Prescribed Formula for Administering the Ordinance
2. The Biblical History of the Ordinance
3. Types of Baptism
III. DIFFICULTIES
1. Are Matthew 28:18-20 and Mark 16:15, 16 Genuine?
2. Was the Trinitarian Formula Used in New Testament Times?
3. Was Christian Baptism Really a New Ordinance?
4. Should Infants Be Baptized?
5. Why Did Paul not Baptize?
6. What Is the Baptism for the Dead?
I. The Term. 1. The Derivation: The word "baptism" is the Anglicized form of the Greek baptisma, or baptismos. These Greek words are verbal nouns derived from baptizo, which, again, is the intensive form of the verb bapto. "Baptismos denotes the action of baptizein (the baptizing), baptisma the result of the action (the baptism)" (Cremer). This distinction differs from, but is not necessarily contrary to, that of Plummer, who infers from Mark 7:4 and Hebrews 9:10 that baptismos usually means lustrations or ceremonial washings, and from Romans 6:4; Ephesians 4:1 Pet 3:21 that baptisma denotes baptism proper (Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible (five volumes)).
2. The Meaning: The Greek words from which our English "baptism" has been formed are used by Greek writers, in classical antiquity, in the Septuagint and in the New Testament, with a great latitude of meaning. It is not possible to exhaust their meaning by any single English term. The action which the Greek words express may be performed by plunging, drenching, staining, dipping, sprinkling. The nouns baptisma and baptismos do not occur in the Septuagint; the verb baptizo occurs only in four places, and in two of them in a figurative sense (2 Kings 5:14; Judith 12:7; Isaiah 21:4; Ecclesiasticus @@Isaiah 31:1-9 (34):25). Wherever these words occur in the New Testament, the context or, in the case of quotations, a comparison with the Old Testament will in many instances suggest which of the various renderings noted above should be adopted (compare Mark 7:4; Hebrews 9:10 with Numbers 19:18-19; 8:7; Exodus 24:4-6; Acts 2:16-17, 41 with Joel 2:28). But there are passages in which the particular form of the act of baptizing remains in doubt. "The assertion that the command to baptize is a command to immerse is utterly unauthorized" (Hodge).
3. The Application: In the majority of Biblical instances the verbs and nouns denoting baptism are used in a lit sense, and signify the application of water to an object or a person for a certain purpose. The ceremonial washings of the Jews, the baptism of proselytes to the Jewish faith, common in the days of Christ, the baptism of John and of the disciples of Christ prior to the Day of Pentecost, and the Christian sacrament of baptism, are literal baptisms (baptismus fluminis, "baptism of the river," i.e. water). But Scripture speaks also of figurative baptisms, without water (Matthew 20:22; Mark 10:38; Luke 12:50 = the sufferings which overwhelmed Christ and His followers, especially the martyrs--baptismus sanguinis, "baptism of blood"; Matthew 3:11; Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16; Acts 1:5; 11:16 = the outpouring of the miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost, which was a characteristic phenomenon of primitive Christianity--baptismus flaminis, "baptism of wind, breeze," i.e. "spirit"). Some even take Matthew 21:25; Mark 11:30; Acts 18:25; 1 Corinthians 10:2 in a synecdochical sense, for doctrine of faith, baptism being a prominent feature of that doctrine (baptismus luminis, "baptism of light").
4. Equivalent Terms: Scripture occasionally alludes to Christian baptism without employing the regular term. Thus in Titus 3:5, and Ephesians 5:26 we have the term loutron, "washing," instead lent terms of baptisma. From this term the Latin church derived its lavacrum (English "layer") as a designation of baptism. In Hebrews 10:22 we have the verbs rhantizo and louo, "sprinkle" and "wash"; in Ephesians 5:26 the verb katharizo, "cleanse"; in 1 Corinthians 6:11 the verb apolouo, "wash" are evidently synonyms of baptizo, and the act has been so denominated from its prime effect.
II. The Ordinance. 1. The Teaching of Scripture: Christian baptism, as now practiced, is a sacred ordinance of evangelical grace, solemnly appointed by the risen Christ, prior to His entering into the state of glory by His ascension, and designed to be a means, until His second coming, for admitting men to discipleship with Him. Matthew 28:18-20 and its parallel Mark 16:15-16 are the principal texts of Scripture on which the church in all ages has based every essential point of her teaching regarding this ordinance. The host of other baptismal texts of Scripture expand and illustrate the contents of these two texts. We have in these texts:
(1) An Authoritative Command
An authoritative (Matthew 28:19) command, issued in plain terms: "Make disciples .... baptizing." This command declares (a) speciem actus, i.e. it indicates with sufficient clearness, by the use of the term "baptize," the external element to be employed, namely, water, and the form of the action to be performed by means of water, namely, any dipping, or pouring, or sprinkling, since the word "baptize" signifies any of these modes. On the strength of this command Luther held: "Baptism is not simple water only, but it is the water comprehended in God's command"; and the Westminster Shorter Catechism (Ques. 94) calls baptism "a washing with water." Water is distinctly mentioned as the baptismal element in Acts 8:38; 10:47; Ephesians 5:26; Hebrews 10:22. "There is no mention of any other element" (Plummer). The phraseology of Ephesians 5:26, "the washing of water with the word," shows that not the external element alone, nor the physical action of applying the water, constitutes baptism; but "the word" must be added to the element and the action, in order that there may be a baptism. (Detrahe verbum, et quid est aqua nisi aqua? Accedit verbum ad elementum, et fit sacramentum, "Remove the word and what is water but water? The word is added to the element and it becomes a sacrament" Augustine). "Without the Word of God the water is simple water, and no baptism" (Luther). The command prescribes (b) exercitium actus, i.e. it enjoins a continued exercise of this function of the messengers of Christ for all time.
(2) A Clear Declaration of the Object in View. The participle "baptizing" qualifies the imperative "make disciples," and expresses that, what the imperative states as the end, is to be attained by what the participle names as a means to that end. The participle "baptizing," again, is qualified by "teaching" (Matthew 28:20). The second participle is not connected by "and" with the first, hence, is subordinate to the first (Meyer). Discipleship is to be obtained by baptizing-teaching. There is no rigid law regarding the order and sequence of these actions laid down in these words; they merely state that Christ desires His disciples to be both baptized and fully informed as to His teaching.
(3) A Definite Promise: Salvation (Mark 16:16), i.e. complete and final deliverance from all evil, the securing of "the end of faith" (1 Peter 1:9). This is a comprehensive statement, as in 1 Peter 3:21, of the blessing of baptism. Scripture also states, in detail, particular baptismal blessings: (a) Regeneration, Titus 3:5; John 3:3, 5. Despite Calvin and others, the overwhelming consensus of interpreters still agrees with the ancient church and with Luther in explaining both these texts of baptism. (b) Remission of sins, or justification (Acts 2:38; 22:16; 1 Corinthians 6:11; Ephesians 5:26; Hebrews 10:22). This blessing, no doubt, is also intended in 1 Peter 3:21, where eperotema has been rendered "answer" by the King James Version while the Revised Version (British and American) renders "interrogation." The word denotes a legal claim, which a person has a right to set up (See Cremer under the word and Romans 8:1). (c) The establishment of a spiritual union with Christ, and a new relationship with God (Galatians 3:26-27; Romans 6:3-4; Colossians 2:12). In this connection the prepositions with which baptizein in the New Testament connects may be noted. Baptizein eis, "to baptize into," always denotes the relation into which the party baptized is placed. The only exception is Mark 1:9. Baptizein en, or baptizein epi, "to baptize in" (Acts 10:48; 2:38), denotes the basis on which the new relation into which the baptized enters, is made to rest (Cremer). (d) The sanctifying gifts of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:13; Titus 3:5). All these blessings Scripture declares to be effects of baptism (Wirkung der Taufe, Riehm, Handworterb.). "Baptism is called `washing of regeneration,' not merely because it symbolizes it, or pledges a man to it, but also, and chiefly, because it effects it" (Holtzmann, Huther, Pfleiderer, Weiss). "Regeneration, or being begotten of God, does not mean merely a new capacity for change in the direction of goodness, but an actual change. The legal washings were actual external purifications. Baptism is actual internal purification" (Plummer). To these modern authorities Luther can be added. He says: "Baptism worketh forgiveness of sin, delivers from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe, as the words and promises of God declare" (Smaller Catech.). In Titus 3:5 the King James Version the force of the preposition dia, "by," deserves to be noted: it declares baptism to be the regenerating, renewing, justifying, glorying medium to the heirs of eternal life. The baptismal promise is supported, not only in a general way, by the veracity and sincerity of the Speaker, who is the Divine Truth incarnate, but also in a special way, by the Author's appeal to His sovereign majesty (Matthew 28:18), and by the significant assurance of His personal ("I" = ego, is emphatic: Meyer) presence with the disciples in their afore-mentioned activity (Matthew 28:20; compare Mark 16:20).
(4) A Plain Indication of the Scope: "All nations," "the whole creation" (pase te ktisei to be understood as in Colossians 1:23 = "all men"). Baptism is of universal application; it is a cosmopolitan ordinance before which differences such as of nationality, race, age, sex, social or civil status, are leveled (compare Colossians 3:11 with 1 Corinthians 12:13). Accordingly, Christ orders baptism to be practiced "alway" (literally, "all days"), "even unto the end of the world," i.e. unto the consummation of the present age, until the Second Advent of the Lord. For, throughout this period Christ promises His cooperative presence with the efforts of His disciples to make disciples.
(5) A Prescribed Formula for Administering the Ordinance:
"Into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." The belief in the Trinity is fundamental to Christianity; accordingly, the sacred rite by which men are initiated into the Christian religion justly emphasizes this belief. The three Persons are mentioned as distinct from one another, but the baptismal command is issued upon their joint and coequal authority ("in the name," not "names"), thus indicating the Unity in Trinity. This ancient baptismal formula represents "the Father as the Originator, the Son as the Mediator, the Holy Ghost as the Realization, and the vital and vitalizing blessing of the promise and fulfillment," which is extended to men in this ordinance (Cremer).
2. The Biblical History of the Ordinance: After the Lord had entered into His glory, we find that in the era of the apostles and in the primitive Christian church baptism is the established and universally acknowledged rite by which persons are admitted to communion with the church (Acts 2:38, 41; 8:12 f,36,38; Acts 9:18; 10:47 f; Acts 16:15, 33; 18:8; 22:16; Romans 6:3; 1 Corinthians 12:13; Galatians 3:27). Even in cases where an outpouring of the special gifts of the Holy Spirit had already taken place, baptism is still administered (Acts 10:44 ff; Acts 11:15 f). "Thus, baptism occupied among the Gentile converts to Christianity, and later among all Christians, the same position as circumcision in the Old Covenant (Colossians 2:11 f; Galatians 5:2). It is, essentially, part of the foundation on which the unity of the Christian society rested from the beginning (Ephesians 4:5; 1 Corinthians 12:13; Galatians 3:27 f)" (Riehm, Handworterb.).
3. Types of Baptism: In 1 Corinthians 10:1, 2 the apostle states that the Israelites "were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea." Farrar attempts the following solution of this type: "The passing under the cloud (Exodus 14:19) and through the sea, constituting as it did their deliverance from bondage into freedom, their death to Egypt, and their birth to a new covenant, was a general type or dim shadow of Christian baptism (compare our collect, `figuring thereby Thy holy baptism'). But the typology is quite incidental; it is the moral lesson which is paramount. `Unto Moses'; rather, into. By this `baptism' they accepted Moses as their Heavensent guide and teacher" (Pulpit Comm.). In 1 Peter 3:21 the apostle calls baptism the antitupon of the Deluge. Delitzsch (on Hebrews 9:24) suggests that tupos and antitupon in Greek represent the original figure and a copy made therefrom, or a prophetic foretype and its later accomplishment. The point of comparison is the saving power of water in either instance. Water saved Noah and his family by floating the ark which sheltered them, and by removing from them the disobedient generation which had sorely tried their faith, as it had tried God's patience. In like manner the water of baptism bears up the ark of the Christian church and saves its believing members, by separating them from their filthy and doomed fellow-men.
III. Difficulties. 1. Are Matthew 28:18-20 and Mark 16:15-16 Genuine?:
Feine (PER3, XIX, 396 f) and Kattenbusch (Sch-Herz, I, 435 f) argue that the Trinitarian formula in Matthew 28:19 is spurious, and that the text in Mk belongs to a section which was added to this Gospel at a later time. The former claim had first been advanced by Conybeare, but later research by Riggenbach has established the genuineness of the Trinitarian formula in Mt. Feine still maintains his doubts, however, on subjective grounds. As to the concluding section in Mk (Matthew 16:9-20), Jerome is the first to call attention to its omission in most Greek manuscripts to which he had access. But Jerome himself acknowledged Mark 16:14 as genuine. Gregory of Nyssa reports that, while this section is missing in some manuscripts, in the more accurate ones many manuscripts contain it. No doctrinal scruple can arise on account of this section; for it contains nothing that is contrary to the doctrine of Scripture in other places on the same subject; and it has always been treated as genuine by the Christian church. The question is a purely historical one (see Bengel, Apparatus Criticus, 170 f).
2. Was the Trinitarian Formula Used in New Testament Times?:
No record of such use can be discovered in the Acts or the epistles of the apostles. The baptisms recorded in the New Testament after the Day of Pentecost are administered "in the name of Jesus Christ" (Acts 2:38), "into the name of the Lord Jesus" (Acts 8:16), "into Christ" (Romans 6:3; Galatians 3:27). This difficulty was considered by the Fathers; Ambrose says: Quod verbo tacitum fuerat, expressum est fide, "What had not been expressed in word, was expressed by faith." On close inspection the difficulty is found to rest on the assumption that the above are records of baptismal formulas used on those occasions. The fact is that these records contain no baptismal formula at all, but "merely state that such persons were baptized as acknowledged Jesus to be the Lord and the Christ" (Plummer). The same can be said of any person baptized in our day with the Trinitarian formula. That this formula was the established usage in the Christian church is proven by records of baptisms in Justin (Apol., I, 61) and Tertullian (Adv. Prax., XXVI).
3. Was Christian Baptism Really a New Ordinance?: Baptism was practiced among the Jews prior to the solemn inauguration of this ordinance by the risen Christ. The ceremonial washings of the Jews are classed with the transient forms of the Levitical worship (Hebrews 9:9-10), which had not been intended to endure except "until a time of reformation." They were removed when Christian baptism was erected into an abiding ordinance of the church of God (Colossians 2:11-13). It is erroneous to say that those ancient washings developed into Christian baptism. A shadow does not develop into a substance. Nor do we find the origin of Christian baptism in the baptism of proselytes, which seems to have been a Jewish church custom in the days of Christ. Though the rite of baptism was not unknown to the Jews, still the baptism of John startled them (John 1:25). Such passages as Isaiah 4:4 (Isaiah 1:16); Ezekiel 36:25; 37:23; Zechariah 13:1 had, no doubt, led them to expect a rite of purification in the days of the Messiah, which would supersede their Levitical purification. The delegation which they sent to John was to determine the Messianic character of John and his preaching and baptizing. Johannic baptism has been a fruitful theme of debate. The question does not affect the personal faith of any Christian at the present time; for there is no person living who has received Johannic baptism (Chemnitz). The entire subject and certain features of it, as the incident recorded Acts 19:1-7, will continue to be debated. It is best to fix in our minds a few essential facts, which will enable us to put the Scriptural estimate on the baptism of John. John had received a Divine commission to preach and baptize (Luke 3:2; John 1:33; Matthew 21:25). He baptized with water (John 3:23). His baptism was honored by a wonderful manifestation of the holy Trinity (Matthew 3:16-17), and by the Redeemer, in His capacity as the Representative of sinful mankind, the sin-bearing Lamb of God, accepting baptism at John's hand (Matthew 3:13 ff; John 1:29 ff). It was of the necessity of receiving John's baptism that Christ spoke to Nicodemus (John 3:3 ff). The Pharisees invited their eternal ruin by refusing John's baptism (Luke 7:30); for John's baptism was to shield them from the wrath to come (Matthew 3:7); it was for the remission of sin (Mark 1:4); it was a washing of regeneration (John 3:5). When Jesus began His public ministry, He took up the preaching and baptism of John, and His disciples practiced it with such success that John rejoiced (John 3:22, 25-36; John 4:1-2). All this evidence fairly compels the belief that there was no essential difference between the baptism of John and the baptism instituted by Christ; that what the risen Christ did in Matthew 28:18-20 was merely to elevate a rite that had previously been adopted by an order "from above" to a permanent institution of His church, and to proclaim its universal application. The contrast which John himself declares between his baptism and that of Christ is not a contrast between two baptisms with water. The baptism of Christ, which John foretells, is a baptism with the Holy Ghost and with fire, the Pentecostal baptism. But for the general purpose of begetting men unto a new life, sanctifying and saving them, the Spirit was also bestowed through John's baptism (John 3:5).
4. Should Infants Be Baptized?: The command in Matthew 28:19; Mark 16:16 is all-embracing; so is the statement concerning the necessity of baptism in John 3:5. After reading these statements, one feels inclined, not to ask, Should infants be baptized? but Why should they not be baptized? The onus probandi rests on those who reject infant baptism. The desire to have their infants baptized must have been manifested on the day when the first three thousand were baptized at Jerusalem, assuming that they were all adults. The old covenant had provided for their children; was the new to be inferior to the old in this respect? (See Plummer in Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible (five volumes).) The baptism of entire households is presumptive evidence that children and infants were baptized in apostolic times (Acts 16:15, 33; 18:8; 1 Corinthians 1:16). The arguments against infant baptism imply defective views on the subject of original sin and the efficacy of baptism. Infant faith--for, faith is as necessary to the infant as to the adult--may baffle our attempts at explanation and definition; but God who extends His promises also to children (Acts 2:39), who established His covenant even with beasts (Genesis 9:16-17); Christ who blessed also little children (Mark 10:13 ff), and spoke of them as believers (Matthew 18:6), certainly does not consider the regeneration of a child or infant a greater task than that of an adult (compare Matthew 18:3-4).
5. Why Did Paul not Baptize?: Paul did baptize Crispus, Gaius and Stephanas with his household. These baptisms he performed at Corinth alone; we have no record of his baptisms at other places. What Paul declares in 1 Corinthians 1:14-17 is, that by his baptizing he could not have become the cause of the divisions in the Corinthian congregation, because he had baptized only a few persons at Corinth, and, moreover, he had not baptized in his own name, hence had attached no one to his person. The statement, "Christ sent me not to baptize," is made after the Semitic idiom, and means: "not so much to baptize as to preach" (Farrar in Pulpit Commentary). If they are taken in any other sense, it is impossible to protect Paul against the charge that he did something that he was not authorized to do, when he baptized Crispus, etc.
6. What Is the Baptism for the Dead?: 1 Corinthians 15:29 is sometimes taken to mean that the early Christians practiced baptism by proxy. After they had been converted to Christianity, it is held, they desired to convey the benefits of their faith to their departed friends who had died in paganism, by having themselves baptized "in their behalf," perhaps on their graves. We have no evidence from history that such a practice prevailed in the early Christian churches. Nor does the text suggest it. The Greek preposition huper expresses also the motive that may prompt a person to a certain action. In this case the motive was suggested by the dead, namely, by the dead in so far as they shall rise. The context shows this to be the meaning: If a person has sought baptism in view of the fact that the dead are to rise to be judged, his baptism is valueless, if the dead do not rise.
See BAPTISM FOR THE DEAD.
W. H. T. Dau
Baptism (Non-immersionist View)
Baptism (Non-immersionist View) - I. THE SCRIPTURAL NAMES FOR THE RITE
II. PRE-CHRISTIAN BAPTISM
1. Baptism of Proselytes
2. Baptism of John
3. Baptism in the Pagan Mysteries
III. CHRISTIAN BAPTISM
1. The administration of the Rite
2. The Mode of Using the Water
(1) Immersion
(2) Affusion
(3) Aspersion
3. Who May Perform Baptism
4. Who May Receive Baptism
(1) Baptism of Infants
(2) Baptism for the Dead
IV. THE FORMULA OF BAPTISM
V. THE DOCTRINE OF BAPTISM
The Doctrine of Infant Baptism
LITERATURE
Baptism (baptisma, baptismos, baptizein) has been from the earliest times the initiatory rite signifying the recognition of entrance into or of presence within the Christian church. We find the earliest mention of the ceremony in the Epistle to the Gal (3:27), written about 20 years after the death of Jesus. There and in 1 Cor (1:13; 12:13) Paul takes for granted that everyone who becomes a Christian (himself included) must be baptized. The rite seems also to have existed among the discipleship of Jesus before His death. We are told (John 4:1-2) that, although Jesus Himself did not baptize, His disciples did, and that their baptisms were more numerous than those of John.
I. The Scriptural Names for the Rite. The words commonly used in the New Testament to denote the rite are the verb baptizo, and the nouns baptisma and baptismos; but none are employed in this sense alone. The verb is used to denote the ceremonial purification of the Jews before eating, by pouring water on the hands (Luke 11:38; Mark 7:4); to signify the sufferings of Christ (Mark 10:38-39; Luke 12:50); and to indicate the sacrament of baptism. It is the intensive form of baptein, "to dip," and takes a wider meaning. The passages Luke 11:38 and Mark 7:4 show conclusively that the word does not invariably signify to immerse the whole body. Some have held that baptismos invariably means ceremonial purification, and that baptisma is reserved for the Christian rite; but the distinction can hardly be maintained. The former certainly means ceremonial purification in Mark 7:4, and in Mark 7:8 (the King James Version); but it probably means the rite of baptism in Hebrews 6:2. Exegetes find other terms applied to Christian baptism. It is called `the Water' in Acts 10:47: "Can any man forbid `the Water,' that these should not be baptized?"; the layer of the water in Ephesians 5:26 the Revised Version, margin (where baptism is compared to the bridal bath taken by the bride before she was handed over to the bridegroom); and perhaps the laver of regeneration in Titus 3:5 the Revised Version, margin (compare 1 Corinthians 6:11), and illumination in Hebrews 6:4; 10:32.
II. Pre-Christian Baptism. 1. Baptism of Proselytes: Converts in the early centuries, whether Jews or Gentiles, could not have found this initiatory rite, in which they expressed their new-born faith, utterly unfamiliar. Water is the element naturally used for cleansing the body and its symbolical use entered into almost every cult; and into none more completely than the Jewish, whose ceremonial washings were proverbial. Besides those the Jew had what would seem to the convert a counterpart of the Christian rite in the baptism of proselytes by which Gentiles entered the circle of Judaism. For the Jews required three things of strangers who declared themselves to be converts to the Law of Moses: circumcision, baptism, and to offer sacrifice if they were men: the two latter if they were women. It is somewhat singular that no baptism of proselytes is forthcoming until about the beginning of the 3rd century; and yet no competent scholar doubts its existence. Schurer is full of contempt for those who insist on the argument from silence. Its presence enables us to see both how Jews accepted readily the baptism of John and to understand the point of objectors who questioned his right to insist that all Jews had to be purified ere they could be ready for the Messianic kingdom, although he was neither the Messiah nor a special prophet (John 1:19-23).
2. Baptism of John: The baptism of John stood midway between the Jewish baptism of proselytes and Christian baptism. It differed from the former because it was more than a symbol of ceremonial purification; it was a baptism of repentance, a confession of sin, and of the need of moral cleansing, and was a symbol of forgiveness and of moral purity. All men, Jews who were ceremonially pure and Gentiles who were not, had to submit to this baptism of repentance and pardon. It differed from the latter because it only symbolized preparation to receive the salvation, the kingdom of God which John heralded, and did not imply entrance into that kingdom itself. Those who had received it, as well as those who had not, had to enter the Christian community by the door of Christian baptism (Acts 19:3-6). The Jewish custom of baptizing, whether displayed in their frequent ceremonial washings, in the baptism of proselytes or in the baptism of John, made Christian baptism a familiar and even expected rite to Jewish converts in the 1st century.
3. Baptism in the Pagan Mysteries: Baptism, as an initiatory rite, was no less familiar to Gentileconverts who had no acquaintance with the Jewish religion. The ceremonial washings of the priests of pagan in the religions have been often adduced as something which might familiarize Gentileconverts with the rite which introduced them into the Christian community, but they were not initiations. A more exact parallel is easily found. It is often forgotten that in the earlier centuries when Christianity was slowly making its way in the pagan world pagan piety had deserted the official religions and taken refuge within the Mysteries, and that these Mysteries represented the popular pagan religions of the times. They were all private cults into which men and women were received one by one, and that by rites of initiation which each had to pass through personally. When admitted the converts became members of coteries, large or small, of like-minded persons, who had become initiated because their souls craved something which they believed they would receive in and through the rites of the cult. These initiations were secret, jealously guarded from the knowledge of all outsiders; still enough is known about them for us to be sure that among them baptism took an important place (Apuleius Metamorphoses xi). The rite was therefore as familiar to pagan as to Jewish converts, and it was no unexpected requirement for the convert to know that baptism was the doorway into the church of Christ. These heathen baptisms, like the baptism of proselytes, were for the most part simply ceremonial purifications; for while it is true that both in the cult of the Mysteries and beyond it a mode of purifying after great crimes was baptizing in flowing water (Eurip. Iph. in Tauri 167) or in the sea, yet it would appear that only ceremonial purification was thought of. Nor were ceremonial rites involving the use of water confined to the paganism of the early centuries. Such a ceremony denoted the reception of the newly-born child into pagan Scandinavian households. The father decided whether the infant was to be reared or exposed to perish. If he resolved to preserve the babe, water was poured over it and a name was given to it.
III. Christian Baptism. 1. The Administration of the Rite: In the administration of the rite of Christian baptism three things have to be looked at: the act of baptizing; those who are entitled to perform it; and the recipients or those entitled to receive it. A complete act of baptizing involves three things: what has been called the materia sacramenti; the method of its use; and the forma sacramenti, the baptismal formula or form of words accompanying the use of the water. The materia sacramenti is water and for this reason baptism is called the Water Sacrament. The oldest ecclesiastical manual of discipline which has descended to us, the Didache, says that the water to be preferred is "living," i.e. running water, water in a stream or river, or fresh flowing from a fountain; "But if thou hast not living water, baptize in other water; and if thou canst not in cold, then in warm" (c. 7). In those directions the prescriptions of the ceremonial for the Jewish baptism of proselytes are closely followed. The earlier canons of the church permit any kind of water, fresh or salt, provided only it be true and natural water (aqua vera et naturalis).
2. The Mode of Using the Water: (1) Immersion. The use of the water is called ablutio.
According to the rules of by far the largest portion of the Christian church the water may be used in any one of three ways:
Immersion, where the recipient enters bodily into the water, and where, during the action, the head is plunged either once or three times beneath the surface; affusion, where water was poured upon the head of the recipient who stood either in water or on dry ground; and aspersion where water was sprinkled on the head or on the face. It has frequently been argued that the word baptizein invariably means "to dip" or immerse, and that therefore Christian baptism must have been performed originally by immersion only, and that the two other forms of affusion and aspersion or sprinkling are invalid--that there can be no real baptism unless the method of immersion be used. But the word which invariably means "to dip" is not baptizein but baptein. Baptizein has a wider signification; and its use to denote the Jewish ceremonial of pouring water on the hands (Luke 11:38; Mark 7:4), as has already been said, proves conclusively that it is impossible to conclude from the word itself that immersion is the only valid method of performing the rite. It may be admitted at once that immersion, where the whole body including the head is plunged into a pool of pure water, gives a more vivid picture of the cleansing of the soul from sin; and that complete surrounding with water suits better the metaphors of burial in Romans 6:4 and Colossians 2:12, and of being surrounded by cloud in 1 Corinthians 10:2.
(2) Affusion. On the other hand affusion is certainly a more vivid picture of the bestowal of the Holy Spirit which is equally symbolized in baptism. No definite information is given of the mode in which baptism was administered in apostolic times. Such phrases as "coming up out of the water," "went down into the water" (Mark 1:10; Acts 8:38) are as applicable to affusion as to immersion. The earliest account of the mode of baptizing occurs in the Didache (c. 7), where it is said: "Now concerning Baptism, thus baptize ye: having first uttered all these things, baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, in living water. But if thou hast not living water, baptize in other water; and if thou canst not in cold, then in warm. But if thou hast neither, pour water upon the head thrice in the name of Father, and Son, and Holy Ghost." This seems to say that to baptize by immersion was the practice recommended for general use, but that the mode of affusion was also valid and enjoined on occasions. What is here prescribed in the Didache seems to have been the practice usually followed in the early centuries of the Christian church. Immersion was in common use: but affusion was also widely practiced: and both were esteemed usual and valid forms of baptizing. When immersion was used then the head of the recipient was plunged thrice beneath the surface at the mention of each name of the Trinity; when the mode was by affusion the same reference to the Trinity was kept by pouring water thrice upon the head. The two usages which were recognized and prescribed by the beginning of the 2nd century may have been in use throughout the apostolic period although definite information is lacking. When we remember the various pools in Jerusalem, and their use for ceremonial washings it is not impossible to suppose that the 3,000 who were baptized on the day of Pentecost may have been immersed, but, when the furnishing and conditions of Palestinian houses and of oriental jails are taken into account, it is difficult to conceive that at the baptisms of Cornelius and of the jailer, the ceremony was performed otherwise than by affusion. It is a somewhat curious fact that if the evidence from written texts, whether ancient canons or writings of the earlier Fathers, be studied by themselves, the natural conclusion would seem to be that immersion was the almost universal form of administering the rite; but if the witness of the earliest pictorial representation be collected, then we must infer that affusion was the usual method and that immersion was exceptional; for the pictorial representations, almost without exception, display baptism performed by affusion, i.e. the recipient is seen standing in water while the minister pours water on the head. It may therefore be inferred that evidence for the almost universal practice of immersion, drawn from the fact that baptisms took place in river pools (it is more than probable that when we find the names of local saints given to pools in rivers, those places were their favorite places of administering the rite), or from the large size of almost all early medieval baptisteries, is by no means so conclusive as many have supposed, such places being equally applicable to affusion. It is also interesting to remember that when most of the Anabaptists of the 16th century insisted on adult baptism (re-baptism was their name for it) immersion was not the method practiced by them. During the great baptismal scene in the market-place of the city of Munster the ordinance was performed by the ministers pouring three cans of water on the heads of the recipients. They baptized by affusion and not by immersion. This was also the practice among the Mennonites or earliest Baptists. This double mode of administering the sacrament--by immersion or by affusion--prevailed in the churches of the first twelve centuries, and it was not until the 13th that the practice of aspersio or sprinkling was almost universally employed.
(3) Aspersion. The third method of administering baptism, namely, by aspersio or sprinkling, has a different history from the other two. It was in the early centuries exclusively reserved for sick and infirm persons too weak to be submitted to immersion or affusion. There is evidence to show that those who received the rite in this form were somewhat despised; for the nicknames clinici and grabatorii were, unworthily Cyprian declares, bestowed on them by neighbors. The question was even raised in the middle of the 3rd century, whether baptism by aspersio was a valid baptism and Cyprian was asked for his opinion on the matter. His answer is contained in his lxxvth epistle (lxix Hartel's ed.). There he contends that the ordinance administered this way is perfectly valid, and quotes in support of his opinion various Old Testament texts which assert the purifying effects of water sprinkled (Ezekiel 36:25-26; Numbers 8:5-7; Numbers 19:8-9, 12-13). It is not the amount of the water or the method of its application which can cleanse from sin: "Whence it appears that the sprinkling also of water prevails equally with the washing of salvation .... and that where the faith of the giver and receiver is sound, all things hold and may be consummated and perfected by the majesty of God and by the truth of faith." His opinion prevailed. Aspersio was recognized as a valid, though exceptional, form of baptism. But it was long of commending itself to ministers and people, and did not attain to almost general use until the 13th century.
The idea that baptism is valid when practiced in the one method only of immersion can scarcely be looked on as anything else than a ritualistic idea.
3. Who May Perform Baptism: The Scripture nowhere describes or limits the qualifications of those who are entitled to perform the rite of baptism. We find apostles, wandering preachers (Acts 8:38), a private member of a small and persecuted community (Acts 9:18) performing the rite. So in the sub-apostolic church we find the same liberty of practice. Clement of Alexandria tells us that the services of Christian women were necessary for the work of Christian missions, for they alone could have access to the gynaeceum and carry the message of the gospel there (Strom., III, 6). Such women missionaries did not hesitate to baptize. Whatever credit may be given to the Acts of Paul and Theckla, it is at least historical that Theckla did exist, that she was converted by Paul, that she worked as a missionary and that she baptized her converts. Speaking generally it may be said that as a sacrament has always been looked upon as the recognition of presence within the Christian church, it is an act of the church and not of the individual believer; and therefore no one is entitled to perform the act who is not in some way a representative of the Christian community--the representative character ought to be maintained somehow. As soon as the community had taken regular and organized form the act of baptism was suitably performed by those who, as office-bearers, naturally represented the community. It was recognized that the pastor or bishop (for these terms were synonymous until the 4th century at least) ought to preside at the administration of the sacrament; but in the early church the power of delegation was recognized and practiced, and elders and deacons presided at this and even at the Eucharist. What has been called lay-baptism is not forbidden in the New Testament and has the sanction of the early church. When superstitious views of baptism entered largely into the church and it was held that no unbaptized child could be saved, the practice arose of encouraging the baptism of all weakling infants by nurses. The Reformed church protested against this and was at pains to repudiate the superstitious thought of any mechanical efficacy in the rite by deprecating its exercise by any save approved and ordained ministers of the church. Still, while condemning lay-baptism as irregular, it may be questioned whether they would assert any administration of the rite to be invalid, provided only it had been performed with devout faith on the part of giver and receiver.
4. Who May Receive Baptism: The recipients of Christian baptism are all those who make a presumably sincere profession of repentance of sin and of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour; together with the children of such believing parents. The requirements are set forth in the accounts given us of the performance of the rite in the New Testament, in which we see how the apostles obeyed the commands of their Master. Jesus had ordered them to "make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19)--to "preach the gospel to the whole creation. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that disbelieveth shall be condemned" (Mark 16:15-16). The apostle Peter said to the inquirers on the Day of Pentecost, "Repent ye, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins; and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit"; and 3,000 were added to the church through the initiatory rite of baptism. The Samaritans, who believed on Jesus through the preaching of Philip, were admitted to the Christian community through baptism; though in this case one of the baptized, Simon Magus, after his reception, was found to be still in "the bond of iniquity" (Acts 8:12, 23). The jailer and all his, Lydia and her household, at Philippi, were baptized by Paul on his and her profession of faith on Jesus, the Saviour. There is no evidence in any of the accounts we have of apostolic baptisms that any prolonged course of instruction was thought to be necessary; nothing of classes for catechumens such as we find in the early church by the close of the 2nd century, or in modern missionary enterprise. We find no mention of baptismal creeds, declarative or interrogative, in the New Testament accounts of baptisms. The profession of faith in the Lord Jesus, the Saviour, made by the head of the family appears, so far as the New Testament records afford us information, to have been sufficient to secure the baptism of the "household"--a word which in these days included both servants and children.
(1) Baptism of Infants. This brings us to the much-debated question whether infants are to be recognized as lawful recipients of Christian baptism. The New Testament Scriptures do not in so many words either forbid or command the baptism of children. The question is in this respect on all fours with the change of the holy day from the seventh to the first day of the week. No positive command authorizes the universal usage with regard to the Christian Sabbath day; that the change is authorized must be settled by a weighing of evidence. So it is with the case of infant baptism. It is neither commanded nor forbidden in so many words; and the question cannot be decided on such a basis. The strongest argument against the baptizing of infants lies in the thought that the conditions of the rite are repentance and faith; that these must be exercised by individuals, each one for himself and for herself; and that infants are incapable either of repentance or of faith of this kind. The argument seems weak in its second statement; it is more dogmatic than historical; and will be referred to later when the doctrine lying at the basis of the rite is examined. On the other hand a great deal of evidence supports the view that the baptism of infants, if not commanded, was at least permitted and practiced within the apostolic church. Paul connects baptism with circumcision and implies that under the gospel the former takes the place of the latter (Colossians 2:12); and as children were circumcised on the 8th day after birth, the inference follows naturally that children were also to be baptized. In the Old Testament, promises to parents included their children. In his sermon on the Day of Pentecost Peter declares to his hearers that the gospel promise is "to you and to your children" and connects this with the invitation to baptism (Acts 2:38-39). It is also noteworthy that children shared in the Jewish baptism of proselytes. Then we find in the New Testament narratives of baptisms that "households" were baptized--of Lydia (Acts 16:15), of the jailer at Philippi (Acts 16:32), of Stephanas (1 Corinthians 1:16). It is never said that the children of the household were exempted from the sacred rite. One has only to remember the position of the head of the household in that ancient world, to recollect how the household was thought to be embodied in its head, to see how the repentance and faith of the head of the household was looked upon as including those of all the members, not merely children but servants, to feel that had the children been excluded from sharing in the rite the exclusion would have seemed such an unusual thing that it would have at least been mentioned and explained. our Lord expressly made very young children the types of those who entered into His kingdom (Mark 10:14-16); and Paul so unites parents with children in the faith of Christ that he does not hesitate to call the children of the believing husband or wife "holy," and to imply that the children had passed from a state of "uncleanness" to a state of "holiness" through the faith of a parent. All these things seem to point to the fact that the rite which was the door of entance into the visible community of the followers of Jesus was shared in by the children of believing parents. Besides evidence for the baptism of children goes back to the earliest times of the sub-apostolic church. Irenaeus was the disciple of Polycarp, who had been the disciple of John, and it is difficult to draw any other conclusion from his statements than that he believed that the baptism of infants had been an established practice in the church long before his days (Adv. Haer., II, 22; compare 39). The witness of Tertullian is specially interesting; for he himself plainly thinks that adult baptism is to be preferred to the baptism of infants. He makes it plain that the custom of baptizing infants existed in his days, and we may be sure from the character and the learning of the man, that had he been able to affirm that infant-baptism had been a recent innovation and had not been a long-established usage descending from apostolic times, he would certainly have had no hesitation in using what would have seemed to him a very convincing way of dealing with his opponents. Tertullian's testimony comes from the end of the 2nd century or the beginning of the 3rd century. Origen, the most learned Christian writer during the first three centuries and who comes a little later than Tertullian, in his 14th Homily on Luke bears witness to the fact that the baptism of infants was usual. He argues that original sin belongs to children because the church baptizes them. At the same time it is plain from a variety of evidence too long to cite that the baptism of infants was not a universal practice in the early church. The church of the early centuries was a mission church. It drew large numbers of its members from heathendom. In every mission church the baptism of adults will naturally take the foremost place and be most in evidence. But is is clear that many Christians were of the opinion of Tertullian and believed that baptism ought not to be administered to children but should be confined to adults. Nor was this a theory only; it was a continuous practice handed down from one generation to another in some Christian families. In the 4th century, few Christian leaders took a more important place than Basil the Great and his brother Gregory of Nyssa. They belonged to a family who had been Christians for some generations; yet neither of the brothers was baptized until after his personal conversion, which does not appear to have come until they had attained the years of manhood. The whole evidence seems to show that in the early church, down to the end of the 4th century at least, infant and adult baptism were open questions and that the two practices existed side by side with each other without disturbing the unity of the churches. In the later Pelagian controversy it became evident that theory and practice of infant baptism had been able to assert itself and that the ordinance was always administered to children of members of the church.
(2) Baptism for the Dead. Paul refers to a custom of "baptizing for the dead" (1 Corinthians 15:29). What this "vicarious baptism" or "baptism for the dead" was it is impossible to say, even whether it was practiced within the primitive Christian church. The passage is a very difficult one and has called forth a very large number of explanations, which are mere guesses. Paul neither commends it nor disapproves of it; he simply mentions its existence and uses the fact as an argument for the resurrection.
See BAPTISM FOR THE DEAD.
IV. The Formula of Baptism. The Formula of Christian baptism, in the mode which prevailed, is given in Matthew 28:19: "I baptize thee in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." But it is curious that the words are not given in any description of Christian baptism until the time of Justin Martyr: and there they are not repeated exactly but in a slightly extended and explanatory form. He says that Christians "receive the washing with water in the name of God, the Ruler and Father of the universe, and of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit" (1 Apol., 61). In every account of the performance of the rite in apostolic times a much shorter formula is in use. The 3,000 believers were baptized on the Day of Pentecost "in the name of Jesus" (Acts 2:38); and the same formula was used at the baptism of Cornelius and those that were with him (Acts 10:48). Indeed it would appear to have been the usual one, from Paul's question to the Corinthians: "Were ye baptized into the name of Paul?" (1 Corinthians 1:13). The Samaritans were baptized "into the name of the Lord Jesus" (Acts 8:16); and the same formula (a common one in acts of devotion) was used in the case of the disciples at Ephesus. In some instances it is recorded that before baptism the converts were asked to make some confession of their faith, which took the form of declaring that Jesus was the Lord or that Jesus Christ was the Son of God. It may be inferred from a phrase in 1 Peter 3:21 that a formal interrogation was made, and that the answer was an acknowledgment that Jesus Christ was Lord. Scholars have exercised a great deal of ingenuity in trying to explain how, with what appear to be the very words of Jesus given in the Gospel of Mt, another and much shorter formula seems to have been used throughout the apostolic church. Some have imagined that the shorter formula was that used in baptizing disciples during the lifetime of our Lord (John 4:1-2), and that the apostles having become accustomed to it continued to use it during their lives. Others declare that the phrases "in the name of Jesus Christ" or "of the Lord Jesus" are not meant to give the formula of baptism, but simply to denote that the rite was Christian. Others think that the full formula was always used and that the narratives in the Book of Acts and in the Pauline Epistles are merely brief summaries of what took place--an idea rather difficult to believe in the absence of any single reference to the longer formula. Others, again, insist that baptism in the name of one of the persons of the Trinity implies baptism in the name of the Three. While others declare that Matthew does not give the very words of Jesus but puts in His mouth what was the common formula used at the date and in the district where the First Gospel was written. Whatever explanation be given it is plain that the longer formula became universal or almost universal in the sub-apostolic church. Justin Martyr has been already. quoted. Tertullian, nearly half a century later, declares expressly that the "law of baptism has been imposed and the formula prescribed" in Matthew 28:19 (De Bapt., 13); and he adds in his Adversus Praxean (c. 26): "And it is not once only, but thrice, that we are immersed into the Three Persons, at each several mention of Their names." The evidence to show that the formula given by Matthew became the established usage is overwhelming; but it is more than likely that the use of the shorter formula did not altogether die out, or, if it did, that it was revived. The historian Socrates informs us that some of the more extreme Arians "corrupted" baptism by using the name of Christ only in the formula; while injunctions to use the longer formula and punishments, including deposition, threatened to those who presumed to employ the shorter which meet us in collections of ecclesiastical canons (Apos. Canons, 43, 50), prove that the practice of using the shorter formula existed in the 5th and 6th centuries, at all events in the East.
V. The Doctrine of Baptism. The sacraments, and baptism as one of them, are always described to be (1) signs representing as in a picture or figure spiritual benefits (1 Peter 3:21), and also (2) as seals or personal tokens and attestations corroborative of solemn promises of spiritual benefits. Hence, the sacrament is said to have two parts: "the one an outward and sensible sign, used according to Christ's appointment; the other an inward and spiritual grace thereby signified." It is held, moreover, that when the rite of baptism has been duly and devoutly performed with faith on the part of both giver and receiver, the spiritual benefits do follow the performance of the rite. The question therefore arises: What are the spiritual and evangelical blessings portrayed and solemnly promised in baptism? In the New Testament we find that baptism is intimately connected with the following: with remission of sins, as in Acts 22:16 ("Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins"), and in Hebrews 10:22; with regeneration or the new birth, as in Titus 3:6 and John 3:5 (this idea also entered into the baptism of proselytes and even into the thought of baptism in the Mysteries; neophytes were taught that in the water they died to their old life and began a new one (Apuleius Meta. xi)); with engrafting into Christ, with union with Him, as in Galatians 3:27--and union in definite ways, in His death, His burial and His resurrection, as in Romans 6:3-6; with entering into a new relationship with God, that of sonship, as in Galatians 3:26-27; with the bestowal of the Holy Spirit, as in 1 Corinthians 12:13; with belonging to the church, as in Acts 2:41; with the gift of salvation, as in Mark 16:16; John 3:5. From these and similar passages theologians conclude that baptism is a sign and seal of our engrafting into Christ and of our union with Him, of remission of sins, regeneration, adoption and life eternal; that the water in baptism represents and signifies both the blood of Christ, which takes away all our sins, and also the sanctifying influence of the Holy Spirit against the dominion of sin and the corruption of our human nature; and that baptizing with water signifies the cleansing from sin by the blood and for the merit of Christ, together with the mortification of sin and rising from sin to newness of life by virtue of the death and resurrection of Christ. Or to put it more simply: Baptism teaches that all who are out of Christ are unclean by reason of sin and need to be cleansed. It signifies that just as washing with water cleanses the body so God in Christ cleanses the soul from sin by the Holy Spirit and that we are to see in this cleansing not merely pardon but also an actual freeing of the soul from the pollution and power of sin and therefore the beginnings of a new life. The sacrament also shows us that the cleansing is reached only through connection with the death of Christ, and further that through the new life begun in us we become in a special way united to Christ and enter into a new and filial relationship with God. Probably all Christians, reformed and unreformed, will agree in the above statement of the doctrinal meaning in the rite of baptism; and also that when the sacrament is rightly used the inward and spiritual grace promised is present along with the outward and visible signs. But Romanists and Protestants differ about what is meant by the right use of the sacrament. They separate on the question of its efficacy. The former understand by the right use simply the correct performance of the rite and the placing no obstacle in the way of the flow of efficacy. The latter insist that there can be no right use of the sacrament unless the recipient exercises faith, that without faith the sacrament is not efficacious and the inward and spiritual blessings do not accompany the external and visible signs. Whatever minor differences divide Protestant evangelical churches on this sacrament they are all agreed upon this, that where there is no faith there can be no regeneration. Here emerges doctrinally the difference between those who give and who refuse to give the sacrament to infants.
The Doctrine of Infant Baptism:
The latter taking their stand on the fundamental doctrine of all evangelical Christians that faith is necessary to make any sacrament efficacious, and assuming that the effect of an ordinance is always tied to the precise time of its administration, insist that only adults can perform such a conscious, intelligent, and individually independent act of faith, as they believe all Protestants insist on scriptural grounds to be necessary in the right use of a sacrament. Therefore they refuse to baptize infants and young children.
The great majority of evangelical Protestants practice infant baptism and do not think, due explanations being given, that it in any way conflicts with the idea that faith is necessary to the efficacy of the sacrament. The Baptist position appears to them to conflict with much of the teaching of the New Testament. It implies that all who are brought up in the faith of Christ and within the Christian family still lack, when they come to years of discretion, that great change of heart and life which is symbolized in baptism, and can only receive it by a conscious, intelligent and thoroughly independent act of faith. This seems in accordance neither with Scripture nor with human nature. We are told that a child may be full of the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb (Luke 1:15); that little children are in the kingdom of Christ (Matthew 19:14); that children of believing parents are holy (1 Corinthians 7:14). Is there nothing in the fact that in the New Testament as in the Old Testament the promise is "to you and your children"? Besides, the argument of those who oppose the baptism of infants, if logically carried out, leads to consequences which few of them would accept. Faith is as essential to salvation, on all evangelical theology, as it is for the right use of the sacrament; and every one of the arguments brought against the baptism of infants is equally applicable to the denial of their salvation. Nor can the Baptist position be said to be true to the facts of ordinary human nature. Faith, in its evangelical sense of fiducia or trust, is not such an abrupt thing as they make it. Their demand for such a conscious, intelligent, strictly individualist act of faith sets aside some of the deepest facts of human nature. No one, young or old, is entirely self-dependent; nor are our thoughts and trust always or even frequently entirely independent and free from the unconscious influences of others. We are interwoven together in society; and what is true generally reveals itself still more strongly in the intimate relations of the family. Is it possible in all cases to trace the creative effects of the subtle imperceptible influences which surround children, or to say when the slowly dawning intelligence is first able to apprehend enough to trust in half-conscious ways? It is but a shallow view of human nature which sets all such considerations on the one side and insists on regarding nothing but isolated acts of knowledge or of faith. With all those thoughts in their minds, the great majority of evangelical churches admit and enjoin the baptism of infants. They believe that the children of believing parents are "born within the church and have interest in the covenant of grace and a right to its seal." They explain that the efficacy of a sacrament is not rigidly tied to the exact time of administration, and can be appropriated whenever faith is kindled and is able to rest on the external sign, and that the spiritual blessings signified in the rite can be appropriated again and again with each fresh kindling of faith. They declare that no one can tell how soon the dawning intelligence may awaken to the act of appropriation. Therefore these churches instruct their ministers in dispensing the sacrament to lay vows on parents that they will train up the infants baptized "in the knowledge and fear of the Lord," and will teach them the great blessings promised to them in and through the sacrament and teach them to appropriate these blessings for themselves. They further enjoin their ministers to admonish all who may witness a baptismal service to look back on their own baptism in order that their faith may be stirred afresh to appropriate for themselves the blessings which accompany the proper use of the rite.
LITERATURE.
The literature on the subject of baptism is very extensive. It may be sufficient to select the following: J. S. Candlish, The Sacraments, 10th thousand, 1900; J. C. W. Augusti, Denkwurdigkeiten aus d. christ. Archaologie, V, 1820; Hofling, Das Sakrament der Taufe, 1846-48; J. B. Mozley, Review of the Baptismal Controversy, 2nd edition, 1895; W. Goode, The Doctrine of the Church of England as to the Effects of Baptism in the Case of Infants, 1849; W. Wall, History of Infant Baptism, 1705; E. B. Underhill, Confessions of Faith .... of Baptist Churches of England (Hanserd Knollys Soc., IX), 1854.
T. M. Lindsay
Baptism (the Baptist Interpretation)
Baptism (the Baptist Interpretation) - bap'-tiz-m:
I. MEANING OF BAPTISM
1. Terminology
2. Proselyte Baptism
3. Greek Usage
4. New Testament Usage
5. The Didache
6. Baptismal Regeneration
II. THE SUBJECTS OF BAPTISM
III. THE PRESENT OBLIGATION
LITERATURE
This article is not a discussion of the whole subject, but is merely a presentation of the Baptist interpretation of the ordinance. The origin and history of the ordinance, as a whole, do not come within the range of the present treatment.
I. Meaning of Baptism. 1. Terminology: The verb used in the New Testament is (baptizo). The substantives baptisma and baptismos occur, though the latter is not used in the New Testament of the ordinance of baptism except by implication (Hebrews 6:2, "the teaching of baptisms") where the reference is to the distinction between the Christian ordinance and the Jewish ceremonial ablutions. Some documents have it also in Colossians 2:12 (compare Hebrews 9:10, "divers washings") for a reference purely to the Jewish purifications (compare the dispute about purifying in John 3:25). The verb baptizo appears in this sense in Luke 11:38 (margin) where the Pharisee marveled that Jesus "had not first bathed himself before breakfast" (noon-day meal). The Mosaic regulations required the bath of the whole body (Leviticus 15:16) for certain uncleannesses. Tertullian (de Baptismo, XV) says that the Jew required almost daily washing. Herodotus (ii.47) says that if an Egyptian "touches a swine in passing with his clothes, he goes to the river and dips himself (bapto) from it" (quoted by Broadus in Commentary on Matthew, 333). See also the Jewish scrupulosity illustrated in Sirach 34:25 and Judith 12:7 where baptizo occurs. The same thing appears in the correct text in Mark 7:4, "And when they come from the market-place, except they bathemselves, they eat not." Here baptizo is the true text. The use of rhantizo ("sprinkle") is due to the difficulty felt by copyists not familiar with Jewish customs. See also the omission of "couches" in the same verse. The couches were "pallets" and could easily be dipped into water. It is noteworthy that here rhantizo is used in contrast with baptizo, showing that baptizo did not mean sprinkle. The term baptismos occurs in Josephus (Ant., XVIII, v, 2) in connection with John's baptism (compare also Irenaeus 686B about Christ's baptism). In general, however, baptisma is the substantive found for the ordinance. The verb baptizo is in reality a frequentative or intensive of bapto ("dip"). Examples occur where that idea is still appropriate, as in 2 Kings 5:14 (Septuagint) where Naaman is said to have "dipped himself seven times in the Jordan" (ebaptisato). The notion of repetition may occur also in Josephus (Ant., XV, iii, 3) in connection with the death of Aristobulus, brother of Mariamne, for Herod's friends "dipped him as he was swimming, and plunged him under water, in the dark of the evening." But in general the term baptizo, as is common with such forms in the late Greek, is simply equivalent to bapto (compare Luke 16:24) and means "dip," "immerse," just as rhantizo, like rhaino, means simply "sprinkle."
If baptizo never occurred in connection with a disputed ordinance, there would be no controversy on the meaning of the word. There are, indeed, figurative or metaphorical uses of the word as of other words, but the figurative is that of immersion, like our "immersed in cares," "plunged in grief," etc. It remains to consider whether the use of the word for a ceremony or ordinance has changed its significance in the New Testament as compared with ancient Greek
It may be remarked that no Baptist has written a lexicon of the Greek language, and yet the standard lexicons, like that of Liddell and Scott, uniformly give the meaning of baptizo as "dip," "immerse." They do not give "pour" or "sprinkle," nor has anyone ever adduced an instance where this verb means "pour" or "sprinkle." The presumption is therefore in favor of "dip" in the New Testament.
2. Proselyte Baptism: Before we turn directly to the discussion of the ceremonial usage, a word is called for in regard to Jewish proselyte baptism. It is still a matter of dispute whether this initiatory rite was in existence at the time of John the Baptist or not. Schurer argues ably, if not conclusively, for the idea that this proselyte baptism was in use long before the first mention of it in the 2nd century. (Compare The Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, Div ii,II , 319 ff; also Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus, appendix, xii, Baptism of Proselytes). It matters nothing at all to the Baptist contention what is true in this regard. It would not be strange if a bath was required for a Gentile who became a Jew, when the Jews themselves required such frequent ceremonial ablutions. But what was the Jewish initiatory rite called proselyte baptism? Lightfoot (Horae Hebraicae, Matthew 3:7) gives the law for the baptism of proselytes: "As soon as he grows whole of the wound of circumcision, they bring him to Baptism, and being placed in the water they again instruct him in some weightier and in some lighter commands of the Law. Which being heard, he plunges himself and comes up, and, behold, he is an Israelite in all things." To this quotation Marcus Dods (Presbyterian) HDB adds: "To use Pauline language, his old man is dead and buried in the water, and he rises from this cleansing grave a new man. The full significance of the rite would have been lost had immersion not been practiced." Lightfoot says further: "Every person baptized must dip his whole body, now stripped and made naked, at one dipping. And wheresoever in the Law washing of the body or garments is mentioned, it means nothing else than the washing of the whole body." Edersheim (op. cit.) says: "Women were attended by those of their own sex, the rabbis standing at the door outside." Jewish proselyte baptism, an initiatory ceremonial rite, harmonizes exactly with the current meaning of baptizo already seen. There was no peculiar "sacred" sense that changed "dip" to "sprinkle."
3. Greek Usage: The Greek language has had a continuous history, and baptizo is used today in Greece for baptism. As is well known, not only in Greece, but all over Russia, wherever the Greek church prevails, immersion is the unbroken and universal practice. The Greeks may surely be credited with knowledge of the meaning of their own language. The substitution of pouring or sprinkling for immersion, as the Christian ordinance of baptism, was late and gradual and finally triumphed in the West because of the decree of the Council of Trent. But the Baptist position is that this substitution was unwarranted and subverts the real significance of the ordinance. The Greek church does practice trine immersion, one immersion for each person of the Trinity, an old practice (compare ter mergitamur, Tertullian ii.79 A), but not the Scriptural usage. A word will be needed later concerning the method by which pouring crept in beside immersion in the 2nd and later centuries. Before we turn directly to the New Testament use of bapti zo it is well to quote from the Greek Lexicon of the Roman and Byzantine Periods by Professor E. A. Sophocles, himself a native Greek. He says (p. 297): "There is no evidence that Luke and Paul and the other writers of the New Testament put upon this verb meanings not recognized by the Greeks." We expect therefore to find in the New Testament "dip," as the meaning of this word in the ceremonial sense of an initiatory Christian rite. Thayer's Lexicon likewise defines the word in this ceremonial Christian use to mean "an immersion in water, performed as a sign of the removal of sin."
Baptists could very well afford to rest the matter right here. There is no need to call for the testimony of a single Baptist scholar on this subject. The world of scholarship has rendered its decision with impartiality and force on the side of the Baptists in this matter. A few recent deliverances will suffice. Dr. Alfred Plummer (Church of England) in his new Commentary on Matthew (p. 28) says that the office of John the Baptist was "to bind them to a new life, symbolized by immersion in water." Swete (Church of England) in his Commentary on Mark (p. 7) speaks of "the added thought of immersion, which gives vividness to the scene." The early Greek ecclesiastical writers show that immersion was employed (compare Barnabas,XI , 11): "We go down into the water full of sins and filth, and we come up bearing fruit in the heart." For numerous ecclesiastical examples see Sophocles' Lexicon.
4. New Testament Usage: But the New Testament itself makes the whole matter perfectly plain. The uniform meaning of "dip" for baptizo and the use of the river Jordan as the place for baptizing by John the Baptist makes inevitable the notion of immersion unless there is some direct contradictory testimony. It is a matter that should be lifted above verbal quibbling or any effort to disprove the obvious facts. The simple narrative in Matthew 3:6 is that "they were baptized of him in the river Jordan." In Mark 1:9-10 the baptism is sharpened a bit in the use of eis and ek. Jesus "was baptized of John in (eis) the Jordan. And straightway coming up out of (ek) the water, he saw." So in Acts 8:38 we read: "They both went down into (eis) the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him. And when they came up out of (ek) the water, the Spirit .... caught away Philip." If one could still be in doubt about the matter, Paul sets it at rest by the symbolism used in Romans 6:4, "We were buried therefore with him through bapti sm into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life." The submergence and emergence of immersion thus, according to Paul, symbolize the death and burial to sin on the one hand and the resurrection to the new life in Christ on the other. Sanday and Headlam (Church of England) put it thus in their Commentary on Romans (p. 153): "It expresses symbolically a series of acts corresponding to the redeeming acts of Christ. Immersion = Death. Submersion = Burial (the ratification of death). Emergence = Resurrection." In Colossians 2:12 Paul again says: "having been buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead." The same image is here presented. Lightfoot (Church of England) on Colossians (p. 182) says: "Baptism is the grave of the old man, and the birth of the new. As he sinks beneath the baptismal waters, the believer buries there all his corrupt affections and past sins; as he emerges thence, he rises regenerate, quickened to new hopes and new life."
There is nothing in the New Testament to offset this obvious and inevitable interpretation. There are some things which are brought up, but they vanish on examination. The use of "with" after baptize in the English translation is appealed to as disproving immersion. It is enough to reply that the Committee of the American Standard Revision, which had no Baptist member at the final revision, substituted "in" for "with." Thus: "I indeed baptize you in water unto repentance" (Matthew 3:11; compare also Mark 1:8). The use of both "with" and "in" in Luke 3:16 is a needless stickling for the use of the Greek en with the locative case. In Mark 1:8 en is absent in the best manuscripts, and yet the American Revisers correctly render "in." In Acts 1:5 they seek to draw the distinction between the mere locative and en and the locative. As a matter of fact the locative case alone is amply sufficient in Greek without en for the notion of "in." Thus in John 21:8 the translation is: "But the other disciples came in the little boat." There is no en in the Greek, but "the boat" is simply in the locative case. If it be argued that we have the instrumental case (compare the instrumental case of en as in Revelation 6:8, "kill with sword"), the answer is that the way to use water as an instrument in dipping is to put the subject in the water, as the natural way to use the boat (John 21:8) as an instrument is to get into it. The presence or absence of en with baptizo is wholly immaterial. In either case "dip" is the meaning of the verb The objection that three thousand people could not have been immersed in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost is superficial. Jerusalem was abundantly supplied with pools. There were 120 disciples on hand, most of whom were probably men (compare the 70 sent out before by Jesus). It is not at all necessary to suppose that the 12 (Matthias was now one of them) apostles did all the baptizing. But even so, that would be only 250 apiece. I myself have baptized 42 candidates in a half-hour in a creek where there would be no delay. It would at most be only a matter of four or five hours for each of the twelve. Among the Telugus this record has been far exceeded. It is sometimes objected that Paul could not have immersed the jailer in the prison; but the answer is that Luke does not say so. Indeed Luke implies just the opposite: "And he took (took along in the Greek, para) them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized." He took Paul and Silas along with him and found a place for the baptism, probably, somewhere on the prison grounds. There is absolutely nothing in the New Testament to dispute the unvarying significance of baptizo.
5. The Didache: Appeal has been made to the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, which may belong to the first half of the 2nd century. Here for the first time pouring is distinctly admitted as an ordinance in place of immersion. Because of this remarkable passage it is argued by some that, though immersion was the normal and regular baptism, yet alongside of it, pouring was allowed, and that in reality it was a matter of indifference which was used even in the 1st century. But that is not the true interpretation of the facts in the case. The passage deserves to be quoted in full and is here given in the translation of Philip Schaff (Presbyterian) in his edition of the Didache (pp. 184 ff): "Now concerning baptism, baptize thus: Having first taught all these things, baptize ye into (eis) the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, in living water. And if thou hast not living water, baptize into other water; and if thou canst not in cold, then in warm (water). But if thou hast neither, pour water thrice upon the head in (eis) the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." There is thus no doubt that early in the 2nd century some Christians felt that baptism was so important that, when the real baptism (immersion) could not be performed because of lack of water, pouring might be used in its place. This is absolutely all that can be deduced from this passage. It is to be noted that for pouring another word (ekcheo) is used, clearly showing that baptizo does not mean "to po ur." The very exception filed proves the Baptist contention concerning baptizo. Now in the New Testament baptizo is the word used for baptism. Ekcheo is never so used. Harnack in a letter to C. E. W. Dobbs, Madison, Ind. (published in The Independent for February 9, 1885), under date of January 16, 1885 says: "(1) Baptizein undoubtedly signifies immersion (eintauchen). (2) No proof can be found that it signifies anything else in the New Testament and in the most ancient Christian literature. The suggestion regarding `a sacred sense' is out of the question." This is the whole point of the Baptists admirably stated by Adolph Harnack. There is no thought of denying that pouring early in the 2nd century came to be used in place of immersion in certain extreme cases. The meaning of baptizo is not affected a particle by this fact. The question remains as to why this use of pouring in extreme cases grew up. The answer is that it was due to a mistaken and exaggerated estimate put upon the value of baptism as essential to salvation. Those who died without baptism were felt by some to be lost. Thus arose "clinic" baptisms.
6. Baptismal Regeneration: (For the doctrine of baptismal regeneration see Justin Martyr, First Apology, 61.) Out of this perversion of the symbolism of baptism grew both pouring as an ordinance and infant baptism. If baptism is necessary to salvation or the means of regeneration, then the sick, the dying, infants, must be baptized, or at any rate something must be done for them if the real baptism (immersion) cannot be performed because of extreme illness or want of water. The Baptist contention is to protest against the perversion of the significance of baptism as the ruin of the symbol. Baptism, as taught in the New Testament, is the picture of death and burial to sin and resurrection to new life, a picture of what has already taken place in the heart, not the means by which spiritual change is wrought. It is a privilege and duty, not a necessity. It is a picture that is lost when something else is substituted in its place.
II. The Subjects of Baptism. It is significant that even the Teaching of the Twelve apostles with its exaggerated notion of the importance of baptism does not allow baptism of infants. It says: "Having first taught all these things." Instruction precedes baptism. That is a distinct denial of infant baptism. The uniform practice in the New Testament is that baptism follows confession. The people "confessing their sins" were baptized by John (Matthew 3:6). It is frankly admitted by Paedobaptist scholars that the New Testament gives no warrant for infant baptism. Thus Jacobus (Congregationalist) in the Standard Bible Dictionary says: "We have no record in the New Testament of the baptism of infants." Scott (Presbyterian) in the 1-vol HDB says: "The New Testament contains no explicit reference to the baptism of infants or young children." Plummer (Church of England), HDB, says: "The recipients of Christian baptism were required to repent and believe." Marcus Dods (Presbyterian), DCG, says: "A rite wherein by immersion in water the participant symbolizes and signalizes his transition from an impure to a pure life, his death to a past he abandons, and his new birth to a future he desires." It would be hard to state the Baptist interpretation in better terms. Thus no room is found in the New Testament for infant baptism which would symbolize what the infant did not experience or would be understood to cause the regeneration in the child, a form of sacramentalism repugnant to the New Testament teaching as understood by Baptists. The dominant Baptist note is the soul's personal relation to God apart from ordinance, church or priest. The infant who dies unbaptized is saved without baptism. The baptized individual, child (for children are often baptized by Baptists, children who show signs of conversion) or man, is converted before his baptism. The baptism is the symbol of the change already wrought. So clear is this to the Baptist that he bears continual protest against that perversion of this beautiful ordinance by those who treat it as a means of salvation or who make it meaningless when performed before conversion. Baptism is a preacher of the spiritual life. The Baptist contention is for a regenerated church membership, placing the kingdom before the local church. Membership in the kingdom precedes membership in the church. The passages quoted from the New Testament in support of the notion of infant baptism are wholly irrelevant, as, for instance, in Acts 2:39 where there is no such idea as baptism of infants. So in 1 Corinthians 7:14, where note husband and wife. The point is that the marriage relation is sanctified and the children are legitimate, though husband or wife be heathen. The marriage relation is to be maintained. It is begging the question to assume the presence of infants in the various household baptisms in Acts. In the case of the family of Cornelius they all spake with tongues and magnified God (Acts 10:46). The jailer's household "rejoiced greatly" (Acts 16:34). We do not even know that Lydia was married. Her household may have been merely her employes in her business. The New Testament presents no exceptions in this matter.
III. The Present Obligation. The Baptists make one more point concerning baptism. It is that, since Jesus himself submitted to it and enjoined it upon His disciples, the ordinance is of perpetual obligation. The arguments for the late ecclesiastical origin of Matthew 28:19 are not convincing. If it seem strange that Jesus should mention the three persons of the Trinity in connection with the command to baptize, one should remember that the Father and the Spirit were both manifested to Him at His baptism. It was not a mere ceremonial ablution like the Jewish rites. It was the public and formal avowal of fealty to God, and the names of the Trinity properly occur. The new heart is wrought by the Holy Spirit. Reconciliation with the Father is wrought on the basis of the work of the Son, who has manifested the Father's love in His life and death for sin. The fact that in the acts in the examples of baptism only the name of Jesus occurs does not show that this was the exact formula used. It may be a mere historical summary of the essential fact. The name of Jesus stood for the other two persons of the Trinity. On the other hand the command of Jesus may not have been regarded as a formula for baptism; while in no sense sacramental or redemptive, it is yet obligatory and of perpetual significance. It is not to be dropped as one of the Jewish excrescences on Christianity. The form itself is necessary to the significance of the rite. Hence, Baptists hold that immersion alone is to be practiced, sinc e immersion alone was commanded by Jesus and practiced in the New Testament times. Immersion alone sets forth the death to sin, and burial in the grave the resurrection to new life in Christ. Baptism as taught in the New Testament is "a mould of doctrine," a preacher of the heart of the gospel. Baptists deny the right of disciples of Jesus to break that mould. The point of a symbol is the form in which it is cast. To change the form radically is to destroy the symbolism. Baptists insist on the maintenan ce of primitive New Testament baptism because it alone is baptism, it alone proclaims the death and resurrection of Jesus, the spiritual death and resurrection of the believer, the ultimate resurrection of the believer from the grave. The disciple is not above his Lord, and has no right to destroy this rich and powerful picture for the sake of personal convenience, nor because he is willing to do something else which Jesus did not enjoin and which has no association with Him. The long years of perversion do not justify this wrong to the memory of Jesus, but all the more call upon modern disciples to follow the example of Jesus who himself fulfilled righteousness by going into the waters of the Jordan and receiving immersion at the hands of John the Baptist.
LITERATURE.
The Greek Lexicons, like Suicer, Liddell and Scott, Sophocles, Thayer, Preuschen; the Biblical Dictionaries; the Critical Commentaries on the New Testament; books of antiquities like Smith's Dictionary of Christian Antiquities; the new Sch-Herz; Binghara's Antiquities of the Christian Church; Schaff's Creeds of Christendom; Neale's History of the Holy Eastern Church; Lives of Christ, like Edersheim's LTJM, or a survey of the customs of the Jews like Schurer's HJP; books on John the Baptist like Reynolds' John the Baptist, Feather's Last of the Prophets, Robertson's John the Loyal; special treatises on Baptism like Wall's History of Infant Baptism, Stanley's Christian Institutions, Dargan's Ecclesiology, Conant's Baptizein, Mozley's Review of the Baptismal Controversy, Christian's Immersion, Broadus' Immersion, Frost's The Moral Dignity of Baptism, Whitsitt's a Question in Baptist History, Lofton's The Baptist Reformation, Lambert's The Sacraments of the New Testament, Dale's Classic Baptism and Christian and Patristic Baptism, Kirtley's Design of Baptism, Forester's The Baptist Position, Frost's Baptist Why and Why Not, Ford's Studies in Baptism.
A. T. Robertson
Baptism for the Dead
Baptism for the Dead - (baptizomai huper ton nekron).
1. Paul's Argument: Some of the Corinthian Christians denied the resurrection of the dead, and Paul advances three arguments to convince them that the dead will be raised: (1) "If there is no resurrection of the dead, neither hath Christ been raised," but Christ is raised (1 Corinthians 15:13, 20). (2) If the dead are not raised, why are men being baptized for the dead (1 Corinthians 15:29)? (3) Why should the apostle himself wage his spiritual warfare (1 Corinthians 15:30)? The first argument rests upon the central fact of Christianity, and the other two are appeals to the consistency of the Corinthians, and of Paul himself. Whatever "baptism for the dead" meant, it was, in Paul's opinion, as real, valid and legitimate a premise from which to conclude that the dead would rise as his own sufferings. The natural meaning of the words is obvious. Men in Corinth, and possibly elsewhere, were being continually baptized on behalf of others who were at the time dead, with a view to benefiting them in the resurrection, but if there be no resurrection, what shall they thus accomplish, and why do they do it? "The only legitimate reference is to a practice .... of survivors allowing themselves to be baptized on behalf of (believing?) friends who had died without baptism" (Alford in the place cited.).
2. Patristic Evidence: Tertullian believed that Paul referred to a custom of vicarious baptism (Res., 48c; Adv. Marc., 5.10). There is evidence that the early church knew such a practice. Epiphanius mentions a tradition that the custom obtained among the Cerinthians (Haer., 28 6). And Chrysostom states that it prevailed among the Marcionites.
3. Modern Views: But commentators have offered between thirty and forty other interpretations, more or less strained, of the passage. (For a summary of different views see T. C. Edwards and Stanley, Comms., at the place) Two of the most reasonable views from recent commentators are: "What shall they do who receive baptism on account of the dead? i.e. with a view to the resurrection of the dead?" and therefore to sharing in it themselves (Canon Evans, Speaker's Comm., at the place); "that the death of Christians led to the conversion of survivors, who in the first instance `for the sake of the dead' (their beloved dead), and in the hope of reunion, turn to Christ" (Findlay, Expositor's Greek Test., at the place). Both ideas may be true, but they are simply imported into this passage, and the latter also is quite irrelevant to the argument and makes Paul identify conversion with baptism.
4. The Difficulty: But why is all this ingenuity expended to evade the natural meaning? Because (1) such a custom would be a superstition involving the principle of opus operarum; and (2) Paul could not share or even tolerate a contemporary idea which is now regarded as superstition. To reply (with Alford) that Paul does not approve the custom will not serve the purpose, for he would scarcely base so great an argument, even as an argumentum ad hominem, on a practice which he regarded as wholly false and superstitious. The retort of those who denied the resurrection would be too obvious. But why should it be necessary to suppose that Paul rose above all the limitations of his age? The idea that symbolic acts had a vicarious significance had sunk deeply into the Jewish mind, and it would not be surprising if it took more than twenty years for the leaven of the gospel to work all the Jew out of Paul. At least it serves the apostle's credit ill to make his argument meaningless or absurd in order to save him from sharing at all in the inadequate conceptions of his age. He made for himself no claim of infallibility.
T. Rees
Baptism of Fire
Baptism of Fire - (en pneumati hagio kai puri): This expression is used in Matthew 3:11. The copulative kai requires that the baptism "in the Holy Ghost and in fire," should be regarded as one and the same thing. It does violence to the construction, therefore, to make this statement refer to the fire Of judgment. The difficulty has always been in associating fire with the person of the Holy Ghost. But in the connection of fire with the work or influence of the Holy Ghost the difficulty disappears. The thought of John is that the Saviour would give them the Divine Sanctifier as purifying water to wash away their sins and as a refining fire to consume their dross; to kindle in their hearts the holy flame of Divine love and zeal; to illuminate their souls with heavenly wisdom. The statement, therefore, in this verse indicates the manner in which Christ will admit them to discipleship and prepare them for His service.
See BAPTISM; FIRE.
Jacob W. Kapp
Baptism of the Holy Spirit
Baptism of the Holy Spirit - 1. The Biblical Material: The expression "baptism of the Holy Spirit" is based on a number of predictions found in our four Gospels and in connection with these the record of their fulfillment in the Book of Acts. The passages in the Gospels are as follows: Matthew 3:11: "I indeed baptize you in water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire." The last clause is autos humas baptisei en pneumati hagio kai puri. In Mark 1:8 and Luke 3:16 we have the declaration in a slightly modified form; and in John 1:33 John the Baptist declares that the descent of the Spirit upon Jesus at the baptism of the latter marked out Jesus as "he that baptizeth in the Holy Spirit." Again in John 7:37-38 we read: "Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, from within him shall flow rivers of living water." Then the evangelist adds in John 7:39: "But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believed on him were to receive: for the Spirit was not yet given; because Jesus was not yet glorified." These are the specific references in the four Gospels to the baptisms of the Holy Spirit. In Acts we find direct reference by Luke to the promised baptism in the Holy Spirit. In Acts 1:5 Jesus, just before the ascension, contrasts John's baptism in water with the baptism in the Holy Spirit which the disciples are to receive "not many days hence," and in Acts 1:8 power in witnessing for Jesus is predicted as the result of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. On the evening of the resurrection day Jesus appeared to the disciples and "he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Spirit" (John 20:22). This was probably not a wholly symbolic act but an actual communication to the disciples, in some measure, of the gift of the Spirit, preliminary to the later complete bestowal.
We observe next the fulfillment of these predictions as recorded in Acts. The gift of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost and the miraculous manifestations which followed are clearly the chief historical fulfillment of the prediction of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Among the manifestations of the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost were first those which were physical, such as "a sound as of the rushing of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting" (Acts 2:2), and the appearance of "tongues parting asunder, like as of fire; and it sat upon each one of them" (Acts 2:3). Secondly, there were spiritual results: "And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance" (Acts 2:4). In Acts 2:16 ff Peter declares that this bestowment of the Holy Spirit is in fulfillment of the prediction made by the prophet Joel and he cites the words in Acts 2:28 ff of Joel's prophecy.
There is one other important passage in Acts in which reference is made to the baptism of the Holy Spirit. While Peter was speaking to Cornelius (Acts 10:44) the Holy Spirit fell on all that heard the word and they of the circumcision who were with Peter "were amazed" "because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Spirit." When giving the brethren at Jerusalem an account of his visit to Cornelius, Peter dec]ares that this event which he had witnessed was a baptism of the Holy Spirit (Acts 11:16): "And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit."
2. Significance of Baptism of the Holy Spirit: We consider next the significance of the baptism of the Holy Spirit from various points of view.
(1) From the Point of View of Old Testament Teaching as to the Gift of the Spirit.
The prophecy of Joel quoted by Peter indicates something extraordinary in the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost. The Spirit now comes in new forms of manifestation and with new power. The various classes mentioned as receiving the Spirit indicate the wide diffusion of the new power. In the Old Testament usually the Spirit was bestowed upon individuals; here the gift is to the group of disciples, the church. Here the gift is permanently bestowed, while in the Old Testament it was usually transient and for a special purpose. Here again the Spirit comes in fullness as contrasted with the partial bestowment in Old Testament times.
(2) From the Point of View of the Ascended Christ.
In Luke 24:49 Jesus commands the disciples to tarry in the city "until ye be clothed with power from on high," and in John 15:26 He speaks of the Comforter "whom I will send unto you from the Father," "he shall bear witness of me"; and in John 16:13 Jesus declares that the Spirit when He comes shall guide the disciples into all truth, and He shall show them things to come. In this verse the Spirit is called the Spirit of truth. It was fitting that the Spirit who was to interpret truth and guide into all truth should come in fullness after, rather than before, the completion of the life-task of the Messiah. The historical manifestation of Divine truth as thus completed made necessary the gift of the Spirit in fullness. Christ Himself was the giver of the Spirit. The Spirit now takes the place of the ascended Christ, or rather takes the things of Christ and shows them to the disciples. The baptism of the Spirit at Pentecost thus becomes the great historic event signalizing the beginning of a new era in the kingdom of God in which the whole movement is lifted to the spiritual plane, and the task of evangelizing the world is formally begun.
(3) The Significance of the Baptism of the Spirit from the Point of View of the Disciples.
It can scarcely be said with truth that Pentecost was the birthday of the church. Jesus had spoken of His church during His earthly ministry. The spiritual relation to Christ which constitutes the basis of the church existed prior to the baptism of the Holy Spirit. But that baptism established the church in several ways. First in unity. The external bond of unity now gives place to an inner spiritual bond of profound significance. Secondly, the church now becomes conscious of a spiritual mission, and theocratic ideals of the kingdom disappear. Thirdly, the church is now endued with power for its work. Among the gifts bestowed were the gift of prophecy in the large sense of speaking for God, and the gift of tongues which enabled disciples to speak in foreign tongues. The account in the second chapter of Acts admits of no other construction. There was also bestowed power in witnessing for Christ. This was indeed one of the most prominent blessings named in connection with the promise of the baptism of the Spirit. The power of working miracles was also bestowed (Acts 3:4 ff; Acts 5:12 ff). Later in the epistles of Paul much emphasis is given to the Spirit as the sanctifying agency in the hearts of believers. In Acts the word of the Spirit is chiefly Messianic, that is, the Spirit's activity is all seen in relation to the extension of the Messianic kingdom. The occasion for the outpouring of the Spirit is Pentecost when men from all nations are assembled in Jerusalem. The symbolic representation of tongues of fire is suggestive of preaching, and the glossolalia, or speaking with tongues which followed, so that men of various nations heard the gospel in their own languages, indicates that the baptism of the Spirit had a very special relation to the task of world-wide evangelization for the bringing in of the kingdom of God.
3. Finality of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit: The question is often raised whether or not the baptism of the Holy Spirit occurred once for all or is repeated in subsequent baptisms. The evidence seems to point to the former view to the extent at least of being limited to outpourings which took place in connection with events recorded in the early chapters of the Book of Acts. The following considerations favor this view:
(1) In the first chapter of Acts Jesus predicts, according to Luke's account, that the baptism of the Holy Spirit would take place, "not many days hence" (Acts 1:5). This would seem to point to a definite and specific event rather than to a continuous process.
(2) Again, Peter's citation in Acts 2:17-21 of Joel's prophecy shows that in Peter's mind the event which his hearers were then witnessing was the definite fulfillment of the words of Joel.
(3) Notice in the third place that only one other event in the New Testament is described as the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and for special reasons this may be regarded as the completion of the Pentecostal baptism. The passage is that contained in Acts 10:1 through Acts 11:18 in which the record is given of the following events: (a) miraculous vision given to Peter on the housetop (Acts 10:11-16) indicating that the things about to occur are of unique importance; (b) the speaking with tongues (Acts 10:45-46); (c) Peter declares to the brethren at Jerusalem that the Holy Ghost fell on the Gentiles in this instance of Cornelius and his household "as on us at the beginning" (Acts 11:15); (d) Peter also declares that this was a fulfillment of the promise of the baptism of the Holy Spirit (Acts 11:16-17); (e) the Jewish Christians who heard Peter's account of the matter acknowledged this as proof that God had also extended the privileges of the gospel to the Gentiles (Acts 11:18). The baptism of the Holy Spirit bestowed upon Cornelius and his household is thus directly linked with the first outpouring at Pentecost, and as the event which signalized the opening of the door of the gospel formally to Gentiles it is in complete harmony with the missionary significance of the first great Pentecostal outpouring. It was a turning point or crisis in the Messianic kingdom and seems designed to complete the Pentecostal gift by showing that Gentiles as well as Jews are to be embraced in all the privileges of the new dispensation.
(4) We observe again that nowhere in the epistles do we find a repetition of the baptism of the Spirit. This would be remarkable if it had been understood by the writers of the epistles that the baptism of the Spirit was frequently to be repeated. There is no evidence outside the Book of Acts that the baptism of the Spirit ever occurred in the later New Testament times. In 1 Corinthians 12:13 Paul says, "For in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, .... and were all made to drink of one Spirit." But here the reference is not to the baptism of the Spirit, but rather to a baptism into the church which is the body of Christ. We conclude, therefore, that the Pentecostal baptism taken in conjunction with the baptism of the Spirit in the case of Cornelius completes the baptism of the Holy Spirit according to the New Testament teaching. The baptism of the Spirit as thus bestowed was, however, the definite gift of the Spirit in His fullness for every form of spiritual blessing necessary in the progress of the kingdom and as the permanent and abiding gift of God to His people. In all subsequent New Testament writings there is the assumption of this presence of the Spirit and of His availability for all believers. The various commands and exhortations of the epistles are based on the assumption that the baptism of the Spirit has already taken place, and that, according to the prediction of Jesus to the disciples, the Spirit was to abide with them forever (John 14:16). We should not therefore confound other forms of expression found in the New Testament with the baptism of the Holy Spirit. When Christians are enjoined to "walk by the Spirit" (Galatians 5:16) and "be filled with the Spirit" (Ephesians 5:18), or when the Spirit is described as an anointing (chrisma) as in 1 John 2:20-27, and as the "earnest of our inheritance" (arrabon). as in Ephesians 1:14, and when various other similar expressions are employed in the epistles of the New Testament, we are not to understand the baptism of the Holy Spirit. These expressions indicate aspects of the Spirit's work in believers or of the believer's appropriation of the gifts and blessings of the Spirit rather than the historical baptism of the Spirit.
4. Relation of Baptism of the Spirit to Other Baptisms:
Three final points require brief attention, namely, the relation of the baptism of the Spirit to the baptism in water, and to the baptism in fire, and to the laying on of hands.
(1) We note that the baptism in fire is coupled with the baptism in the Spirit in Matthew 3:11 and in Luke 3:16. These passages give the word of John the Baptist. John speaks of the coming One who "shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire" (Luke 3:16). This baptism in fire is often taken as being parallel and synonymous with the baptism in the Spirit. The context however in both Matthew and Luke seems to favor another meaning. Jesus' Messianic work will be both cleansing and destructive. The "you" addressed by John included the people generally and might naturally embrace both classes, those whose attitude to Jesus would be believing and those who would refuse to believe. His action as Messiah would affect all men. Some He would regenerate and purify through the Holy Ghost. Others He would destroy through the fire of punishment. This view is favored by the context in both gospels. In both the destructive energy of Christ is coupled with His saving power in other terms which admit of no doubt. The wheat He gathers into the garner and the chaff He burns with unquenchable fire.
(2) The baptism of the Holy Spirit was not meant to supersede water baptism. This is clear from the whole of the history in the Book of Acts, where water baptism is uniformly administered to converts after the Pentecostal baptism of the Spirit, as well as from the numerous references to water baptisms in the epistles. The evidence here is so abundant that it is unnecessary to develop it in detail. See Romans 6:3; 1 Corinthians 1:14-17; 10:2; 12:13; 15:29; Galatians 3:27; Ephesians 4:5; Colossians 2:12; 1 Peter 3:21.
(3) In Acts 8:17 and Acts 19:6 the Holy Spirit is bestowed in connection with the laying on of the hands of apostles, but these are not to be regarded as instances of the baptism of the Spirit in the strict sense, but rather as instances of the reception by believers of the Spirit which had already been bestowed in fullness at Pentecost.
LITERATURE.
Arts. on Holy Spirit in Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible (five volumes) and Hastings, Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels; article on "Spiritual Gifts" in Encyclopedia Biblica; Moule, Veni Creator; Smeaton, The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit; Kuyper, The Work of the Holy Spirit.
See also HOLY SPIRIT.
E. Y. Mullins
Baptism, Infant
Baptism, Infant - See BAPTISM(I),II ; (II ),III , 3, v; (III ),III , 3.
Baptismal Regeneration
Baptismal Regeneration - bap-tiz'-mal re-jen-er-a'-shun: As indicated in the general articles on BAPTISM and SACRAMENTS, the doctrine ordinarily held by Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists, Methodists, and also by Low-Church Episcopalians, differs from that of the Roman and Greek churches, and of High-Church Anglicans, in its rejection of the idea that baptism is the instrumental cause of regeneration, and that the grace of regeneration is effectually conveyed through the administration of that rite wherever duly performed. The teaching of Scripture on this subject is held to be that salvation is immediately dependent on faith, which, as a fruit of the operation of the Spirit of God in the soul, already, in its reception of Christ, implies the regenerating action of that Spirit, and is itself one evidence of it. To faith in Christ is attached the promise of forgiveness, and of all other blessings. Baptism is administered to those who already possess (at least profess) this faith, and symbolizes the dying to sin and rising to righteousness implicit in the act of faith (Romans 6:1-23). It is the symbol of a cleansing from sin and renewal by God's Spirit, but not the agency effecting that renewal, even instrumentally. Baptism is not, indeed, to be regarded as a bare symbol. It may be expected that its believing reception will be accompanied by fresh measures of grace, strengthening and fitting for the new life. This, however, as the life is already there, has nothing to do with the idea of baptism as an opus operatum, working a spiritual change in virtue of its mere administration. In Scripture the agency with which regeneration is specially connected is the Divine "word" (compare 1 Peter 1:23). Without living faith, in those capable of its exercise, the outward rite can avail nothing. The supposed "regeneration" may be received--in multitudes of instances is received--without the least apparent change in heart or life.
The above, naturally, applies to adults; the case of children, born and growing up within the Christian community, is on a different footing. Those who recognize the right of such to baptism hold that in the normal Christian development children of believing parents should be the subjects of Divine grace from the commencement (Ephesians 6:4); they therefore properly receive the initiatory rite of the Christian church. The faith of the parent, in presenting his child for baptism, lays hold on God's promise to be a God to him and to his children; and he is entitled to hope for that which baptism pledges to him. But this, again, has no relation to the idea of regeneration through baptism.
James Orr
ANGLICAN (HIGH-CHURCH) DOCTRINE
Regeneration, the initial gift of life in Christ, is, in the church's normal system, associated with the sacrament of baptism. The basis for this teaching and practice of the church is found primarily in our Lord's discourse to Nicodemus (John 3:1-8) wherein the new birth is associated not only with the quickening Spirit but with the element of water. The Saviour's words, literally translated, are as follows: "Except one be born (out) of water and Spirit (ex hudatos kai pneumatos gennaomai), he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." (That it is the impersonal aspect of the Divine Spirit, i.e. as equivalent to "spiritual life" which is here presented, is indicated by the absence of the article in the Greek of John 3:5.) Entrance into the kingdom of God implies entrance into the church as the outward and visible embodiment of that kingdom. our Lord, in the passage above cited, does not limit the possibility or the need of "new birth" to those who have arrived at adult age, or "years of discretion," but uses the general pronoun tis, "anyone." The Anglican church does not, however, teach that baptism is unconditionally necessary, but only that it is "generally" necessary to salvation (compare the language of the Church Catechism with the qualification mentioned in the Prayer-Book "Office for the Baptism of Those of Riper Years," "Whereby ye may perceive the great necessity of this Sacrament, where it may be had"). It is not taught that the grace of God is absolutely or unconditionally bound to the external means, but only that these sacramental agencies are the ordinary and normal channels of Divine grace.
The typical form of baptism is that appropriate to the initiation of adults into the Christian body. Justin Martyr in his First Apology (chapter lxi) no doubt testifies to what was the general view of Christians in the 2nd century (circa 150 AD): "As many as are persuaded and believe that the things taught and said by us are true, and, moreover, take upon them to live accordingly, are taught to pray and ask of God with fasting for forgiveness of their former sins; .... and then they are brought to a place of water, and there regenerated after the same manner with ourselves; for they are washed in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit." For the due administration of this sacrament, personal faith and repentance on the part of the candidate are prerequisite conditions. However, "the baptism of young children" (i.e. of infants) "is in any wise to be retained in the Church, as most agreeable to the institution of Christ" (XXXIX Articles, Art. XXVII, sub fin.). In the service "For the Baptism of Infants," repentance and faith are promised for the children by their "sureties" (ordinarily known as "sponsors" or "godparents"), "which promise, when they come to age (the children) themselves are bound to perform."
The person, whether adult or infant, receives in his baptism a real forgiveness; a washing away of all sins, whether original or actual. He also receives, at least in germ, the beginnings of new life in Christ; which life, however, must be developed and brought to perfection through his personal cooperation with the grace of God. But regeneration, as such, is not conversion; it is not even faith or love, strictly speaking. These latter, while they are conditions, or effects, or evidences of regeneration, are not regeneration itself, which is purely the work of God, operating by His creative power, through the Holy Ghost. The moral test of the existence of spiritual life is the presence in heart and conduct of the love of God and of obedience to His commandments (see 1 Jn passim).
It may be added that the bestowment of the gifts of spiritual strength--of the manifold graces and of the fullness of the Holy Spirit--is primarily associated with the laying on of hands (confirmation) rather than with baptism proper; the rite of confirmation was, however, originally connected with the baptismal service, as an adjunct to it. The newly-made Christian is not to rest content with the initial gift of life; he is bound to strive forward unto perfection. Confirmation is, in a sense, the completion of baptism. "The doctrine of laying on of hands" is accordingly connected with "the doctrine of baptisms," and both are reckoned by the author of the Epistle to the He as among "the first principles of Christ" (Hebrews 6:1-2 the King James Version).
LITERATURE.
For the Anglican doctrine on the subject of regeneration in baptism the following authorities may be consulted: Hooker, Ecclesiastical Polity, V, lix, lx; Waterland, The Doct. Use of Christian Sacraments; Regeneration; Wall, Infant Baptism; R. I. Wilberforce, The Doctrine of Holy Baptism; Darwell Stone, Holy Baptism, in "The Oxford Library of Practical Theology"; A. J. Mason, The Faith of the Gospel. For patristic teaching on this subject, compare Tertullian, De Baptismo.
William Samuel Bishop
LUTHERAN DOCTRINE
1. Definition of Terms: Regeneration is here taken in its strict meaning to denote that internal spiritual change, not of the substance, but of the qualities, of the intellect and will of natural man, by which blindness, darkness in regard to spiritual matters, especially the gospel, is removed from the former, and spiritual bondage, impotency, death from the latter (2 Corinthians 3:5; Acts 26:18; Philippians 2:13), and the heart of the sinner is made to savingly know and appropriate the Lord Jesus Christ and the merits of His atoning sacrifice, as its only hope for a God-pleasing life here in time and a life in glory hereafter. Regeneration in the strict sense signifies the first spiritual movements and impulses in man, the beginning of his thinking Divine thoughts, cherishing holy desires and willing God-like volitions. But it does not signify the radical extinction of sin in man; for evil concupiscence remains also in the regenerate as a hostile element to the new life (Romans 7:23-25; Galatians 5:16-17). Peccatum tollitur in baptismo, non ut non sit, sed ut non obsit--Augustine. "Sin is removed in baptism, not that it may not be, but that it may not hurt." Reduced to its lowest terms, regeneration in the strict sense may be defined as the kindling of saving faith in the heart of the sinner; for according to 1 John 5:1, "whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is begotten of God." Such terms as new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15 margin), spiritual quickening, or vivification (Ephesians 2:5; Romans 6:11), spiritual resurrection (Ephesians 2:6; Colossians 3:1), are true synonyms of regeneration in the strict sense. In the point of time justification coincides with regeneration in the strict sense; for it is by faith, too, that the sinner is justified. But these two spiritual events must not be confounded; for justification affects, not the internal conditions of the sinner's heart, but his legal standing with God the righteous Judge. Regeneration is called baptismal regeneration in so far as it occurs in the event and as an effect of the application of the Christian baptism.
See BAPTISM(I), I, 6.
2. Scriptural Basis of This Doctrine: The two leading texts of Scripture which declare in plain terms that baptism is a means for effecting regeneration in the strict sense are John 3:5 and Titus 3:5. But this doctrine is implied in Acts 2:38; Ephesians 5:26; Galatians 3:27; 1 Peter 3:21. In John 3:7 it is immaterial whether anothen gennethenai is rendered "to be born from above" or "to be born a second time." For the second birth is never of the flesh (John 1:13; John 3:4-5); hence, is always of divine origin, "from above." It is ascribed to the agency of the entire Trinity: the Father (James 1:18; 1 Peter 1:3); the Son (John 1:12); and the Spirit (Titus 3:5). But by appropriation it is generally attributed to the Spirit alone, whose particular function is that of Quickener (see Cremer, Bibl.-theol. Worterb., 9th edition, under the word "pneuma," 894 f). Baptism is an instrument by which the Holy Spirit effects regeneration. "Water and the Spirit" (John 3:5) is a paraphrastic description of baptism: "water," inasmuch as the man is baptized therewith (1 John 5:7-8; Ephesians 5:26) for the forgiveness of sin (Acts 2:33; 22:16; 1 Corinthians 6:11), and "Spirit," inasmuch as the Holy Ghost is given to the person baptized in order to his spiritual renewal and sanctification; "both together--the former as causa medians, the latter as causa efficiens--constitute the objective and causative element out of which (compare John 1:13) the birth from above is produced (ek)" (Meyer). In Titus 3:5 "the expression to loutrou palingenesias, literally, `bath of regeneration,' has been very arbitrarily interpreted by some expositors, some taking loutron as a figurative name for the regeneration itself, or for the praedicario evangelii, `preaching of the gospel' or for the Holy Spirit, or for the abundant imparting of the Spirit. From Ephesians 5:26 it is clear that it can mean nothing else than baptism; compare too, Hebrews 10:22; 1 Corinthians 6:11; Acts 22:16." Of this laver of regeneration Paul says that through it (dia), i.e. by its instrumentality, men are saved. Meyer is right when, correcting a former view of his, he states: "According to the context, Paul calls baptism the bath of the new birth, not meaning that it pledges us to the new birth (`to complete the process of moral purification, of expiation and sanctification,' Matthies), nor that it is a visible image of the new birth (De Wette), for neither in the one sense nor in the other could it be regarded as a means of saving. Paul uses that name for it as the bath by means of which God actually brings about the new birth." The application of baptism and the operation of the Spirit must be viewed as one undivided action. Thus the offense of Spurgeon, Weiss and others at "regeneration by water-baptism" can be removed.
3. Faith in Baptism: Baptism does not produce salutary effects ex opere operato, i.e. by the mere external performance of the baptismal action. No instrument with which Divine grace works does. Even the preaching of the gospel is void of saving results if not "mixed with faith" (Hebrews 4:2 the King James Version). Luther correctly describes the working of baptism thus: "How can water do such great things? It is not the water indeed that does them, but the Word of God which is in and with the water (God's giving hand), and faith which trusts such word of God in the water (man's receiving hand)." But this faith, which is required for a salutary use of the gospel and baptism, is wrought by these as instruments which the Holy Spirit employs to produce faith; not by imparting to them a magical power but by uniting His Divine power with them (Romans 10:17; 2 Corinthians 4:6; Ephesians 5:26).
4. Infants and Adults: The comprehensive statements in John 3:6; Ephesians 2:3 ("by nature") show that infants are in need of being regenerated, and Matthew 18:3, 6, that they are capable of faith. It is not more difficult for the Holy Spirit to work faith in infants by baptism, than in adults by the preaching of the gospel. And infant faith, though it may baffle our attempts at exact definition, is nevertheless honored in Scripture with the word which denotes genuine faith, pisteuein, i.e. trustfully relying on Christ (Matthew 18:6; compare 2 Timothy 3:15; 1:5). In the case of adults who have received faith through hearing and reading the gospel (James 1:18; 1 Peter 1:23; 1 Corinthians 4:15), baptism is still "the washing of regeneration," because it is a seal to them of the righteousness which these people have previously obtained by believing the gospel (Romans 4:11-13; Galatians 3:7); and it reminds them of, and enables them to discharge, their daily duty of putting away the old and putting on the new man (Ephesians 4:22, 24), just as the Word is still the regenerating word of truth (James 1:18) though it be preached to persons who are regenerated a long time ago. Accordingly, Luther rightly extends the regenerating and renewing influences of baptism throughout the life of a Christian, when he says "Baptizing with water signifies that the old Adam in us should, by daily contrition and repentance, be drowned and die, with all sins and evil lusts; and, again, a new man should come forth and arise, who shall live before God in righteousness and purity forever" (Smaller Catechism).
W. H. T. Dau
Baptist
Baptist - bap'-tist.
See JOHN THE BAPTIST.
Bar (1)
Bar (1) - bar (prefix): Aramaic for the Hebrew ben, "son." Compare Aramaic sections of Ezra and Daniel. In the Old Testament the word is found three times in Proverbs 31:2 and once in Syriac Psalms 2:12 (Hier. translates "pure"). In the New Testament "Bar" is frequently employed as prefix to names of persons. Compare Barabbas; Bar-Jesus; Bar-Jonah; Barnabas; Barsabbas; Bartholomew; Bartimeus.
See BEN.
Bar (2)
Bar (2) - bar (substantive):
(1) beriach = "a bolt" (Exodus 26:26-29; 35:11; Exodus 36:31-34; 39:33; 40:18; Numbers 3:36; 4:31; Deuteronomy 3:5; Judges 16:3; 1 Samuel 23:7; 1 Kings 4:13; 2 Chronicles 8:5; 14:7; Nehemiah 3:3, 6, 13-15; Job 38:10 "bars and doors" for the sea (the bank or shore of the sea); Psalms 107:16; 147:13 "the bars of thy gates": the walls of the city were now rebuilt and its gates only closed and barred by night (see Nehemiah 7:3); Proverbs 18:19, "bars of a castle"; Isaiah 45:2; Jeremiah 49:31; 51:30; Lamentations 2:9; Ezekiel 38:11): meaning "a rock in the sea" (Jonah 2:6).
(2) moT = "a staff," "stick," "pole" (Numbers 4:10, 12 margin); "strong fortification and great impediment" (Isaiah 45:2; Amos 1:5, "the bolt of Damascus": no need here to render prince, as some do (G. A. Smith in the place cited.)).
(3) badh = "staff," "part of body," "strength" (Job 17:16, "bars of Sheol": the gates of the world of the dead; compare Isaiah 38:10; some read, "Will the bars of Sheol fall?").
(4) meTil = "something hammered out, a (forged) bar" (Job 40:18).
Frank E. Hirsch
Barabbas
Barabbas - ba-rab'-as (Barabbas): For Aramaic Bar-abba = literally, "son of the father," i.e. of the master or teacher. Abba in the time of Jesus was perhaps a title of honor (Matthew 23:9), but became later a proper name. The variant Barrabban found in the Harclean Syriac would mean "son of the rabbi or teacher." Origen knew and does not absolutely condemn a reading of Matthew 27:16-17, which gave the name "Jesus Barabbas," but although it is also found in a few cursives and in the Aramaic and the Jerusalem Syriac versions in this place only, it is probably due to a scribe's error in transcription (Westcott-Hort, App., 19-20). If the name was simply Barabbas or Barrabban, it may still have meant that the man was a rabbi's son, or it may have been a purely conventional proper name, signifying nothing. He was the criminal chosen by the Jerusalem mob, at the instigation of the priests, in preference to Jesus Christ, for Pilate to release on the feast of Passover (Mark 15:15; Matthew 27:20-21; Luke 23:18; John 18:40). Matthew calls him "a notable (i.e. notorious) prisoner" (27:16). Mk says that he was "bound with them that had made insurrection, men who in the insurrection had committed murder" (John 15:7). Luke states that he was cast into prison "for a certain insurrection made in the city, and for murder" (23:19; compare Acts 3:14). John calls him a "robber" or "brigand" (Acts 18:28). Nothing further is known of him, nor of the insurrection in which he took part. Luke's statement that he was a murderer is probably a deduction from Mark's more circumstantial statement, that he was only one of a gang, who in a rising had committed murder. Whether robbery was the motive of his crime, as Jn suggests, or whether he was "a man who had raised a revolt against the Roman power" (Gould) cannot be decided. But it seems equally improbable that the priests (the pro-Roman party) would urge the release of a political prisoner and that Pilate would grant it, especially when the former were urging, and the latter could not resist, the execution of Jesus on a political charge (Luke 23:2). The insurrection may have been a notorious case of brigandage. To say that the Jews would not be interested in the release of such a prisoner, is to forget the history of mobs. The custom referred to of releasing a prisoner on the Passover is otherwise unknown. "What Matthew (and John) represents as brought about by Pilate, Mark makes to appear as if it were suggested by the people themselves. An unessential variation" (Meyer). For a view of the incident as semi-legendary growth, see Schmiedel in Encyclopedia Biblica. See also Allen, Matthew, and Gould, Mark, at the place, and article "Barabbas" by Plummer in Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible (five volumes).
T. Rees
Barachel
Barachel - bar'-a-kel (barakh'el, "God blesses"): Barachel, the Buzite, of the family of Ram, was the father of Elihu, who was the last one to reason with Job (Job 32:2, 6). Compare BUZ; RAM.
Barachiah
Barachiah - bar-a-ki'-a (Barachias; the King James Version Barachias; Matthew 23:35): Father of Zachariah who was murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. It is possible that reference is made to Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada (2 Chronicles 24:20 ff), whom Matthew by mistake calls "Z., the son of Barachiah." Luke 11:51 omits the name of the father of Z. (compare Zahn's Kommentar, 649, note).
Barachias
Barachias - bar-a-ki'-as.
See BARACHIAH.
Barak
Barak - ba'-rak (baraq, "lightning flash"): The name occurs in Sabeanbarqac, in Palmyrene baraq, and in Punic Barcas, as surname of Hamilcar; and as Divine name in Assyrian Ramman-Birqu and Gibil-Birqu (Del. Assyrian, HWB, 187). Barak was the son of Abinoam of Kedesh, a refuge city in Mt. Naphtali. He was summoned by the prophetess Deborah to lead his countrymen to war against the Canaanites under the leadership of Sisera. From the celebrated ode of Deborah we gather that Israel suffered at the hand of the enemy; the caravan roads were in danger, traffic almost ceased; the cultivated country was plundered (Judges 5:6-7). The fighting men in Israel were disarmed, a shield was not to be seen nor a spear among forty thousand men (Judges 5:8). The prophetess raised the signal of struggle for independence. Soon Barak came to her aid. With an army of 10,000 men--according to Judges 4:10 they were all drawn from Zebulun and Naphtali, whereas Judges 5:13-18 adds Benjamin, Machir and Issachar to the list of faithful tribes--Barak, accompanied by Deborah, rushed to the summit of Mt. Tabor. This location was very favorable to the rudely armed Israelites in warding off the danger of the well-armed enemy. The wooded slopes protected them against the chariots of the Canaanites. In addition they were within striking distance should the enemy expose himself on the march. Under the heavy rainfall the alluvial plain became a morass, in which the heavy-armed troops found it impossible to move. Soon the little stream Kishon was filled with chariots, horses and Canaanites. Sisera abandoned his chariot and fled on foot. Barak pursued him and found him murdered by Jael in her tent. This completed the victory. See BEDAN; Moore, "Judges," at the place.
Samuel Cohon
Barbarian; Barbarous
Barbarian; Barbarous - bar-ba'-ri-an, bar'-ba-rus (barbaros): A word probably formed by imitation of the unintelligible sounds of foreign speech, and hence, in the mouth of a Greek it meant anything that was not Greek, language, people or customs. With the spread of Greek language and culture, it came to be used generally for all that was non-Greek. Philo and Josephus sometimes called their own nation "barbarians," and so did Roman writers up to the Augustan age, when they adopted Greek culture, and reckoned themselves with the Greeks as the only cultured people in the world. Therefore Greek and barbarian meant the whole human race (Romans 1:14).
In Colossians 3:11, "barbarian, Scythian" is not a classification or antithesis but a "climax" (Abbott) = "barbarians, even Scythians, the lowest type of barbarians." In Christ, all racial distinctions, even the most pronounced, disappear.
In 1 Corinthians 14:11 Paul uses the term in its more primitive sense of one speaking a foreign, and therefore, an unintelligible language: "If then I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be to him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh will be a barbarian unto me." The speaking with tongues would not be a means of communication. The excited inarticulate ejaculations of the Corinthian revivalists were worse than useless unless someone had the gift of articulating in intelligible language the force of feeling that produced them (dunamis tes phones, literally, "the power of the sound").
In Acts 28:2, 4 (in the King James Version of Acts 28:2 "barbarous people" = barbarians) the writer, perhaps from the Greek-Roman standpoint, calls the inhabitants of Melita barbarians, as being descendants of the old Phoenician settlers, or possibly in the more general sense of "strangers." For the later sense of "brutal," "cruel," "savage," see 2 Maccabees 2:21; 4:25; 15:2.
T. Rees
Barber
Barber - bar'-ber:
(1) The English word "barber" is from Latin barba, "beard" = a man who shaves the beard. Dressing and trimming the hair came to be added to his work. "Barber" is found only once English Versions of the Bible, in Ezekiel 5:1, "Take thee a sharp sword; as a barber's razor shalt thou take it unto thee, and shalt cause it to pass upon thy head and upon thy beard" (compare Chaghigha' 4b, Shab, section 6).
(2) In Genesis 41:14 we probably have a case of conformity to Egyptian, rather than Palestinian custom, where Joseph "shaved himself, and changed his raiment, and came in unto Pharaoh." It is known that Egyptians of the higher classes shaved the beard regularly and completely (as the Hittites, Elamites and early Babylonians seem to have done), except that fashion allowed, as an exception to the rule, a small tuft, or "goatee," under the chin.
(3) We learn from various Scriptural allusions, as well as from other sources (compare W. Max Muller, Asien und Europa, 296 ff), that the business of the oriental barber included, besides ceremonial shaving, the trimming and polling of the hair and the beard. Compare 2 Samuel 19:24 where it appears that the moustache (Hebrew sapham; the King James Version "beard") received regular trimming; and 1 Samuel 21:14, where the neglect of the beard is set down as a sign of madness.
That men wore wigs and false beards in ancient days, the latter showing the rank of the wearer, appears from Herodotus ii.36; iii.12; and Wilkinson, Anc. Egypt, II, 324, etc. Josephus, Vita, II, gives one case where false hair appears to have been used as an intentional disguise. See also Polyb. iii.78.
(4) The business of the barber (see Ezekiel 5:1, "as a barber's razor shalt thou take it unto thee, and shalt cause it to pass upon thy head and upon thy beard"), outside of ceremonial shaving, may have consisted in trimming and polling the beard and the hair of the head. Of other nations with whom Israel of old came in contact, the Hittites and Elamites, it is now known, shaved the beard completely, as the earliest Babylonians also seem to have done.
(5) The prohibition enjoined in the Mosaic law upon "the priests the Levites, the sons of Zadok" (Ezekiel 44:15, 20) forbidding either "shaving the head," or "suffering their locks to grow long," or shaving off the corners of their beard (Leviticus 21:5), was clearly, in a sense peculiar to the priests, etc.: "They (the priests) shall only cut off," i.e. trim, not shave, "the hair of their heads" (Ezekiel 444:20b). But in the Apostolical Constitutions, I, 3, insistence is laid upon the Biblical prohibition as applicable to all as regards the removal of the beard (compare Clement of Alexandria, Paed., III, edition Migne, I, 580 f). Jerome on Ezekiel 44:20 and some of the Jewish sages find the basis of this prohibition in the fact that God gave a beard to man to distinguish him from the woman--so, they reasoned, it is wrong thus to go against Nature (compare Bahya, on Leviticus 19:27).
(6) In the Palestine of the Greek period, say in the 3rd century BC, when there was a large infusion of Hellenic population and influence, clipping of the beard prevailed in some circles, being omitted only in times of mourning, etc. The common people, however, seem to have seen little distinction between clipping the beard and shaving. But see pictures of captive Jews with clipped beard in the British Museum.
LITERATURE.
Benzinger, heb. Arch., 110; Nowack, Lehrbuch der Heb. Arch., 134; W. Max Muller, Asien und Europa, 296 ff.
George B. Eager
Barchus
Barchus - bar'-kus (Codex Vaticanus, Bachous; Codex Alexandrinus, Barchoue; the King James Version Charchus, from Aldine edition, Charkous; 1 Esdras 5:32 = Barkos (Ezra 2:53; Nehemiah 7:55)): The descendants of Barchus (temple-servants) returned with Zerubbabel to Jerusalem.
Barefoot
Barefoot - bar'-foot.
1. Introductory: The word is found in the following passages: English Versions of the Bible, "He went barefoot" (2 Samuel 15:30); "(Isaiah) did so, walking .... barefoot" (Isaiah 20:2); and like the Egyptians, "naked and barefoot" (Isaiah 20:3-4). It seems that David in his flight before Absalom "went barefoot," not to facilitate his flight, but to show his grief (2 Samuel 15:30), and that Micah (2 Samuel 1:8) makes "going barefoot" a sign of mourning (Septuagint: "to be barefoot"; the King James Version "stripped"). The nakedness and bare feet of the prophet Isaiah (2 Samuel 20:2) may have been intended to symbolize and express sympathy for the forlorn condition of captives (compare Job 12:17, 19, where the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American) have "spoiled," but some authorities give as the true translation "barefoot").
Jastrow, in article on "Tearing the Garments" (Jour. of the Am. Oriental Soc., XXI, 23-39) presents a view worth considering of going barefoot as a sign of mourning and then of grief in general (compare also Jewish Encyclopedia, article "Barefoot"). All these passages seem to imply the discomfort or going barefoot on long journeys, over stony roads or hot sands; but then, as now, in the Orient sandals seem to have been little worn ordinarily in and around the house.
See SHOE.
2. An Ancient Oriental Custom: The "shoes" of the ancients, as we know from many sources, were "sandals," i.e. simply soles, for the most part of rawhide, tied to the feet to protect them against the gravel, stones or thorns of the road. Shoes of the modern sort, as well as socks and stockings, were unknown. In ancient times it was certainly a common custom in Bible lands to go about in and around one's house without sandals. The peasantry, indeed, like the fellaheen of today, being hardened to it, often went afield barefoot. But for a king, or a prophet, a priest or a worshipper, to go barefoot, was another matter, as it was also for a mourner, for one in great distress, to be found walking the streets of a city, or going any distance in bare feet. Here we come again to customs peculiar to the Orient, and of various significance. For instance, it was considered then, as it is now in the Moslem world, profane and shocking, nothing short of a desecration, to enter a sanctuary, or walk on "holy ground," with dust-covered shoes, or unwashed feet. Moses and Joshua were commanded to take off their shoes when on "holy ground" (Exodus 3:5; Joshua 5:15). "No one was allowed to walk on the temple ground with shoes on, or with dust on his feet" (Ber., IX, 5; compare Jamblichus, Pythagoras, section 105). No one in the East today is allowed to enter any mosque with shoes on, or without first putting slippers furnished for the purpose over his shoes. As a rule, too, the feet must be cleansed by ablution in every such case, as well as hands and feet before each meal.
3. Priests on Duty Went Barefoot: The priests of Israel, as would seem true of the priests in general among the ancients, wore no shoes when ministering (see Silius Italicus,III , 28; compare Theodoret on Exodus 3:1-22, questio Exodus 7:1-25; and Yer. Shet., 5, 48d). In ancient times, certainly the priests of Israel, when going upon the platform to serve before the ark, in Tabernacle or temple, as later in the synagogue to bless the congregation, went barefoot; though today strange to say, such ministering priests among the Jews wear stockings, and are not supposed to be barefoot (CoTah, 40a; RH, 316; Shulchan 'Arukh, 'Orach Chayyim, 128, 5; see Jewish Encyclopedia, article "Barefoot").
4. Reasons for the Ancient Custom: The reason or reasons for the removal of the shoes in such cases as the above, we are not at a loss to divine; but when it comes to the removal of the shoes in times of mourning, etc., opinions differ. Some see in such customs a trace of ancestor-worship; others find simply a reversion or return to primitive modes of life; while others still, in agreement with a widely prevalent Jewish view, suggest that it was adopted as a perfectly natural symbol of humility and simplicity of life, appropriate to occasions of grief, distress and deep solemnity of feeling.
The shoes are set aside now by many modern Jews on the Day of Atonement and on the Ninth of Ab.
LITERATURE.
Winer, Robinson, Biblical Researches, under the word "Priester und Schuhe"; Riehm, Handworterbuch des bib. Alt., under the word "Schuhe."
George B. Eager
Barhumite
Barhumite - bar-hu'-mit.
See BAHARUMITE.
Bariah
Bariah - ba-ri'-ah (bariach, "fugitive"): Bariah was a descendant of David in the line of Solomon (1 Chronicles 3:22).
Bar-jesus
Bar-jesus - bar-je'-zus (Bariesous): "A certain sorcerer (Greek magos), a false prophet, a Jew" whom Paul and Silas found at Paphos in Cyprus in the train of Sergius Paulus, the Roman proconsul (Acts 13:6 ff). The proconsul was "a man of understanding" (literally, a prudent or sagacious man), of an inquiring mind, interested in the thought and magic of his times. This characteristic explains the presence of a magos among his staff and his desire to hear Barnabas and Saul. Bar-Jesus was the magician's Jewish name. Elymas is said to be the interpretation of his name (Acts 13:8). It is the Greek transliteration of an Aramaic or Arabic word equivalent to Greek magos. From Arabic `alama, "to know" is derived `alim, "a wise" or "learned man." In Koran, Sur note 106, Moses is called Sachir `alim, "wise magician." Elymas therefore means "sorcerer" (compare Simon "Magus").
The East was flooding the Roman Empire with its new and wonderful religious systems, which, culminating in neo-Platonism, were the great rivals of Christianity both in their cruder and in their more strictly religious forms. Superstition was extremely prevalent, and wonder-workers of all kinds, whether imposters or honest exponents of some new faith, found their task easy through the credulity of the public. Babylonia was the home of magic, for charms are found on the oldest tablets. "Magos" was originally applied to the priests of the Persians who overran Babylonia, but the title degenerated when it was assumed by baser persons for baser articles Juvenal (vi.562, etc.), Horace (Sat. i.2.1) and other Latin authors mention Chaldean astrologers and impostors, probably Babylonian Jews. Many of the Magians, however, were the scientists of their day, the heirs of the science of Babylon and the lore of Persia, and not merely pretenders or conjurers (see MAGIC). It may have been as the representative of some oriental system, a compound of "science" and religion, that Bar-Jesus was attached to the train of Sergius Paulus.
Both Sergius and Elymas had heard about the teaching of the apostles, and this aroused the curiosity of Sergius and the fear of Elymas. When the apostles came, obedient to the command of the proconsul, their doctrine visibly produced on him a considerable impression. Fearing lest his position of influence and gain would be taken by the new teachers, Elymas "withstood them, seeking to turn aside the proconsul from the faith" (Acts 13:8). Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, worked a wonder on the wonder-worker by striking him blind with his word, thus revealing to the proconsul that behind him was Divine power. Sergius Paulus believed, "being astonished at the teaching of the Lord" (Acts 13:12).
S. F. Hunter
Bar-jonah
Bar-jonah - bar-jo'-na (Bar-ionas): Simon Peter's patronymic (Matthew 16:17). Bar is Aramaic for "son" (compare Bar-timaeus, Bartholomew, etc.), and corresponds to Hebrew ben. Thus we are to understand that Peter's father's name was Jonah. But in John 1:42; John 21:15-17, according to the best reading, his name is given as John (so the Revised Version (British and American), instead of the King James Version Jona, Jonas). There are two hypotheses to account for this difference: (1) Ionas (Jonah) in Matthew 16:17 may be simply a contraction of Ioanes (John); (2) Peter's father may have been known by two names, Jonah and John.
D. Miall Edwards
Barkos
Barkos - bar'-kos (barqoc, "party-colored'' (?): compare Gray, Studies in Hebrew Proper Names, 68, note 2): The descendants of Barkos returned with Zerubbabel to Jerusalem (Ezra 2:53; Nehemiah 7:55). Compare Barchus (1 Esdras 5:32).
Barley
Barley - bar'-li (se`orah):
(1) In the Bible, as in modern times, barley was a characteristic product of Palestine--"a land of wheat and barley, and vines and fig-trees," etc. (Deuteronomy 8:8), the failure of whose crop was a national disaster (Joel 1:11). It was, and is, grown chiefly as provender for horses and asses (1 Kings 4:28), oats being practically unknown, but it was, as it now is, to some extent, the food of the poor in country districts (Ruth 2:17; 2 Kings 4:42; John 6:9, 13). Probably this is the meaning of the dream of the Midianite concerning Gideon: "Behold, I dreamed a dream; and, lo, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian, and came unto the tent, and smote it so that it fell, and turned it upside down, so that the tent lay flat. And his fellow answered and said, This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash, a man of Israel" (Judges 7:13 f). Here the barley loaf is type of the peasant origin of Gideon's army and perhaps, too, of his own lowly condition.
Barley was (Ezekiel 4:9) one of the ingredients from which the prophet was to make bread and "eat it as barley cakes" after having baked it under repulsive conditions (Ezekiel 4:12), as a sign to the people. The false prophetesses (Ezekiel 13:19) are said to have profaned God among the people for "handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread."
Barley was also used in the ORDEAL OF JEALOUSY (s.v.). It was with five barley loaves and two fishes that our Lord fed the five thousand (John 6:9-10).
(2) Several varieties of barley are grown in Palestine The Hordeum distichum or two-rowed barley is probably the nearest to the original stock, but Hordeum tetrastichum, with grains in four rows, and Hordeum hexastichum, with six rows, are also common and ancient; the last is found depicted upon Egyptian monuments.
Barley is always sown in the autumn, after the "early rains," and the barley harvest, which for any given locality precedes the wheat harvest (Exodus 9:31 f), begins near Jericho in April--or even March--but in the hill country of Palestine is not concluded until the end of May or beginning of June.
The barley harvest was a well-marked season of the year (see TIME) and the barley-corn was a well-known measure of length.
See WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.
E. W. G. Masterman
Barn
Barn - barn (meghurah, "a granary," "fear," Haggai 2:19; acam, "a storehouse," Proverbs 3:10; mammeghurah, "a repository," Joel 1:17; apotheke, Matthew 6:26; 13:30; Luke 12:18, 24): A place for the storing of grain, usually a dry cistern in the ground, covered over with a thick layer of earth. "Grain is not stored in the East until it is threshed and winnowed. The apotheke in Roman times was probably a building of some kind. But the immemorial usage of the East has been to conceal the grain, in carefully prepared pits or caves, which, being perfectly dry, will preserve it for years. It thus escaped, as far as possible, the attentions of the tax-gatherer as well as of the robber--not always easily distinguished in the East; compare Jeremiah 41:8" (Temple Dictionary, 215).
Figurative of heaven (Matthew 13:30).
See AGRICULTURE; GARNER.
M. O. Evans
Barnabas
Barnabas - bar'-na-bas (Barnabas, "son of exhortation," or possibly "son of Nebo"): This name was applied to the associate of Paul, who was originally called Joses or Joseph (Acts 4:36), as a testimony to his eloquence. Its literal meaning is "son of prophecy" (bar, "son"; nebhu'ah, "prophecy"). Compare word for prophet in Genesis 20:7; Deuteronomy 18:15, 18, etc. This is interpreted in Acts 4:36 as "son of exhortation" the Revised Version (British and American), or "son of consolation" the King James Version, expressing two sides of the Greek paraklesis, that are not exclusive. The office of a prophet being more than to foretell, all these interpretations are admissible in estimating Barnabas as a preacher. "Deismann (Bibelstudien, 175-78) considers Barnabas the Jewish Grecized form of Barnebous, a personal Semitic name recently discovered in Asia Minor inscriptions, and meaning "son of Nebo" (Standard Bible Dictionary in the place cited.).
He was a Levite from the island of Cyprus, and cousin, not "nephew" (the King James Version), of the evangelist Mark, the word anepsios (Colossians 4:10), being used in Numbers 36:11, for "father's brothers' sons." When we first learn of him, he had removed to Jerusalem, and acquired property there. He sold "a field," and contributed its price to the support of the poorer members of the church (Acts 4:36 ff). In Acts 11:24 he is described as "a good man and full of the Holy Spirit" (compare Isaiah 11:2; 1 Corinthians 12:8, 11) "and of faith," traits that gave him influence and leadership. Possibly on the ground of former acquaintanceship, interceding as Paul's sponsor and surety, he removed the distrust of the disciples at Jerusalem and secured the admission of the former persecutor into their fellowship. When the preaching of some of the countrymen of Barnabas had begun a movement toward Christianity among the Greeks at Antioch, Barnabas was sent from Jerusalem to give it encouragement and direction, and, after a personal visit, recognizing its importance and needs, sought out Paul at Tarsus, and brought him back as his associate. At the close of a year's successful work, Barnabas and Paul were sent to Jerusalem with contributions from the infant church for the famine sufferers in the older congregation (Acts 11:30). Ordained as missionaries on their return (Acts 13:3), and accompanied by John Mark, they proceeded upon what is ordinarily known as the "First Missionary Journey" of Paul (Acts 13:4-5). Its history belongs to Paul's life. Barnabas as well as Paul is designated "an apostle" (Acts 14:14). Up to Acts 13:43, the precedency is constantly ascribed to Barnabas; from that point, except in Acts 14:14 and Acts 15:12, 25, we read "Paul and Barnabas," instead of "Barnabas and Saul." The latter becomes the chief spokesman. The people at Lystra named Paul, because of his fervid oratory, Mercurius, while the quiet dignity and reserved strength of Barnabas gave him the title of Jupiter (Acts 14:12). Barnabas escaped the violence which Paul suffered at Iconium (Acts 14:19).
Upon their return from this first missionary tour, they were sent, with other representatives of the church at Antioch, to confer with the apostles and elders of the church at Jerusalem concerning the obligation of circumcision and the ceremonial law in general under the New Testament--the synod of Jerusalem. A separation from Paul seems to begin with a temporary yielding of Barnabas in favor of the inconsistent course of Peter (Galatians 2:13). This was followed by a more serious rupture concerning Mark. On the second journey, Paul proceeded alone, while Barnabas and Mark went to Cyprus. Luther and Calvin regard 2 Corinthians 8:18-19 as meaning Barnabas by "the brother whose praise is spread through all the churches," and indicating, therefore, subsequent joint work. The incidental allusions in 1 Corinthians 9:6 and Galatians 2:13 ("even Barnabas") show at any rate Paul's continued appreciation of his former associate. Like Paul, he accepted no support from those to whom he ministered.
Tertullian, followed in recent years by Grau and Zahn, regard him as the author of the Epistle to the He. The document published among patristic writings as the Epistle of Barnabas, and found in full in the Codex Sinaiticus, is universally assigned today to a later period. "The writer nowhere claims to be the apostle Barnabas; possibly its author was some unknown namesake of 'the son of consolation' " (Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 239 f).
H. E. Jacobs
Barnabas, Epistle of
Barnabas, Epistle of - See APOCRYPHAL EPISTLES.
Barnabas, Gospel of
Barnabas, Gospel of - See APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS.
Barodis
Barodis - ba-ro'-dis (Barodeis, 1 Esdras 5:34): The descendants of Barodis (sons of the servants of Solomon) returned with Zerubbabel to Jerusalem. Omitted in Ezra 2:1-70 and Nehemiah 7:1-73.
Barrel
Barrel - bar'-el: The word "barrel" in the King James Version (see 1 Kings 17:12, 14, 16; 18:33: "The barrel of meal," "fill four barrels with water," etc.) stands for the large earthenware jar (so the American Standard Revised Version) used in the East for carrying water from the spring or well, and for storing grain, etc., according to a custom that still persists. It is elsewhere (EV) more fitly rendered "pitcher."
Barren; Barrenness
Barren; Barrenness - bar'-en, bar'-en-nes tsiyah; melehah; shakhol; `aqar; steiros; argos):
(1) Of land that bears no crop, either (a) because it is naturally poor and sterile: tsiyah "dry" (Joel 2:20), melechah, "salt" (Job 39:6 the King James Version), shakhol, "miscarrying" (2 Kings 2:19, 21), or (b) because it is, under God's curse, turned into a melechah or salt desert, for the wickedness of the people that dwell therein (Psalms 107:34 the King James Version; compare Genesis 3:17-18).
(2) Of females that bear no issue: `aqar: Sarah (Genesis 11:30); Rebekah (Genesis 25:21); Rachel (Genesis 29:31); Manoah's wife (Judges 13:2-3); Hannah (1 Samuel 2:5); steiros: Elisabeth (Luke 1:7, 36).
In Israel and among oriental peoples generally barrenness was a woman's and a family's greatest misfortune. The highest sanctions of religion and patriotism blessed the fruitful woman, because children were necessary for the perpetuation of the tribe and its religion. It is significant that the mothers of the Hebrew race, Sarah, Rebekah and Rachel, were by nature sterile, and therefore God's special intervention shows His particular favor to Israel. Fruitfulness was God's special blessing to His people (Exodus 23:26; Deuteronomy 7:14; Psalms 113:9). A complete family is an emblem of beauty (Song of Solomon 4:2; 6:6). Metaphorically, Israel, in her days of adversity, when her children were exiled, was barren, but in her restoration she shall rejoice in many children (Isaiah 54:1; Galatians 4:27). The utter despair and terror of the destruction of Jerusalem could go no farther than that the barren should be called blessed (Luke 23:29).
(3) Argos is translated in the King James Version "barren," but in the Revised Version (British and American) more accurately "idle" (2 Peter 1:8).
T. Rees
Barsabas; Barsabbas
Barsabas; Barsabbas - bar'-sa-bas, bar-sab'-as.
See JOSEPH BARSABBAS; JUDAS BARSABBAS.
Bartacus
Bartacus - bar'-ta-kus (Bartakos; Josephus Rhabezdkes; Vulgate (Jerome's Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) Bezazes (1 Esdras 4:29)): The father of Apame. He is called "the illustrious," probably because of rank and merits. The family seems to be of Persian origin since the name Bartacus (Syriac, ) in the form of Artachaeas is mentioned by Herodotus (vii.22.117) as a person of rank in the Persian army of Xerxes and the name of his daughter Apame is identical with that of a Persian princess who married Seleucus I, Nicator, and became the mother of Antiochus I. Apamea, a city in Asia Minor founded by Seleucus I, is named in honor of his wife Apame. Compare APAME; ILLUSTRIOUS.
Bartholomew
Bartholomew - bar-thol'-o-mu (Bartholomaios, i.e. "son of Tolmai or Tolmai"): One of the Twelve Apostles (Matthew 10:3; Mark 3:18; Luke 6:14; Acts 1:13). There is no further reference to him in the New Testament. According to the "Genealogies of the Twelve Apostles" (Budge, Contendings of the Apostles, II, 50) "Bartholomew was of the house of Naphtali. Now his name was formerly John, but our Lord changed it because of John the son of Zebedee, His beloved." A "Gospel of Bartholomew" is mentioned by Hieronymus (Comm. Proem ad Matth.), and Gelasius gives the tradition that Bartholomew brought the Hebrew gospel of Matthew to India. In the "Preaching of Bartholomew in the Oasis" (compare Budge,II , 90) he is referred to as preaching probably in the oasis of Al Bahnasa, and according to the "Preaching of Andrew and Bartholomew" he labored among the Parthians (Budge,II , 183). The "Martyrdom of Bartholomew" states that he was placed in a sack and cast into the sea.
From the 9th century onward, Bartholomew has generally been identified with Nathanael, but this view has not been conclusively established.
See NATHANAEL.
C. M. Kerr
Bartholomew, Gospel of
Bartholomew, Gospel of - See APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS; BARTHOLOMEW.
Bartimaeus
Bartimaeus - bar-ti-me'-us (Bartimaios): A hybrid word from Aramaic bar = "son," and Greek timaios = "honorable." For the improbability of the derivation from bar-tim'ai = "son of the unclean," and of the allegorical meaning = the Gentiles or spiritually blind, see Schmiedel in Encyclopedia Biblica. In Mk (10:46-52) Bartimeus is given as the name of a blind beggar, whose eyes Jesus Christ opened as He went out from Jericho on His last journey to Jerusalem. An almost identical account is given by Lk (18:35-43), except that the incident occurred "as he drew nigh unto Jericho," and the name of the blind man is not given. Again, according to Mt (20:29-34), "as they went out from Jericho" (like Mk) two blind men (unlike Mk and Lk) receive their sight. It is not absolutely impossible that two or even three events are recorded, but so close is the similarity of the three accounts that it is highly improbable. Regarding them as referring to the same event, it is easy to understand how the discrepancies arose in the passage of the story from mouth to mouth. The main incident is clear enough, and on purely historical grounds, the miracle cannot be denied. The discrepancies themselves are evidence of the wide currency of the story before our Gospels assumed their present form. It is only a most mechanical theory of inspiration that would demand their harmonization.
T. Rees
Baruch
Baruch - ba'-ruk, bar'-uk (baruk; Barouch, "blessed"):
(1) Son of Neriah and brother of Seraiah, King Zedekiah's chamberlain (Jeremiah 51:59). He was the devoted friend (Jeremiah 32:12), the amanuensis (Jeremiah 36:4 ff,Jeremiah 32:1-44) and faithful attendant (Jeremiah 36:10 ff; Josephus, Ant, X, vi, Jeremiah 2:1-37) of the prophet Jeremiah. He seems to have been of noble family (see Ant, X, ix, 1; compare Jeremiah 51:59; Baruch 1:1). He was also according to Josephus a man of unusual acquirements (Ant., X, ix, 1). He might have risen to a high position and seemed conscious of this, but under Jeremiah's influence (see Jeremiah 45:5) he repressed his ambition, being content to throw in his lot with the great prophet whose secretary and companion he became. Jeremiah dictated his prophecies to Baruch, who read them to the people (Jeremiah 36:1-32). The king (Jehoiakim) was greatly angered at these prophecies and had Baruch arrested and the roll burnt. Baruch however rewrote the prophet's oracles. In the final siege of Jerusalem Baruch stood by his master, witnessing the purchase by the latter of his ancestral estate in Anathoth (Jeremiah 32:1-44). According to Josephus (Ant., X, ix, 1) he continued to reside with Jeremiah at Mizpah after the fall of Jerusalem. Subsequent to the murder of Gedaliah, he was accused of having unduly influenced Jeremiah when the latter urged the people to remain in Judah--a fact which shows how great was the influence which Baruch was believed to have had over his master (Jeremiah 43:3). He was carried with Jeremiah to Egypt (Jeremiah 43:6; Ant, X, ix, Jeremiah 6:1-30), and thereafter our knowledge of him is merely legendary. According to a tradition preserved by Jerome (on Isaiah 30:6 f) he died in Egypt soon after reaching that country. Two other traditions say that he went, or by Nebuchadnezzar was carried, to Babylon after this king conquered Egypt. The high character of Baruch and the important part he played in the life and work of Jeremiah induced later generations still further to enhance his reputation, and a large number of spurious writings passed under his name, among them the following: (a) The APOCALYPSE OF BARUCH (which see); (b) the Book of Baruch; (c) the Rest of the Words of Baruch; (d) the Gnostic Book of Baruch; (e) the Latin Book of Baruch, composed originally in Latin; (f) a Greek Apocalypse of Baruch belonging to the 2nd century of our era; (g) another Book of Baruch belonging to the 4th or 5th century.
(2) A son of Zabbai who aided Nehemiah in rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem (Nehemiah 3:20).
(3) One of the priests who signed the covenant with Nehemiah (10:6).
(4) The son of Colhozeh, a descendant of Perez, the son of Judah (Nehemiah 11:5).
T. Witton Davies
Baruch, Apocalypse of
Baruch, Apocalypse of - See APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE.
Baruch, Book of
Baruch, Book of - One of the Apocryphal or Deutero-canonical books, standing between Jeremiah and Lamentations in the Septuagint, but in the Vulgate (Jerome's Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) after these two books.
I. Name. See underBARUCH for the meaning of the word and for the history of the best-known Biblical. personage bearing the name. Though Jewish traditions link this book with Jeremiah's amanuensis and loyal friend as author, it is quite certain that it was not written or compiled for hundreds of years after the death of this Baruch. According to Jeremiah 45:1 it was in the Jeremiah 4:11-31th year (604 BC) of the reign of Jehoiakim (608-597 BC) that Baruch wrote down Jeremiah's words in a book and read them in the ears of the nobles (English Versions, "princes," but king's sons are not necessarily meant; Jeremiah 36:1-32). The Book of Baruch belongs in its present form to the latter half of the 1st century of our era; yet some modern Roman Catholic scholars vigorously maintain that it is the work of Jeremiah's friend and secretary.
II. Contents. This book and also the Epistle of Jeremy have closer affinities with the canonical Book of Jer than any other part of the Apocrypha. It is probably to this fact that they owe their name and also their position in the Septuagint and in the Vulgate (Jerome's Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) The book is apparently made up of four separate parts by independent writers, brought together by an editor, owing it is very likely to a mere accident--each being too small to occupy the space on one roll they were all four written on one and the same roll. The following is a brief analysis of the four portions of the book:
1. Historical Introduction: Historical Introduction, giving an account of the origin and purpose of the book (Baruch 1:1-14). Baruch 1:1 f tell us that Baruch wrote this book at Babylon "in the fifth month (not "year" as the Septuagint) in the seventh day of the month, what time as the Chaldeans took Jerusalem, and burnt it with fire" (see 2 Kings 25:8 ff). Fritzsche and others read: "In the fifth year, in the month Sivan (see 2 Kings 1:8), in the seventh day of the month," etc. Um gives the date of the feast Pentecost, and the supposition is that the party who made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem did so in order to observe that feast. According to 2 Kings 1:3-14, Baruch read his book to King Jehoiachin and his court by the (unidentified) river Sud. King and people on hearing the book fell to weeping, fasting and praying. As a result money was collected and sent, together with Baruch's book, to the high priest Jehoiakim, (NOTE: So spelled in the canonical books; but it is Joacim or Joachim in Apocrypha the King James Version, and in the Apocrypha the Revised Version (British and American) it is invariably Joakim.) to the priests and to the people at Jerusalem. The money is to be used in order to make it possible to carry on the services of the temple, and in particular that prayers may be offered in the temple for the king and his family and also for the superior lord King Nebuchadnezzar and his son Baltasar (= the Belshazzar of Daniel 5:1-31).
2. Confession and Prayer: Confession and prayer (Baruch 1:15 through 3:8) (1) of the Palestinian remnant (Baruch 1:15 through 2:15). The speakers are resident in Judah not in Babylon (Baruch 1:15; compare 2:4), as J. T. Marshall and R. H. Charles rightly hold. This section follows throughout the arrangement and phraseology of a prayer contained in Daniel 9:7-15. It is quite impossible to think of Daniel as being based on Baruch, for the writer of the former is far more original than the author or authors of Baruch. But in the present section the original passage in Dan is altered in a very significant way. Thus in Daniel 9:7 the writer describes those for whom he wrote as `the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel(ites): those near and those far off, in all the lands (countries) whither thou hast driven them on account of their unfaithfulness toward thee.' The italicized words are omitted from Baruch 1:15, though the remaining part of Daniel 9:7 is added. Why this difference? It is evident, as Marshall has ably pointed out, that the editor of the section intends to put the confession and prayer of Baruch 1:15 through 2:5 into the mouths of Jews who had not been removed into exile. Ewald (History, V, 208, 6) holds that Daniel 9:7-9 is dependent on Baruch 1:15 through 2:17. The section may thus be analyzed:
(a) Baruch 1:15-22: Confession of the sins of the nation from the days of Moses down to the exile. The principle of solidarity (see Century Bible, "Psalms,"II , 21, 195, 215) so governed the thoughts of the ancient Israelites that the iniquities of their forefathers were in effect their own.
(b) Baruch 2:1-5: God's righteous judgment on the nation in humbling and scattering them.
Confession and prayer (2) of the exiles in Babylon Baruch 2:16 through 3:8. That the words in this section are supposed to be uttered by Babylonian exiles appears from 2:13 f; 3:7 f and from the general character of the whole. This portion of the book is almost as dependent on older Scriptures as the foregoing. Three sources seem in particular to have been used.
(a) The Book of Jeremiah has been freely drawn upon.
(b) Deuteronomic phrases occur frequently, especially in the beginning and end. These are perhaps taken second-hand from Jeremiah, a book well known to the author of these verses and deeply loved by him.
(c) Solomon's prayer as recorded in 1 Kings 8:1-66 is another quarry from which our author appears to have dug.
This section may be thus divided:
(i.) Baruch 2:6-12: Confession, opening as the former (see 1:15) with words extracted from Daniel 9:7.
(ii.) Baruch 2:13 through 3:8: Prayer for restoration.
Baruch 3:1-8 shows more independence than the rest, for the author at this point makes use of language not borrowed from any original known to us. As such these verses are important as a clue to the writer's position, views and character.
In Baruch 3:4 we have the petition: "Hear now the prayer of the dead Israelites," etc., words which as they stand involve the doctrine that the dead (Solomon, Daniel, etc.) are still alive and make intercession to Goal on behalf of the living. But this teaching is in opposition to 2:17 which occurs in the same context. Without making any change in the Hebrew consonants we can and should read for "dead (methe) Israelites" "the men of (methe) Israel." The Septuagint confuses the same words in Isaiah 5:13.
3. The Praise of Wisdom: The praise of "Wisdom," for neglecting which Israel is now in a strange land. God alone is the author of wisdom, and He bestows it not upon the great and mighty of this world, but upon His own chosen people, who however have spurned the Divine gift and therefore lost it (Baruch 3:9 through 4:4).
The passage, Baruch 3:10-13 (Israel's rejection of "Wisdom" the cause of her exile), goes badly with the context and looks much like an interpolation. The dominant idea in the section is that God has made Israel superior to all other nations by the gift of "wisdom," which is highly extolled. Besides standing apart from the context these four verses lack the rhythm which characterize the other verses. What is so cordially commended is described in three ways, each showing up a different facet, as do the eight synonyms for the Divine word in each of the 22 strophes in Psalms 119:1-176 (see Century Bible, "Psalms,"II , 254).
(1) It is called most frequently "Wisdom."
(2) In Baruch 4:1 it is described as the Commandments of God and as the Law or more correctly as authoritative instruction. The Hebrew word for this last (torah) bears in this connection, it is probable, the technical meaning of the Pentateuch, a sense which it never has in the Old Testament. Compare Deuteronomy 4:6, where the keeping of the commandments is said to be "wisdom" and understanding.
4. The Dependence of This Wisdom Section: (1) The line of thought here resembles closely that pursued in Job 28:1-28, which modern scholars rightly regard as a later interpolation. Wisdom, the most valuable of possessions, is beyond the unaided reach of man. God only can give it--that is what is taught in these parts of both Baruch and Job with the question "Where shall wisdom be found?" (Job 28:12; compare Baruch 3:14 f, where a similar question forms the basis of the greater portion of the section of Job 38:1-41 f). Wisdom is not here as in Proverbs hypostatized, and the same is true of Job 28:1-28. This in itself is a sign of early date, for the personifying of "wisdom" is a later development (compare Philo, John 1:1-51).
(2) The language in this section is modeled largely on that of Deuteronomy, perhaps however through Jeremiah, which is also especially after chapter 10 Deuteronomic in thought and phraseology. See anteII , 2 (2 1b).
The most original part of this division of the book is where the writer enumerates the various classes of the world's great ones to whom God had not given "wisdom": princes of the heathen, wealthy men, silversmiths, merchants, theologians, philosophers, etc. (Baruch 3:16 ff).
See WISDOM.
5. Words of Cheer to Israel: The general thought that pervades the section, Baruch 4:5 through 5:9, is words of cheer to Israel (i.e. Judah) in exile, but we have here really, according to Rothstein, a compilation edited so skillfully as to give it the appearance of a unity which is not real. Earlier Biblical writings have throughout been largely drawn upon. Rothstein (Kautzsch, Die Apokryphen, etc., 213-15) divides the section in the following manner:
(1) Baruch 4:55-9a: Introductory section, giving the whole its keynote--"Be of good cheer," etc.; 4:7 f follows Deuteronomy 32:15-18.
(2) Baruch 44:9b-29: A song, divisible into two parts.
(a) Personified Jerusalem deplores the calamities of Israel in exile (Baruch 44:9b-16).
(b) She urges her unfortunate children to give themselves to hope and prayer, amending their ways so that God may bring about their deliverance (Baruch 4:17-29).
(c) Baruch 4:30 through 5:9: A second song, beginning as the first with the words, "Be of good cheer," and having the same general aim, to comfort exiled and oppressed Israel.
In all three parts earlier Scriptures have been largely used, and in particular Deutero-Isaiah has had much influence upon the author. But there do not seem to the present writer reasons cogent enough for concluding, with Rothstein, that these three portions are by as many different writers. There is throughout the same recurring thought "Be of good cheer," and there is nothing in the style to suggest divergent authorship.
(3) The Relation between Baruch 4:36 through 5:9 and Psalter of Wisdom of Solomon 11.
It was perhaps Ewald (Geschichte, IV, 498) who first pointed out the similarity of language and viewpoint between Baruch 4:36 through 5:9 and Psalter of Wisdom of Solomon 11, especially 11:3-8. The only possible explanation is that which makes Baruch 4:36 ff an imitation of Psalter of Wisdom of Solomon 11. So Ewald (op. cit.); Ryle and James (Ps Sol, lxx, ii ff).
Ps Sol were written originally in Hebrew, and references to Pompey (died 48 BC) and to the capture of Jerusalem (63 BC) show that this pseudepigraphical Psalter must have been written in the first half of the 1st century BC. Bar, as will be shown, is of much later date than this. Besides it is now almost certain that the part of Baruch under discussion was written in Greek (see below,IV ) and that it never had a Hebrew original. Now it is exceedingly unlikely that a writer of a Hebrew psalm would copy a Greek original, though the contrary supposition is a very likely one.
On the other hand A. Geiger (Psalt. Sol., XI, 137-39, 1811), followed by W. B. Stevenson (Temple Bible), and many others argue for the priority of Baruch, using this as a reason for giving Baruch an earlier date than is usually done. It is possible, of course, that the Pseudo-Solomon and the Pseudo-Baruch have been digging in the same quarry; and that the real original used by both is lost.
III. Language. For our present purpose the book must be divided into two principal parts: (1) Baruch 1 through 3:8; (2) 3:9 through 5:9. There is general agreement among the best recent scholars from Ewald downward that the first portion of the book at least was written originally in Hebrew. (1) In the Syro-Hex. text there are margin notes to 1:17 and 2:3 to the effect that these verses are lacking in the Hebrew, i.e. in the original Hebrew text.
(2) There are many linguistic features in this first part which are best explained on the supposition that the Greek text is from a Hebrew original. In Baruch 2:25 the Septuagint English Versions of the Bible apostole at the end of the verse means "a sending of." The English Versions of the Bible ("pestilence") renders a Hebrew word which, without the vowel signs (introduced late) is written alike for both meanings (d-b-r). The mistake can be explained only on the assumption of a Hebrew original. Similarly the reading "dead Israelites" for "men of Israel" (= Israelites) in 3:4 arose through reading wrong vowels with the same consonants, which last were alone written until the 7th and 8th centuries of our era.off, in all the lands (countries) whither thou hast driven them on account of their unfaithfulness toward thee.' The italicized words are omitted from Baruch 1:15, though the remaining part of Daniel 9:7 is added. Why this difference? It is evident, as Marshall has ably pointed out, that the editor of the section intends to put the confession and prayer of Baruch 1:15 through 2:5 into the mouths of Jews who had not been removed into exile. Ewald (History, V, 208, 6) holds that Daniel 9:7-9 is dependent on Baruch 1:15 through 2:17. The section may thus be analyzed:
Frequently, as in Hebrew, sentences begin with Greek kai (= "and") which, without somewhat slavish copying of the Hebrew, would not be found. The construction called parataxis characterizes Hebrew; in good Greek we meet with hypotaxis.
The Hebrew way of expressing "where" is put literally into the Greek of this book (Baruch 2:4, 13, 29; 3:8). Many other Hebrew idioms, due, it is probable, to the translator's imitations of his original, occur: in "to speak in the ears of" (Baruch 1:3); the word "man" (anthropos) in the sense "everyone" (Baruch 2:3); "spoken by thy servants the prophets" is in Greek by "the hand of the servants," which is good Hebrew but bad Greek Many other such examples could be added.
There is much less agreement among scholars as to the original language or languages of the second part of the book (Baruch 3:9 through 5:9). That this part too was written in Hebrew, so that in that case the whole book appeared first in that language, is the position held and defended by Ewald (op. cit.), Kneucker (op. cit.), Konig (Ein), Rothstein (op. cit.) and Bissell (Lange). It is said by these writers that this second part of Baruch equally with the first carries with it marks of being a translation from the Hebrew. But one may safely deny this statement. It must be admitted by anyone who has examined the text of the book that the most striking Hebraisms and the largest number of them occur in the first part of the book. Bissell writes quite fully and warmly in defense of the view that the whole book was at first written in Hebrew, but the Hebraisms which he cites are all with one solitary exception taken from the first part of the book. This one exception is in Baruch 4:15 where the Greek conjunction holi is used for the relative ho, the Hebrew 'asher having the meaning of both. There seems to be a Hebraism in 4:21: "He shall deliver thee from .... the hand of your enemies," and there are probably others. But there are Hebraisms in Hellenistic Greek always--the present writer designates them "Hebraisms" or "Semiticisms" notwithstanding what Deismann, Thumb and Moulton say. In the first part of this book it is their overwhelming number and their striking character that tell so powerfully in favor of a Hebrew original.
(3) The following writers maintain that the second part of the book was written first of all in Greek: Fritzsche, Hilgenfeld, Reuss, Schurer, Gifford, Cornill and R. H. Charles, though they agree that the first part had a Hebrew original. This is probably the likeliest view, though much may be written in favor of a Hebrew original for the whole book and there is nothing quite decisively against it. J. Turner Marshall (Hastings Dictionary of the Bible, I, 253) tries to prove that Baruch 3:9 through 4:4 was written first in Aramaic, the rest of the book (4:5 through 5:9) in Greek But though he defends his case with great ability he does not appear to the present writer to have proved his thesis. Ewald (op. cit.), Hitzig (Psalmen2, II, 119), Dillmann, Ruetschi, Fritzsche and Bissell were so greatly impressed by the close likeness between the Greek of Baruch and that of the Septuagint of Jeremiah, that they came to the conclusion that both books were translated by the same person. Subsequently Hitzig decided that Baruch was not written until after 70 AD, and therefore abandoned his earlier opinion in favor of this one--that the translator of Baruch was well acquainted with the Septuagint of Jeremiah and was strongly influenced by it.
IV. Date or Dates. It is important to distinguish between the date of the completion of the entire book in its present form and the dates of the several parts which in some or all cases may be much older than that of the whole as such.
1. The Historical Introduction: Baruch 1:1-14 was written after the completion of the book expressly to form a prologue or historical explanation of the circumstances under which the rest of the book came to be written. To superficial readers it could easily appear that the whole book was written by one man, but a careful examination shows that the book is a compilation. One may conclude that the introduction was the last part of the book to be composed and that therefore its date is that of the completion of the book. Reasons will be given (see below) for believing that 4:5 through 5:9 belongs to a time subsequent to the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple in 70AD . This is still more true of this introduction intended as a foreword to the whole book.
2. Confession and Prayer: The following points bear on the date of the section Baruch 1:15 through 3:8, assuming it to have one date:
(1) The generation of Israelites to which the writer belonged were suffering for the sins of their ancestors; see especially Baruch 3:1-8.
(2) The second temple was in existence in the writer's day. Baruch 2:26 must (with the best scholars) be translated as follows: "And thou hast made the house over which thy name is called as it is this day," i.e. the temple--still in being--is shorn of its former glory. Moreover though Daniel 9:7-14 is largely quoted in Baruch 1:15 through 2:12, the prayer for the sanctuary and for Jerusalem in Daniel 9:16 is omitted, because the temple is not now in ruins.
(3) Though it is implied (see aboveII , 2, (1)) that there are Jews in Judah who have never left their land there are a large number in foreign lands, and nothing is said that they were servants of the Babylonian king.
(4) The dependence of Baruch 2:13 through 3:8 on Deuteronomy, Jer and 1 Kings 8:1-66 (Solomon's prayer) shows that this part of the book is later than these writings, i.e. later than say 550 BC. Compare Baruch 2:13 with Deuteronomy 28:62 and Jeremiah 42:2.
(5) The fact that Daniel 9:7-14 has influenced Baruch 1:15 through 2:12 proves that a date later than Daniel must be assumed for at least this portion of Baruch. The temple is still standing, so that the book belongs somewhere between 165 BC, when Daniel was written, and 71 AD, when the temple was finally destroyed.
Ewald, Gifford and Marshall think that this section belongs to the period following the conquest of Jerusalem by Ptolemy I (320 BC). According to Ewald the author of Baruch 1:1 through 3:8 (regarded as by one hand) was a Jew living in Babylon or Persia. But Daniel had not in 320 BC been written. Fritzsche, Schrader, Keil, Toy and Charles assign the section to the Maccabean age--a quite likely date. On the other hand Hitzig, Kneucker and Schurer prefer a date subsequent to 70 AD. The last writer argues for the unity of this section, though he admits that the middle of chapter 1 comports ill with its context.
3. The Wisdom Section Baruch 3:9 through 4:4: It has been pointed out (see above,II , 3) that Baruch 3:10-13 does not belong to this section, being manifestly a later interpolation. The dependence of this Wisdom portion on Job 28:1-28 and on Deuteronomy implies a post-exilic date. The identification of Wisdom with the Torah which is evidently a synonym for the Pentateuch, argues a date at any rate not earlier than 300 BC. But how much later we have no means of ascertaining. The reasons adduced by Kneucker and Marshall for a date immediately before or soon af ter the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD have not convinced the present writer.
4. Words of Cheer Baruch 4:5 through 5:9: The situation implied in these words may be thus set forth:
(1) A great calamity has happened to Jerusalem (Baruch 4:9 f). Nothing is said proving that the whole land has shared the calamity, unless indeed this is implied in Baruch 4:5 f.
(2) A large number of Jerusalemites have been transported (Baruch 4:10).
(3) The nation that has sacked Jerusalem and carried away many of its inhabitants is "shameless," having "a strange language, neither reverencing old men nor pitying children" (Baruch 4:15).
(4) The present home of the Jerusalemites is a great city (Baruch 4:32-35), not the country.
Now the above details do not answer to any dates in the history of the nation except these two: (a) 586 BC, when the temple was destroyed by the Babylonians; (b) 71 AD, when the temple was finally destroyed by the Romans. But the date 586 BC is out of the question, and no modern scholar pleads for it. We must therefore assume for this portion of the book a date soon after 70 AD. In the time of Pompey, to which Graetz assigns the book, neither Jerusalem nor the temple was destroyed. Nor was there any destruction of either during the Maccabean war. In favor of this date is the dependence of Baruch 4:36 ff on Psalter of Wisdom of Solomon 11 (see above,II , 5, (3)).
Rothstein (in Kautzsch) says that in this section there are at least three parts by as many different writers. Marshall argues for four independent parts. But if either of these views is correct the editor has done his work exceedingly well, for the whole harmonizes well together.
Kneucker, author of the fullest Commentary, endeavors to prove that the original book consisted of Baruch 1:1 f plus 3a (the heading) plus 3:9 through 5:9, and that it belongs to the reign of Domitian (81-96 AD). The confession and prayer in 1:15 through 3:8 were written, he says, somewhat earlier and certainly before 71 AD, and as a separate work, being inserted in the book by the scribe who wrote 1:4-14.
V. Versions. The most important versions are the following. It is assumed in the article that the Greek text of the book up to Baruch 3:8 is itself a translation from a Hebrew text now lost. The same remark may be true of the rest of the book or of a portion of it (see above,III ).
1. Latin: There are two versions in this language: (1) The Vulgate (Jerome's Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) which is really the Old Latin, since Jerome's revision was confined to the Hebrew Scriptures, the Apocrypha being therefore omitted in this revision. This version is a very literal one based on the Greek It is therefore for that reason the more valuable as a witness to the Greek text. (2) There is a later Latin translation, apparently a revision of the former, for its Latinity is better; in some cases it adopts different readings and in a general way it has been edited so as to bring it into harmony with the Vatican uncial (B). This Latin version was published in Rome by J. Maria Caro (died circa 1688) and was reprinted by Sabatier in parallel columns with the pre-Jeromian version noticed above (see Bibliotheca Casinensis, I, 1873).
2. Syriac: There are also in this language two extant versions: (1) The Peshitta, a very literal translation, can be seen in the London (Walton's) Polyglot and most conveniently in Lagarde's Libr. Apocrypha. Syriac., the last being a more accurate reproduction. (2) The Hexapla Syriac translation made by Paul, bishop of Telle, near the beginning of the 7th century AD. It has been published by Ceriani with critical apparatus in his beautiful photograph-lithographed edition of the Hexapla Syriac Bible.
3. Arabic: There is a very literal translation to be found in the London Polyglot, referred to above.
LITERATURE.
For editions of the Greek text see under APOCRYPHA. Of commentaries the fullest and best is that by Kneucker, Das Buch Baruch (1879), who gives an original German rendering based on a restored Hebrew original. Other valuable commentaries are those by Fritzsche (1851); Ewald, Die Propheten2, etc. (1868), III, 251-82 (Eng. translation); The Prophets of the Old Testament, V, 108-37, by Reusch (1855); Zockler (1891) and Rothstein (op. cit.); and in English, Bissell (in Lange's series edited by D. S. Schaff, 1880); and Gifford (Speaker's Comm., 1888). The S.P.C.K. has a handy and serviceable volume published in the series of popular commentaries on the Old Testament. But this commentary, though published quite recently (my copy belongs to 1894, "nineteenth thousand"), needs strengthening on the side of its scholarship.
Arts. dealing with introduction occur in the various Bible Dictionaries (Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, Westcott and Ryle; Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible (five volumes), J. T. Marshall, able and original; Encyclopedia Biblica, Bevan, rather slight). To these must be added excellent articles in Jewish Encyclopedia (G. F. Moore), and Encyclopedia Biblica (R. H. Charles).
T. Witton Davies
Barzillai
Barzillai - bar-zil'-a-i, bar-zil'-i (barzillay; Berzelli, "man of iron" (BDB, but compare Cheyne, Encyclopedia Biblica)):
(1) A Gileadite of Rogelim who brought provisions to David and his army to Mahanaim, in their flight from Absalom (2 Samuel 17:27-29). When David was returning to Jerusalem after Absalom's defeat, Barzillai conducted him over Jordan, but being an old man of 80 years of age, he declined David's invitation to come to live in the capital, and sent instead his son Chimham (2 Samuel 19:31-39). David before his death charged Solomon to "show kindness unto the sons of Barzillai." (1 Kings 2:7). Cheyne in Encyclopedia Biblica, without giving any reason, differentiates this Barzillai from Barzillai the Gileadite (Ezra 2:61 = Nehemiah 7:63). See (2) below.
(2) The father of a family of priests who in Ezra's time, after the return of the exiles, could not trace their genealogy. "Therefore were they deemed polluted and put from the priesthood." This Barzillai had taken "a wife of the daughters of Barzillai the Gileadite," and had adopted his wife's family name (Ezra 2:61-62 = Nehemiah 7:63-64). His original name is given as Jaddus (the King James Version Addus) (1 Esdras 5:38). (See ZORZELLEUS; the Revised Version, margin "Phaezeldaeus.")
(3) Barzillai the Meholathite, whose son Adriel was married to Saul's daughter, either Michal (2 Samuel 21:8) or Merab (1 Samuel 18:19).
T. Rees
Basaloth
Basaloth - bas'-a-loth (A, Baaloth; B, Basalem; 1 Esdras 5:31 = Bazluth (Ezra 2:52) and Bazlith (Nehemiah 7:54)): The descendants of Basaloth (temple-servants) returned with Zerubbabel to Jerusalem.
Bascama
Bascama - bas'-ka-ma (Baskama (1 Maccabees 13:23)): A town located in the country of Gilead, where Tryphon slew Jonathan, the son of Absalom. Compare JONATHAN(Apocrypha).
Base
Base - bas:
(1) Substantive from Latin basis, Greek basis, a foundation. (a) (mekhonah): the fixed resting-place on which the lavers in Solomon's temple were set (1 Kings 7:27-43; 2 Kings 16:17; 13, 16; 2 Chronicles 4:14; Jeremiah 27:19; 17, 20; compare Ezra 3:3; Zechariah 5:11 the American Revised Version, margin). (b) (ken): pedestal in the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American) (1 Kings 7:29, 31) and in the Revised Version (British and American) only (Exodus 30:18, 28; 31:9; 35:16; 38:8; 39:39; 40:11; Leviticus 8:11) of
the base of the laver of the tabernacle (the King James Version "foot"). (c) (yarekh): "base of candlestick" (the Revised Version (British and American) of Exodus 25:31; 37:17) the King James Version "shaft." (d) (yecodh): the Revised Version (British and American) "base of altar"; the King James Version "bottom" (Exodus 29:12; 38:8; Leviticus 4:7, 18, 25, 30, 34; 5:9; 8:15; 9:9). (e) (gabh): the Revised Version (British and American) "elevation," i.e. basement of altar; the King James Version "higher place" (Ezekiel 43:13).
(2) Adjective from French bas--low, or Welsh bas--"shallow": of lowly birth or station, of voluntary humility and of moral depravity. (a) (shaphal, shephal): of David's self-humiliation (2 Samuel 6:22): "a modest unambitious kingdom" (Ezekiel 17:14; Ezekiel 29:14-15 (BDB); Daniel 4:17 (the American Standard Revised Version "lowest")): compare shephelah = "lowland." (b) (qalah): men of humble birth and station as opposed to the nobles (Isaiah 3:5). (c) (beli-shem): "nameless," "of no account": "children of fools, yea, children of base men" (Job 30:8). (d) the King James Version men, sons, daughters, children of Belial; literally "worthless persons"; in the American Standard Revised Version "base," except 1 Samuel 1:16 "wicked woman"; also the English Revised Version of Deuteronomy 13:13, "base," which elsewhere retains the King James Version rendering. (e) (tapeinos): "lowly," "humble or abject" (2 Corinthians 10:1); the Revised Version (British and American), "lowly"; so Paul's enemies said he appeared when present in the church at Corinth. (f) (agenes): "of low birth," "of no account" (1 Corinthians 1:28): "base things of the world." (g) (agoraios): " belonging to the market-place," loafers, worthless characters (Acts 17:5): "certain lewd fellows of the baser sort"; the Revised Version (British and American) "certain vile fellows of the rabble."
T. Rees
Basemath; Bashemath; Basmath
Basemath; Bashemath; Basmath - bas'-e-math, bash'-e-math, bas'-math (basemath, "fragrant"):
(1) Basemath, one of the wives of Esau, a daughter of Elon, the Hittite (Genesis 26:34; the King James Version Bashemath), probably identical with or a sister of Adah whom he also married (Genesis 36:2). Compare ADAH.
(2) Basemath (the King James Version Bashemath), another wife of Esau, a daughter of Ishmael and a sister of Nebaioth (Genesis 36:3-4, 10, 13, 17). This wife is also called Mahalath (Genesis 28:9), and is of the house of Abraham. Esau married her because his father was not pleased with his other wives who were daughters of Canaan. Compare MAHALATH.
(2) Basemath (the King James Version Basmath), the daughter of Solomon, and wife of Ahimaaz, a commissariat-officer in the service of Solomon (1 Kings 4:15).
A. L. Breslich
Bashan
Bashan - ba'-shan (ha-bashan, "the Bashan"; Basan): This name is probably the same in meaning as the cognate Arabic bathneh, "soft, fertile land," or bathaniyeh (batanaea), "this land sown with wheat" ("wheatland").
1. Boundaries: It often occurs with the article, "the Bashan," to describe the kingdom of Og, the most northerly part of the land East of the Jordan. It stretched from the border of Gilead in the South to the slopes of Hermen in the North. Hermon itself is never definitely included in Bashan, although Og is said to have ruled in that mountain (Joshua 12:5; 13:11). In Deuteronomy 3:10 Salecah and Edrei seem to indicate the East and West limits respectively. This would agree with Joshua 12:5; 13:11, which seem to make Geshur and Maacath the western boundary of Bashan. If this were so, then these unconquered peoples literally "dwelt in the midst of Israel." On the other hand Deuteronomy 4:47 may mean that the Jordan formed the western boundary; while Deuteronomy 33:22 makes Bashan extend to the springs of the Jordan. If Golan lay in the district in which its name is still preserved (el Jaulan), this also brings it to the lip of the Jordan valley (Deuteronomy 4:43). "A mountain of summits," or "protuberances" (Psalms 68:15-16: Hebrew), might describe the highlands of the Jaulan, with its many volcanic hills as seen from the West. "A mountain of God" however does not so well apply to this region. Perhaps we should, with Wetzstein (Das batanaische Giebelgebirge) take these phrases as descriptive of Jebel Chauran, now usually called Jebel ed-Druze, with its many striking summits. This range protected the province from encroachment by the sands of the wilderness from the East. On the South Bashan marched with the desert steppe, el-Chamad, and Gilead. Of the western boundary as we have seen there can be no certainty. It is equally impossible to draw any definite line in the North.
2. Characteristics: Bashan thus included the fertile, wooded slopes of Jebel ed-Druze, the extraordinarily rich plain of el-Chauran (en-Nuqrah--see HAURAN), the rocky tract of el-Leja', the region now known as el-Jedur, resembling the Chauran in character, but less cultivated; and, perhaps, the breezy uplands of el-Jaulan, with its splendid reaches of pasture land. It was a land rich in great cities, as existing ruins sufficiently testify. It can hardly be doubted that many of these occupy sites of great antiquity. We may specially note Ashtaroth and Edrei, the cities of Og; Golan, the city of refuge, the site of which is still in doubt; and Salecah (Calkhad), the fortress on the ridge of the mountain, marking the extreme eastern limit of Israel's possessions.
The famous oaks of Bashan (Isaiah 2:13; Ezekiel 27:6) have their modern representatives on the mountain slopes. It seems strange that in Scripture there is no notice of the wheat crops for which the country is in such repute today. Along with Carmel it stood for the fruitfulness of the land (Isaiah 33:9 etc.); and their languishing was an evident mark of God's displeasure (Nahum 1:4). The "bulls of Bashan" represent blatant and brutal strength (Psalms 22:12, etc.). It is long since the lion deserted the plateau (Deuteronomy 33:22); but the leopard is still not unknown among the mountains (Song of Solomon 4:8).
3. History: In pre-Israelite days Bashan was ruled by Og the Amorite. His defeat at Edrei marked the end of his kingdom (Numbers 21:33 ff; Joshua 13:11), and the land was given to the half tribe of Manasseh (Joshua 13:30, etc.). In the Syrian wars Bashan was lost to Israel (1 Kings 22:3 ff; 2 Kings 8:28; 10:32 f), but it was regained by Jeroboam II (2 Kings 14:25). It was incorporated in the Assyrian empire by Tiglath-pileser III (2 Kings 15:29). In the 2nd century BC it was in the hands of the Nabateans. It formed part of the kingdom of Herod the Great, and then belonged to that of Philip and Agrippa II.
W. Ewing
Bashan-havvoth-jair
Bashan-havvoth-jair - ba'-shan-hav'-oth-ja'-ir (bashan chawwoth ya'ir).
See HAVVOTH-JAIR.
Bashemath
Bashemath - bash'-e-math.
See BASEMATH.
Basilisk
Basilisk - baz'-i-lisk (tsepha`, tsiph`oni, from obsolete root tsapha`, "to hiss": Isaiah 11:8; 14:29; 59:5; Jeremiah 8:17; Proverbs 23:32 m. In Proverbs 23:32, the King James Version has "adder," margin "cockatrice"; in the other passages cited the King James Version has "cockatrice," margin "adder" (except Jeremiah 8:17, no margin)): The word is from basiliskos, "kinglet," from basileus, "king," and signifies a mythical reptile hatched by a serpent from a cock's egg. Its hissing drove away other serpents. Its look, and especially its breath, was fatal. According to Pliny, it was named from a crown-like spot on its head. It has been identified with the equally mythical COCKATRICE (which see). In all the passages cited, it denotes a venomous serpent (see ADDER; SERPENT), but it is impossible to tell what, if any, particular species is referred to. It must be borne in mind that while there are poisonous snakes in Palestine, there are more which are not poisonous, and most of the latter, as well as some harmless lizards, are commonly regarded as deadly. Several of the harmless snakes have crownlike markings on their heads, and it is quite conceivable that the basilisk myth may have been founded upon one of these.
Alfred Ely Day
Basin; Bason
Basin; Bason - ba'-s'-n.
1. The Terms Used and Their Meaning: The American Standard Revised Version has "basin," the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American) "bason," the preferred spelling of the English revisers. In the Appendix to the Revised Old Testament the American Revisers (section viii) say, "The modern spelling is preferred for the following words"; then follow among others "basin" for "bason"; but no similar statement appears in the Appendix to the Revised New Testament. The Hebrew word so rendered in English Versions of the Bible is chiefly used for the large bowl of bronze (the King James Version "brass") employed by the priests to receive the blood of the sacrificial victims (Exodus 27:3; compare Exodus 29:16; 1 Kings 7:45, etc.). It is found only once in secular use (Amos 6:6, "drink wine in bowls"), if the text there is correct; the Septuagint has it otherwise. See BOWL. The "basins" of Exodus 12:22; 2 Samuel 17:28 were probably of earthenware.
2. Of Various Materials and Forms: While the priests' bowls were of bronze, similar bowls or basins of silver were presented by the princes of the congregation, according to Numbers 7:13 ff; and those spoken of in 1 Kings 7:50 as destined for Solomon's temple were of gold (compare 1 Chronicles 28:17).
3. The Typical Ewer of the East: (1) The well-known eastern mode of washing the hands was and is by pouring water on the hands, not by dipping them in water, an act, of course, calling for the aid of an attendant. Elisha "poured water on the hands of Elijah" (2 Kings 3:11; see Kitto's note in Pictorial Bible 2,II , 330). A disciple came to be known as "one who poured water on the hands of another." Such was beyond question the prevailing custom among the ancient Hebrews, as it was, and is, among eastern peoples in general. They incline to look with disgust, if not with horror, upon our western practice of washing face and hands in water retained in a basin.
(2) The typical vessel of the East used in such ablutions has a long spout, not unlike our large coffee-pot (see Kitto, Pict. Biblical, II, 331, note). While the English Versions of the Bible unfortunately often suggests nothing like such pouring, the Hebrew expresses it, e.g. in 1 Samuel 25:41, where we have the Qal of rachats compare Kennedy in 1 Samuel 1:1-28-vol HDB, and HDB, articles "Bath," "Bathing." Kennedy shows that "affusion," "pouring on" of water, was meant in many cases where we read "bathe" or "wash" in Enoch glish Versions. Lane (Mod. Egypt, chapter v) says: "A servant brings him a basin and ewer (called Tsisht and ibreek) of tinned copper or brass. The first has a cover with holes, with a raised receptacle for the soap; and the water is poured upon the hands and passes through the ewer into the space below; so that when the basin is brought to a second person the water with which the former has washed is not seen."
4. A Basin of a Unique Sort: (1) A wash-basin of a special sort was used by Jesus for washing the disciples' feet (see John 13:5). The Greek is nipter eita ballei hudor eis ton niptera, translated the Revised Version (British and American), "then he poureth water into the basin." This word nipter is not found elsewhere in the New Testament, nor in the Septuagint, nor, indeed, in Greek profane literature. But fortunately the general sense is here made plain by the context and by comparison of the cognate verbs niptein and n izein. It evidently denotes an article, not necessarily a vessel, specifically suited to the use of washing a part of the body, e.g. the hands or the feet, and hence is used with the article, "the basin," the Revised Version (British and American). It is doubtful, therefore, if "basin," or "bason," conveys a true idea of either the oriental article here meant or the scene portrayed. The fact that, according to the custom of the day, the position of the disciples here was reclining, precludes the possibility of the use of a "basin" of our sort, in the way we are accustom edition to, i.e. for immersing the feet in the water, in whole or in part.
(2) So it is likely that the nipter was a jug, or ewer, with a dish, saucer, or basin placed under it and combined with it to catch the dripping water. We know from other sources that such a vessel was kept in the Jewish house regularly for ordinary handwashings, etc. (see Matthew 15:2; Mark 7:3), and for ceremonial ablutions. Hence, it would naturally be ready here in the upper room as a normal part of the preparation of the "goodman of the house" for his guests (the King James Version Mark 14:14; Luke 22:12), and so it is distinguished by the Greek article ton. Jesus Himself used the nipter, standing, doubtless, to impress upon His disciples the lessons of humility, self-abasement and loving service which He ever sought to impart and illustrate.
(3) Our conclusion, we may say with George Farmer in DCG, article "Bason," is that nipter was not simply one large basin, but the set of ewer and basin combined, such a set as was commonly kept in the Jewish house for the purpose of cleansing either the hands or the feet by means of affusion. The Arabic Tisht, authorities tell us, is the exact rendering of nipter, and it comes from a root which means "to pour," or "rain slightly." (See Anton Tien, reviser of the Arabic prayer-book, author of Arabic an d Mod. Greek Grammars, etc., quoted in DCG, article "Bason.")
George B. Eager
Basket
Basket - bas'-ket: Four kinds of "baskets" come to view in the Old Testament under the Hebrew names, dudh, Tene', cal and kelubh. There is little, however, in these names, or in the narratives where they are found, to indicate definitely what the differences of size and shape and use were. The Mishna renders us some help in our uncertainty, giving numerous names and descriptions of "baskets" in use among the ancient Hebrews (see Kreugel, Dasse Hausgerat in der Mishna, 39-45). They were variously m ade of willow, rush, palm-leaf, etc., and were used for various purposes, domestic and agricultural, for instance, in gathering and serving fruit, collecting alms in kind for the poor, etc. Some had handles, others lids, some both, others neither.
1. Meaning of Old Testament Terms: (1) Dudh was probably a generic term for various kinds of baskets. It was probably the "basket" in which the Israelites in Egypt carried the clay for bricks (compare Psalms 81:6, where it is used as a symbol of Egyptian bondage), and such as the Egyptians themselves used for that purpose (Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians, I, 379), probably a large, shallow basket, made of wicker-work. It stood for a basket that was used in fruit-gathering (see Jeremiah 24:1), but how it differed from Amos' "basket of summer fruit" (Amos 8:1) we do not know. Dudh is used for the "pot" in which meat was boiled (1 Samuel 2:14), showing probably that a pot-shaped "basket" was known by this name. Then it seems to have stood for a basket tapering toward the bottom like the calathus of the Romans. So we seem forced to conclude that the term was generic, not specific.
(2) The commonest basket in use in Old Testament times was the cal. It was the "basket" in which the court-baker of Egypt carried about his confectionery on his head (Genesis 40:16). It was made in later times at least of peeled willows, or palm leaves, and was sometimes at least large and flat like the canistrum of the Romans, and, like it, was used for carrying bread and other articles of food (Genesis 40:16; Judges 6:19). Meat for the meat offerings and the unleavened bread, were placed in it (Exodus 29:3; Leviticus 8:2; Numbers 6:15). It is expressly required that the unleavened cakes be placed and offered in such a "basket." While a "basket," it was dish-shaped, larger or smaller in size, it would seem, according to demand, and perhaps of finer texture than the dudh.
(3) The Tene' was a large, deep basket, in which grain and other products of garden or field were carried home, and kept (Deuteronomy 28:5, 17), in which the first-fruits were preserved (Deuteronomy 26:2), and the tithes transported to the sanctuary (Deuteronomy 26:2 f). It has been thought probable that the chabya, the basket of clay and straw of the Palestine peasantry of today, is a sort of survival or counterpart of it. It has the general shape of a jar, and is used for storing and keeping wheat, barley, oats, etc. At the top is the mouth into which the grain is poured, and at the bottom is an orifice through which it can be taken out as needed, when the opening is again closed with a rag. The Septuagint translates Tene' by kartallos, which denotes a basket of the shape of an inverted cone.
(4) The term kelubh, found in Amos 8:1 for a "fruit-basket," is used in Jeremiah 5:27 (the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American) "cage") for a bird-cage. But it is not at all unreasonable to suppose that a coarsely woven basket with a cover would be used by a fowler to carry home his feathered captives.
2. Meaning of New Testament Terms: In the New Testament interest centers in two kinds of "basket," distinguished by the evangelists in their accounts of the feeding of the 5,000 and of the 4,000, called in Greek kophinos and spuris (Westcott-Hort sphuris).
(1) The kophinos (Matthew 14:20; Mark 6:43; Luke 9:17; John 6:13) may be confidently identified with the kuphta' of the Mishna which was provided with a cord for a handle by means of which it could be carried on the back with such provisions as the disciples on the occasions under consideration would naturally have with them (of Kreugel, and Broadus, Commentary in the place cited.). The Jews of Juvenal's day carried such a specific "provision-basket" with them on their journeys regularly, and the Latin for it is a transliteration of this Greek word, cophinus (compare Juvenal iii.14, and Jastrow, Dictionary, article "Basket"). Some idea of its size may be drawn from the fact that in CIG, 1625, 46, the word denotes a Beotian measure of about two gallons.
(2) The sphuris or spuris (Matthew 15:37; Mark 8:8) we may be sure, from its being used in letting Paul down from the wall at Damascus (Acts 9:25, etc.), was considerably larger than the kophinos and quite different in shape and uses. It might for distinction fitly be rendered "hamper," as Professor Kennedy suggests. Certainly neither the Greek nor ancient usage justifies any confusion.
(3) The sargane (2 Corinthians 11:33) means anything plaited, or sometimes more specifically a fish-basket.
George B. Eager
Basmath
Basmath - bas'-math.
See BASEMATH.
Bason
Bason - ba'-s'-n.
See BASIN.
Bassa
Bassa - bas'-a.
See BASSAI.
Bassai
Bassai - bas'-a-i, bas'-i (Bassai, Bassa; the King James Version Bassa; 1 Esdras 5:16; Bezai (Ezra 2:17; Nehemiah 7:23)): The sons of Bassai returned with Zerubbabel to Jerusalem.
Bastai
Bastai - bas'-ta-i.
See BASTHAI.
Bastard
Bastard - bas'-tard (mamzer; nothos): In Deuteronomy 23:2 probably the offspring of an incestuous union, or of a marriage within the prohibited degrees of affinity (Leviticus 18:6-20; Leviticus 20:10-21). He and his descendants to the tenth generation are excluded from the assembly of the Lord. (See Driver, at the place). Zechariah (Leviticus 9:6), after prophesying the overthrow of three Philistine cities, declares of the fourth: "And a bastard (the Revised Version, margin "a bastard race") shall dwell in Ashdod," meaning probably that a "mixed population" (BDB) of aliens shall invade and settle in the capital of the Philistines. In Heb (Leviticus 12:8) in its proper sense of "born out of wedlock," and therefore not admitted to the privileges of paternal care and responsibility as a legitimate son.
T. Ress
Basthai
Basthai - bas'-tha-i, bas'-thi (Basthai; the King James Version Bastai; 1 Esdras 5:31 = Besai (Ezra 2:49; Nehemiah 7:52)): The descendants of Basthai (temple-servants) returned with Zerubbabel to Jerusalem.
Bat
Bat - (`aTaleph; Leviticus 11:19; Deuteronomy 14:18; Isaiah 2:20): Bats are the most widely distributed of mammals, reaching even the oceanic islands, and modern science has revealed the existence of an astonishing number of species, nearly twenty being recorded from Palestine. These include both fruit-eating and insect-eating bats, the latter being the smaller. It has not always been realized that they are mammals, and so it is not surprising that they should be mentioned at the end of the list of unclean birds in Leviticus 11:19 and Deuteronomy 14:18. It may, however, be significant that they are at the end of the list and not in the middle of it. The fruit bats are a pest to horticulturists and often strip apricot and other trees before the fruit has ripened enough to be picked. On this account the fruit is often enclosed in bags, or the whole tree may be surrounded with a great sheet or net. They commonly pick the fruit and eat it on some distant perch beneath which the seeds and the ordure of these animals are scattered. The insect bats, as in other countries, flit about at dusk and through the night catching mosquitoes and larger insects, and so are distinctly beneficial.
The reference in Isaiah 2:20, "cast .... idols .... to the moles and to the bats" refers of course to these animals as inhabitants of dark and deserted places. As in the case of many animal names the etymology of `aTaleph is doubtful. Various derivations have been proposed but none can be regarded as satisfactory. The Arabic name, waTwaT, throws no light on the question.
Alfred Ely Day
Batanaea
Batanaea - bat-a-ne'-a: The name used in Greek times for BASHAN (which see), Josephus, Life, II; Ant, XV, x, 1; XVII, ii, 1, "toparchy of Butanea."
Bath
Bath - (bath): A liquid measure equal to about 9 gallons, English measure. It seems to have been regarded as a standard for liquid measures (Ezekiel 45:10), as in the case of the molten sea and the lavers in Solomon's temple (1 Kings 7:26, 38), and for measuring oil and wine (2 Chronicles 2:10; Ezra 7:22; Isaiah 5:10; Ezekiel 45:14). Its relation to the homer is given in Ezekiel 45:11, 14).
See WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.
Bath Kol
Bath Kol - bath'-kol, bath kol (bath qol, "the daughter of the voice"): Originally signifying no more than "sound," "tone," "call" (e.g. water in pouring gives forth a "sound," bath qol, while oil does not), sometimes also "echo." The expression acquired among the rabbis a special use, signifying the Divine voice, audible to man and unaccompanied by a visible Divine manifestation. Thus conceived, bath qol is to be distinguished from God's speaking to Moses and the prophets; for at Sinai the voice of God was part of a larger theophany, while for the prophets it was the resultant inward demonstration of the Divine will, by whatever means effected, given to them to declare (see VOICE). It is further to be distinguished from all natural sounds and voices, even where these were interpreted as conveying Divine instruction. The conception appears for the first time in Daniel 4:28 (English Versions 31)--it is in the Aramaic portion--where, however, qal = qol, "voice" stands without berath = bath, "daughter": "A voice fell from heaven." Josephus (Ant., XIII, x, 3) relates that John Hyrcanus (135-104 BC) heard a voice while offering a burnt sacrifice in the temple, which Josephus expressly interprets as the voice of God (compare Babylonian SoTah 33a and Jerusalem SoTah 24b, where it is called bath qol). In the New Testament mention of "a voice from heaven" occurs in the following passages: Matthew 3:17; Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22 (at the baptism of Jesus); Matthew 17:5; Mark 9:7; Luke 9:35 (at His transfiguration); John 12:28 (shortly before His passion); Acts 9:4; 22:7; 26:14 (conversion of Paul), and Acts 10:13, 15 (instruction of Peter concerning clean and unclean). In the period of the Tannaim (circa 100 BC-200 AD) the term bath qol was in very frequent us and was understood to signify not the direct voice of God, which was held to be supersensible, but the echo of the voice (the bath being somewhat arbitrarily taken to express the distinction). The rabbis held that bath qol had been an occasional means of Divine communication throughout the whole history of Israel and that since the cessation of the prophetic gift it was the sole means of Divine revelation. It is noteworthy that the rabbinical conception of bath qol sprang up in the period of the decline of Old Testament prophecy and flourished in the period of extreme traditionalism. Where the gift of prophecy was clearly lacking--perhaps even because of this lack--there grew up an inordinate desire for special Divine manifestations. Often a voice from heaven was looked for to clear up matters of do ubt and even to decide between conflicting interpretations of the law. So strong had this tendency become that Rabbi Joshua (circa 100 AD) felt it to be necessary to oppose it and to insist upon the supremacy and the sufficiency of the written law. It is clear that we have here to do with a conception of the nature and means of Divine revelation that is distinctly inferior to the Biblical view. For even in the Biblical passages where mention is made of the voice from heaven, all that is really essential to the revelation is already present, at least in principle, without the audible voice.
LITERATURE.
F. Weber, System der altsynagogalen palastinischen Theologie, 2nd edition, 1897, 194 ff; J. Hamburger, Real-Enc des Judentums, II, 1896; W. Bacher, Agada der Tannaiten and Agada der palast. Amoraer (see Index); Jewish Encyclopedia,II , 588 ff; "Bath Kol" inTSBA ,IX , 18; P. Fiebig, Rel. in Gesch. und Gegenwart, I, under the word
J. R. Van Pelt
Bath; Bathing
Bath; Bathing - bath, bath'-ing.
1. Ordinary Bathing: Bathing in the ordinary, non-religious sense, public or private, is rarely met with in the Scriptures. We find, however, three exceptional and interesting cases: (1) that of Pharaoh's daughter, resorting to the Nile (Exodus 2:5); (2) that of Bath-sheba, bathing on the house-top (2 Samuel 11:2 the Revised Version (British and American)); (3) the curious case mentioned in 1 Kings 22:38. (To wash with royal blood was supposed to be beneficial to the complexion.)
The dusty, limestone soil of Palestine and the open foot-gear of the Orient on stockingless feet, called for frequent washing of the feet (Genesis 24:32; 43:24; Judges 19:24; 1 Samuel 25:41; 2 Samuel 11:8; Song of Solomon 5:3, etc.), and bathing of the body for refreshment; but the chief concern of the writers of Scripture was with bathing of another sort. Indeed, something of the religious sense and aspect of bathing, in addition to that of bodily refreshment, seems to have entered into the ordinary use of water, as in the washing of the hands before meals, etc. (see Genesis 18:4; 19:2; Luke 7:44).
2. Bathing Resorts: The streams and ponds, when available, were the usual resorts for bathing (Exodus 2:5; 2 Kings 5:10, etc.), but the water-supply of large cities, stored up in great pools or large cisterns, was certainly available at times to some degree for bathing (2 Samuel 11:2); though, as Benzinger says, no traces of bathrooms have been found in old Hebrew houses, even in royal palaces. In Babylon, it would seem from Susanna 15, there were bathing pools in gardens, though this passage may refer simply to bathing in the open air. Certainly public baths as now known, or plunge-baths of the Greek type, were unknown among the Hebrews until they were brought in contact with the Greek civilization. Such baths first come into view during the Greek-Roman period, when they are found to be regularly included in the gymnasia, or "places of exercise" (1 Maccabees 1:14). Remains of them, of varying degrees of richness and architectural completeness, may be seen today in various parts of the East, those left of the cities of the Decapolis, especially at Gerash and Amman, being excellent examples (compare also those at Pompeii). A remarkable series of bath-chambers has recently been discovered by Mr. R. A. S. Macalister at Gezer in Palestine, in connection with a building supposed to be the palace built by Simon Maccabeus. For an interesting account of it see PEFS , 1905, 294 f.
3. Greek versus Semitic Ideas: When we consider that in Palestine six months of the year are rainless, and how scarce and pricelessly valuable water is during most of the year, and in many places all the year round; and when we recall how the Bedouin of today looks on the use of water for cleansing in such times and places of scarcity, viewing it as a wanton waste (see Benzinger, Hebrew. Arch., 108, note), the rigid requirement of it for so many ritual purposes by the Mosaic law is, to say the least, remarkable (see ABLUTION; CLEAN; UNCLEANNESS, etc.). Certainly there was a marked contrast between the Greek idea of bathing and that of the Hebrews and Asiatics in general, when they came in contact. But when Greek culture invaded Palestine under Antiochus Epiphanes (circa 168 BC), it brought Greek ideas and Greek bathing establishments with it; and under Herod (40-44 BC) it was given the right of way and prevailed to no mean degree (see Anecdote of GamalielII in Schurer,HJP ,II , i, 18, 53).
4. Ceremonial Purification: But "bathing" in the Bible stands chiefly for ritual acts--purification from ceremonial uncleanness, from contact with the dead, with defiled persons or things, with "holy things," i.e. things "devoted," or "under the ban," etc. (see CLEAN; UNCLEANNESS, etc.). The Hebrew of the Old Testament does not sharply distinguish between bathing and partial washing--both are expressed by rahats, and the Revised Version (British and American) rightly renders "wash" instead of "bathe" in some cases. Talmudic usage simply codified custom which had been long in vogue, according to Schurer. But Kennedy grants that the "bath" at last became, even for the laity, "an important factor in the religious life of Israel." We read of daily bathing by the Essenes (Josephus, BJ, II, viii, 5). Then later we find John, the Baptizer, immersing, as the record clearly shows the apostles of Christ did also (Acts 8:38; Romans 6:3 f); compare Luke 11:38 where baptizo, in passive = "washed."
5. Bathing for Health: In John 5:2-7 we have an example of bathing for health. There are remains of ancient baths at Gadara and at Callirrhoe, East of the Jordan, baths which were once celebrated as resorts for health-seekers. There are hot baths in full operation today, near Tiberias, on the southwestern shore of the Lake of Galilee, which have been a health resort from time immemorial. It is probably true, however, as some one has said, that in Old Testament times and in New Testament times, the masses of the people had neither privacy nor inclination for bathing.
George B. Eager
Bath-rabbim, the Gate of
Bath-rabbim, the Gate of - bath-rab'-im, (sha`ar bath-rabbim; Septuagint en pulais thugatros pollon, literally "in the gates of the daughter of the many." The gate of Heshbon near which were the pools compared to the Shulammite's eyes (Song of Solomon 7:4). Guthe would translate "by the gate of the populous city." Cheyne would amend the passage and read
"Thine eyes are like Solomon's pools,
By the wood of Beth-cerem,"
and transfer the scene to the pools of Solomon, S. of Bethlehem (EB, under the word). But this is surely very violent. One of the pools of Heshbon still survives, measuring 191 ft. X 139 ft., and is 10 ft. deep. The walls however have been rent by earthquakes, and now no longer retain the water.
W. Ewing
Bath-sheba
Bath-sheba - bath-she'-ba, bath'-she-ba (bath-shebha`, "the seventh daughter," or "the daughter of an oath," also called Bathshua bath-shua`, "the daughter of opulence" (1 Chronicles 3:5); the Septuagint however reads Bersabee everywhere; compare BATHSHUA;HPN , 65, 67, 77, 206 for Bath-sheba, and 67, 69, note 3, for Bathshua): Bath-sheba was the daughter of Eliam (2 Samuel 11:3) or Ammiel (1 Chronicles 3:5); both names have the same meaning. She was the beautiful wife of Uriah the Hittite, and because of her beauty was forced by David to commit adultery (2 Samuel 11:2 ff; Psalms 51:1-19). Her husband Uriah was treacherously killed by the order of David (2 Samuel 11:6 ff). After the death of her husband David made her his wife and she lived with him in the palace (2 Samuel 11:27). Four sons sprang from this marriage (2 Samuel 5:14; 1 Chronicles 3:5), after the first child, the adulterine, had died (2 Samuel 12:14 ff). With the help of the prophet Nathan she renders futile the usurpation of Adonijah and craftily secures the throne for her son Solomon (1 Kings 1:11 ff). Later Adonijah succeeds in deceiving Bath-sheba, but his plan is frustrated by the king (1 Kings 2:13 ff). According to Jewish tradition, Proverbs 31:1-31 is written by Solomon in memory of his mother. In the genealogy of Jesus (Matthew 16:1-28) Bath-sheba is mentioned as the former wife of Uriah and the mother of Solomon by David.
See ADONIJAH; AMMIEL; BATHSHUA; DAVID; ELIAM; NATHAN; SOLOMON.
A. L. Breslich
Bathshua
Bathshua - bath'-shu-a (bath-shua`, "the daughter of opulence" or "the daughter of Shua"; compare BATH-SHEBA; for derivation seeHPN , 67, 69, note 3):
(1) In Genesis 38:2 and 1 Chronicles 2:3, where the name is translated "Shua's daughter," the wife of Judah.
(2) In 1 Chronicles 3:5, the daughter of Ammiel and wife of David.
See BATH-SHEBA.
Bath-zacharias
Bath-zacharias - bath-zak-a-ri'-as.
See BETH-ZACHARIAS.
Battering-ram
Battering-ram - bat'-er-ing-ram.
See SIEGE.
Battle
Battle - See WAR.
Battle-axe
Battle-axe - bat'-'-l-ax.
See ARMOR,ARMS ,III , 1; AX(AXE ).
Battle-bow
Battle-bow - bat'-'-l-bo: Found in the striking Messianic prophecy: "The battle bow shall be cut off" (Zechariah 9:10). The prophet is predicting the peace that shall prevail when Zion's king cometh, "just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, even upon a colt the foal of an ass." The words convey their full significance only when read in the light of the context: "I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off; and he shall speak peace unto the nations" (compare Zechariah 10:4). The battle-bow was sometimes made of tough wood, sometimes of two straight horns joined together (Hom. II. iv.105-11), and sometimes of bronze. In Psalms 18:34 the Revised Version (British and American) we find "bow of brass," but it probably should be of "bronze" (nechosheth), a metal very different from our brass, which is a mixture of copper and zinc. The point of the passage in this connection ("He teacheth my hands to war; so that mine arms do bend a bow of bronze"), as well as of that in 2 Kings 9:24 ("And Jehu drew his bow with his full strength") is that it required great strength to bend the battle-bow.
George B. Eager
Battlement
Battlement - bat'-'-l-ment.
See FORTIFICATION; HOUSE.
Bavai
Bavai - bav'-a-i.
See BAVVAI.
Bavvai
Bavvai - bav'-a-i (bawway; Septuagint Codex Alexandrinus, Benei; Codex Vaticanus, Bedei; the King James Version Bavai, "wisher" (?) (Nehemiah 3:18)): Perhaps identical with or a brother of Binnui (Nehemiah 3:24). See BINNUI. Bavvai, "the son of Henadad, the ruler of half the district of Keilah," was of a Levitical family. He is mentioned as one of those who repaired the wall of Jerusalem after the return from Babylon (Nehemiah 3:17 f).
Bay (1)
Bay (1) - ba.
See COLORS .
Bay (2)
Bay (2) - ba (lashon, literally "tongue"; kolpos): The word occurs in the sense of inlet of the sea in the Old Testament only in Joshua 15:2, 5; 18:19, and in New Testament only in Acts 27:39 (of Malta, the King James Version "creek").
Bay Tree
Bay Tree - ba'-tre' (the King James Version only; Psalms 37:35; 'ezrach): The word means "native," "indigenous," and the Revised Version (British and American) translations "a green tree in its native soil."
Bayith
Bayith - ba'-yith (bayith; the King James Version Bajith, "house" (Isaiah 15:2)): A town in the country of Moab. The reading of the Revised Version, margin, "Bayith and Dibon are gone up to the high places to weep," seems to be the proper rendering of this passage. Duhm et al., by changing the text, read either "house of" or "daughter of." The construct of this word beth is frequently used in compound words.
See BETH.
Bazlith; Bazluth
Bazlith; Bazluth - baz'-lith, baz'-luth (batslith, Nehemiah 7:54; batsluth, Ezra 2:52; Basaloth, 1 Esdras 5:31, "asking"): The descendants of Bazlith (temple-servants) returned with Zerubbabel to Jerusalem.
Bdellium
Bdellium - del'-i-um (bedholach): The word occurs twice in the Pentateuch: (1) in Genesis 2:12, in conjunction with gold and onyx, as a product of the land of HAVILAH (which see), and (2) in Numbers 11:7, where the manna is likened to this substance in appearance: "The appearance thereof as the appearance of bdellium." The latter comparison excludes the idea of bedholach being a precious stone, and points to the identification of it with the fragrant resinous gum known to the Greeks as bdellion, several kinds being mentioned by Dioscorides and Pliny. It was a product of Arabia, India, Afghanistan, etc.
James Orr
Beach
Beach - bech (aigialos): The part of the shore washed by the tide on which the waves dash (Matthew 13:2, 48; John 21:4; Acts 21:5; Acts 27:39-40).
Beacon
Beacon - be'-k'-n. The translation of the Hebrew toren, which usually means "mast" (compare Isaiah 33:23; Ezekiel 27:5), but in Isaiah 30:17 being used in parallelism with "ensign" the meaning may be "signal-staff" (Isaiah 30:17 the American Revised Version, margin "pole").
Bealiah
Bealiah - be-a-li'-a (be`alyah, "Yahweh is Lord," compare HPN , 144, 287): Bealiah, formerly a friend of Saul, joined David at Ziklag (1 Chronicles 12:5).
Bealoth
Bealoth - be'-a-loth (be`aloth; Baloth): An unidentified city of Judah in the Negeb (Joshua 15:24).
Beam
Beam - bem: The word is used to translate various Old Testament terms:
(1) gebh (1 Kings 6:9), tsela`, "a rib" (1 Kings 7:3), qurah (2 Chronicles 3:7; 34:11; Song of Solomon 1:17), all refer to constructional beams used in buildings for roofing and upper floors, main beams being carried on pillars generally of wood. The last term is used in 2 Kings 6:2, 5 ("as one was felling a beam") of trees which were being cut into logs. A related form is qarah (used of the Creator, Psalms 104:3; of building, Nehemiah 2:8; 3, 6). Yet another term, kaphim, is used in Habakkuk 2:11: "The stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it"--a protest against sin made by inanimate things. The Douay version, in translating, "the timber that is between the joints of the building," suggests the use of bond timbers in buildings, similar to that used at one time in English brickwork. It probably refers to its use in mud brick buildings, although bond timbers might also be used in badly built stone walls. The Arabs of the present day use steel joints to strengthen angles of buildings.
(2) Beam, in weaving, represents two words, 'eregh (Judges 16:14, the beam of a loom to which Samson's hair was fastened; used in Job 7:6 of a weaver's shuttle), and manor (1 Samuel 17:7; 2 Samuel 21:19; 1 Chronicles 11:23; 20:5), of a spear-staff.
(3) In the New Testament Jesus uses the word dokos, "a rafter," in bidding the censorious person first cast the "beam" out of his own eye before attempting to remove the "mote" from another's eye (Matthew 7:3; Luke 6:41-42).
See ARCHITECTURE; HOUSE.
Arch. C. Dickie
Bean
Bean - be'-an.
See BAEAN.
Beans
Beans - benz (pol; Arabic ful): A very common product of Palestine; a valuable and very ancient article of diet. The Bible references are probably to the Faba vulgaris (N.D. Leguminosae) or horsebean. This is sown in the autumn; is in full flower--filling the air with sweet perfume--in the early spring; and is harvested just after the barley and wheat. The bundles of black bean stalks, plucked up by the roots and piled up beside the newly winnowed barley, form a characteristic feature on many village threshing-floors. Beans are threshed and winnowed like the cereals. Beans are eaten entire, with the pod, in the unripe state, but to a greater extent the hard beans are cooked with oil and meat.
In Ezekiel 4:9, beans are mentioned with other articles as an unusual source of bread and in 2 Samuel 17:28 David receives from certain staunch friends of his at Mahanaim a present, which included "beans, and lentils, and parched pulse."
E. W. G. Masterman
Bear
Bear - bar (dobh; compare Arabic dubb): In 1 Samuel 17:34-37, David tells Saul how as a shepherd boy he had overcome a lion and a bear. In 2 Kings 2:24 it is related that two she bears came out of the wood and tore forty-two of the children who had been mocking Elisha. All the other references to bears are figurative; compare 2 Samuel 17:8; Proverbs 17:12; 28:15; Isaiah 11:7; 59:11; Lamentations 3:10; Daniel 7:5; Hosea 13:8; Amos 5:19; Revelation 13:2. The Syrian bear, sometimes named as a distinct species, Ursus Syriacus, is better to be regarded as merely a local variety of the European and Asiatic brown bear, Ursus arctos. It still exists in small numbers in Lebanon and is fairly common in Anti-Lebanon and Hermon. It does not seem to occur now in Palestine proper, but may well have done so in Bible times. It inhabits caves in the high and rugged mountains and issues mainly at night to feed on roots and vegetables. It is fond of the chummuc or chick-pea which is sometimes planted in the upland meadows, and the fields have to be well guarded. The figurative re ferences to the bear take account of its ferocious nature, especially in the case of the she bear robbed of her whelps (2 Samuel 17:8; Proverbs 17:12; Hosea 13:8). It is with this character of the bear in mind that Isaiah says (Hosea 11:7), "And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together."
Alfred Y. Day
Bear, the (Arcturus)
Bear, the (Arcturus) - bar. A great northern constellation.
See ASTRONOMY, sec. II, 13.