Re: "BAPTIZW"

Carlton Winbery (winbery@andria.lacollege.edu)
Fri, 25 Oct 1996 13:37:05 -0600

CONNELL MARK STEVEN wrote;
>As a beginning greek student I am coming to the experts for information. Why
>have the translators not translated the word "BAPTIZW," but transliterated it.
>I am under the impression that it means "to immerse." Is this not correct?
>If it is correct than why do most translations say "baptize" instead? Any help
>you can give would be greatly appreciated. It would seem that it would be of
>tremendous benefit in our interpretation to translate rather than
>transliterate.

If someone kept the string that we did a few weeks back on this, they
should send it to Mark. I did not have time to say anything then, but my
reading of the evidence presented and also several histories of baptism has
convinced me that baptism quickly became a technical term in the church and
began in the second century to cover different modes (with varying amounts
of water) of baptism. That being the case a technical translation seems to
me to be in order, especially since the baptisms among the Christians in
the apostolic age are all in missionary situations.

Carlton L. Winbery
Fogleman Professor of Religion
Chair, Division of Religious Studies
winberyc@popalex1.linknet.net
winbery@andria.lacollege.edu
voice 318 487-7241
fax 318 442-4996