Improvement Era, 1904 by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Religion

As instances showing the position assumed in this article, let us consider the crucial doctrine of baptism. There were, at that time, at least two parties holding different views. 1. The Catholic (English and Roman) who believed in its absolute necessity, and that immersion was the primitive method of performing the ordinance, but asserted that the quantum of water was immaterial, and therefore allowed sprinkling or pouring. 2. The Presbyterians and Puritans, on the other hand, who asserted that baptism was not a necessity, but allowed that a little water, more or less, would not do harm, anyway. Thus the Episcopalian English Prayer book instructs the priest, that, taking the child into his hands, "he shall dip it in the water discreetly and warily," but if certified that "the child is weak, it shall suffice to pour water upon it." In practice Episcopalians of today act on the principle that all children are too weak to be dipped, and accordingly, without calling for a certificate, sprinkle them, unless, as sometimes happens, parents insist upon the ordinance being performed by immersion. Thus, although the Canon law of the English church required immersion, yet, by the neglect to insist on the production of certificates of ill-health, and the unfaithful teaching of the clergy, there was, and even today there is, no strong opinion in that church as to the necessity for baptism by immersion-although the canons of the church require that it be done in accordance with the primitive pattern, set by Christ himself. When, therefore, such passages as Matt. 3:1, 6and 11 came up for translation, the revisors were willing to leave it an open matter by translating the Greek word en in verses 1 and 6 by the word "in," whilst the same identical Greek word in verse 11 is translated "with." If "with" is the proper translation of the word en, then verse 1 would read "With those days came John the Baptist preaching with the wilderness of Judea," and verse 6, "And were baptized of him with Jordan." This would correspond with the King James translation of verse 11: "I indeed baptize you with water," and consistency requires that the word en should be translated by the same word in all three verses. The Greek language has two words meaning "with" viz.: meta and sun neither of which however are used in verse 11. In the Rheims, Roman Catholic Testament, and also in the American Standard Revised Bible, of 1901, the words en udatos are correctly translated "in water." Thus modern and ancient translators agree, when they throw aside their doctrinal differences, and seek only for a correct translation of the original Greek. Again in John 3:5where Christ says, "Except a man be born of water and of the spirit," we find the revisors use the simple genitive case sign, "of," before the words, water and spirit; but a reference to the Greek shows that not only was the genitive case used, but a special preposition governing the genitive was inserted before the word udatos, water.

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