Baptism
by Walt Baucum, March 2004
The Question
Why does the Christian world practice the rite of water baptism when no mention of it is found in the Hebrew Scriptures [“Old” Testament]? Darrell Conder, whose research and comments regarding this timely subject challenges the reader to look more closely at it, says this: “‘Moreover, the fundamental narrative that inspires the New Testament, the story of Jesus, could be understood as mythic in character.’ The ‘Mystery Religions’ had a great influence on Christianity: “Far more problematic is the question of how far the Greco-Roman mysteries influenced the early Christian community, not only in terminology but also in the rites that secured salvation with Christ.’
“Speaking of baptism and the Eucharist (bread and wine), they note that the question of its connection to the Mysteries ‘has still not been resolved.’”
Conder cites other sources and authors who advocate a connection between pagan myths and the origins of Christianity. He mentions The Original Jesus: the Buddhist Sources of Christianity, by Drs. Elmar Gruber and Holger Kersten, and The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity, by Dr. Hyam Maccoby.
The Christians accuse the pagans of borrowing from Christianity and base their assertions on the argument that the earliest surviving writings of paganism [Mithraism, etc.] date only from the second century. This is countered with the argument that the earliest surviving Gospel accounts date from the fourth century.
Roman Catholicism’s version of the beginning of baptism is also indefinite. “The most important theology of baptism is Paul’s. He took it from the Hellenistic missionary communities and ‘corrected it at decisive points to coincide with his cross-centered Christology and his eschatological reservation (the “not-yet”).’”
Then we see some who teach that although most of Christianity is definitely steeped in paganism, their own particular brand of Christianity is not, but which itself also includes water baptism.
Repentance and obedience to our Creator and Father, not Christianity’s teaching of water baptism and Jesus’ blood sacrifice, appear to be the requirements for salvation set forth in the Hebrew Scriptures.
Because of so many differences between the Hebrew Scriptures and the Greek-inspired “New” Testament, and because water baptism is a main tenet of the NT but no mention of it exists in the “OT,” we need to ask the question, “Is water baptism one of God’s requirements for salvation, or for anything?”
A Physical Sign of Obedience
Without going into great depth, we find that circumcision is clearly required of the male descendants of Abraham. Paul, of course, changed this requirement in the Greek NT, if one accepts it as inspired. Also, many people believe, and objective research shows, that the Anglo-Saxon-Celtic peoples, including those of Scandinavia, West Europe, and North America are the very descendants of ancient Israel. Whether we can accept this or not, these are the nations that base their beliefs on the Judeo-Christian system.
One day, if indeed the Hebrew Scriptures [OT] are inspired, the instructions or laws given to Israel will extend to the entire world. All nations will have unity and understanding and pure truth in the worship of their Creator. All nations will be required to keep the Sabbath, the Holy Days, and the dietary laws. The Gentile nations will learn to worship the God of Israel in truth and pure understanding, and they will be required to show an outward physical sign that they have entered into the covenant with God to love and obey Him with all their hearts. This outward physical sign is clearly shown in the Hebrew Scriptures to be circumcision of the foreskin. There is no example in all of Scripture commanding water baptism as this sign of obedience. Just as circumcision was and is commanded of Israelites in the past and today, so will it undoubtedly continue to be commanded in their (and ultimately the entire world’s) future.
Our main concern, then, must be why this Entity, Who proclaims in a first-person statement in Malachi 3:6, “… I am the Elohim, I change not,” changed it, if indeed He did change it.
A Close Look at Water Baptism
Since the New Testament is believed by some to be a fairytale created by Paul, and later capitalized on by the “Apostolic Fathers” (early Catholics), and which is a mix of Mithraism and Zoroastrianism [which would have replaced Christianity had not Christianity been declared the official State religion of Rome by Constantine], and with some Judaism thrown in to appeal to both Jews and Gentiles, we will begin this study by looking at its early heathen practices. We quote again from Essential Catholicism.
“One of the questions often debated by scholars is whether Paul was influenced in his theology of baptism by the mystery religions, such as Cybele’s, which were so popular at that time and taught that one could share in the fate of the cult deity by participating in certain mysterious rites. Certain NT passages, it is true, do reflect this influence (‘You have been buried with him, when you were baptized; and by baptism, too, you have been raised up with him….’)”
Baptismal Regeneration. “There are professed Protestants who hold the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration; but the Word of God knows nothing of it [italics added]. The Scriptural account of baptism is, not that it communicates the new birth, but that it is the appointed means of signifying and sealing that new birth where it already exists. In this respect, baptism stands on the very same ground as circumcision.”
Continuing, the author quotes NT Mark 16:16, “He that believes, and is baptized, shall be saved,” and to make the point that if one’s faith is genuine, it is evidence of a regenerated nature [a new heart]. It is only on the profession of that faith and regeneration [in the case of an adult] that one is admitted to baptism. God may, or may not, as He sees fit, give the new heart before, at, or after baptism.
We will not here discuss Paul’s presumptive substitution of God’s commanded circumcision with the known and well-entrenched pagan rite of baptism, but Hislop confirmed the Roman church’s doctrine of baptismal regeneration as essentially Babylonian. The mere fact of baptizing people, without any instruction whatsoever, is in the “most complete ignorance of the truths of Christianity.” Although Hislop makes the point that baptism without faith and knowledge is incorrect, he himself still believed in this heathen rite.
Twice-born. In the present writer’s previous belief system, use of such expressions relating to baptism were, “Look how dirty the water is; you must have had tons of sins to wash away”; also, “I’m a new person in Christ; I’m only (X) years old [counting the years from one’s baptism].” This latter saying goes along with baptismal regeneration and was crucial to the Babylonian “twice-born” belief. “The Brahmins make it their distinguishing boast that they are ‘twice-born’ men, and that, as such, they are sure of eternal happiness. Now, the same was the case in Babylon, and there the new birth was conferred by baptism. In certain sacred rites of the heathen, says Tertullian, especially referring to the worship of Isis and Mithra, the mode of initiation is by baptism. The term ‘initiation’ clearly shows that it was to the Mysteries of these divinities he referred. This baptism was by immersion…he who passed through the purifying waters, and other necessary penances…was then admitted to the knowledge of the Mysteries.”
Hislop mentions that our own ancestors, the pagan worshippers of Odin, and also the Aztecs in Mexico [see Prescott’s Conquest of Mexico, p. 185], washed [i.e., “to wash and to purify”] in the same manner. Midwives were used for the rite in Mexico. “As baptism is absolutely necessary to salvation, Rome also authorizes midwives to administer baptism. In Mexico, the midwife seems to have been a ‘priestess.’
“In the Romish ceremony of baptism, the first thing the priest does is to exorcise the devil out of the child [here talking specifically about child baptism] to be baptized in these words, ‘Depart from him, thou unclean spirit, and give place to the Holy Ghost the Comforter.’ In the NT there is not the slightest hint of any such exorcism accompanying Christian baptism. It is purely pagan.”
The dove. In the Babylonian Mysteries, the dove also was associated with baptism [see NT John 1:32; Matthew 3:16; Mark 1:10]. “According to the Chaldean doctrine, Semiramis, the wife of Ninus or Nimrod, when exalted to divinity under the name of the Queen of Heaven, came, as we have seen, to be worshipped as Juno, the ‘Dove’—in other words, the Holy Spirit incarnate…under the name of Astarte, she was said to have come forth from the wondrous egg that was found floating on the waters of the Euphrates. Now Manilius tells what induced her to take refuge in these waters. ‘Venus plunged into the Babylonian waters to shun the fury of the snake-footed Typhon.’ When Venus Urania, or Dione, the ‘Heavenly Dove,’ plunged in deep distress into these waters of Babylon, it was neither more nor less than saying that the Holy Ghost incarnate in deep tribulation entered these waters, and that on purpose that these waters might be fit, not only by the temporary abode of the Messiah in the midst of them, but by the Spirit’s efficacy thus imparted to them, for giving new life and regeneration, by baptism, to the worshipers of the Chaldean Madonna.
“We have evidence that the purifying virtue of the waters, which in pagan esteem had such efficacy in cleansing from guilt and regenerating the soul, was derived in part from the passing of the mediatorial god, the sun-god and god of fire, through these waters during his humiliation and sojourn in the midst of them; and that the Papacy retains the very custom which had sprung up from that persuasion. So far as heathenism is concerned, “…[Potter and Athenaeus said] ‘Every person who came to the solemn sacrifices [of the Greeks] was purified by water.’”
“Now the Holy ghost was idolatrously worshipped in Babylon under the form of a ‘Dove.’”
Modern Attempts to Explain the Similarities
Roman Catholicism, most if not all of Rome’s daughter “Protestant” churches, and apparently Alexander Hislop too, claim that such similarities and beliefs in ancient times were either copied from the true “religion,” or else they anticipated the future “Messiah-ship of Jesus. However, we cannot see the fine lines of difference. “Mediator,” “dove,” “Messiah,” “purifying,” “new life,” “baptism,” and “regeneration” are terms that applied to the false religion of the ancient Babylonians. Why would someone Who proclaims, “…I change not,” suddenly change and replace His known methods of circumcision, repentance, and obedience with this pagan and idolatrous rite?
Anointing with oil. This rite, “anointing with oil” after baptism in order to “receive the Holy Spirit,” is another example of borrowing.
“Coming out of the water…the candidate…was anointed with the oil of thanksgiving and was then dried and dressed. When all were baptized, they were presented to the assembly, and the bishop laid his hand upon them and invoked the grace of the Holy Spirit upon them. He then anointed each on the forehead as he touched his or her head, saying, ‘I anoint thee with the holy oil in God the Father Almighty and Christ Jesus and the Holy Ghost.’”
“The worshippers of Nimrod and his queen were looked upon as regenerated and purged from sin by baptism.” Confirmation [anointing with chrism (consecrated oil used in baptism and other rites)] as a distinct sacrament in the Roman church was a slow process, taking 800 years from the Roman initiation rites to Thomas Aquinas in 1274, and thousands from the time of Semiramis and Nimrod, from whom it originated.
Some argue that confirmation as a separate sacrament is found in Acts 8:4-17, but this passage merely testifies to the organic growth of the church from its source community, in Jerusalem, where “the spirit was first given.” Others argue for Acts 19:1-7, where Paul baptized some disciples of John the Baptist at Ephesus, laid hands on them, and the Holy Spirit came down on them. But the real point of this was to show that “baptism in the name of Jesus confers the Holy Spirit.”
In a futile attempt to find historical precedent for the Episcopal rite of confirmation, Thomas Aquinas used a collection of spurious material called the Isidorian, or False, Decretals—ninth-century forgeries he thought were actual records of the early church. He derived the rite of confirmation from the bogus “Letters to the Spanish Bishops,” supposedly written by Miltiades, an early fourth-century pope.
The only difference here is that his own anointing was with olive oil, whereas the Babylonians anointed with water that “…was consecrated by putting into it a burning torch taken from the altar.”
This burning torch was the symbol of the god of fire and, “…by the light of this torch, so indispensable for consecrating ‘the holy water,’ we may see whence came one great part of the purifying virtue of ‘the water of the loud resounding sea,’ which was held to be so efficacious in purging away the guilt and stain of sin—even from the sun-god having taken refuge in its waters. Now this very same method is used in the Romish Church for consecrating the water for baptism.
“As Rome keeps up the remembrance of the fire-god passing through the waters and giving virtue to them, so when it speaks of the ‘Holy Ghost suffering for us in baptism,’ it in like manner commemorates the part which Paganism assigned to the Babylonian goddess when she plunged into the waters.”
Infant Baptism
By the second century CE, infant baptism became accepted by some, but not by all people. Augustine’s answer as to why infants should be baptized evolved into its more common acceptance. He said that the sin of Adam was transmitted to all his descendants through the act of procreation, and the stain of this sin could be removed only by baptism. Those who died without baptism, he said, would be damned.
Paul, the true founder of orthodox Christianity, “…laid down the basic orthodox doctrines: hope of high rank in heaven for the pure; avoidance of women and sexuality; separation of body and soul. ‘For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other’ (Galatians 5:17). Women were no longer participants in sacred mysteries according to Paul. The church must be entirely patriarchal; women were forbidden to teach or preach in it. Paul also laid the guilt of original sin on woman alone, absolving man from responsibility: ‘Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression’ (1 Timothy 2:11-14).
“Paul’s antipathy toward women and sexuality leads to a suspicion that his esoteric doctrine was linked with the early Christian practice of voluntary castration, recommended by Jesus for ‘the kingdom of heaven’s sake’ (Matthew 19:12). In Paul’s day, Rome revered the self-castrated god Attis….”
A Catholic Church council in 418 determined that every human child is born demonic because of its sexual conception, therefore damned unless baptized. In the infant’s baptismal rite, the Catholic priest addresses the baby, “‘I exorcise thee, thou unclean spirit…Hear thy doom, O Devil accursed, Satan accursed.’ The exorcism is euphemistically described as ‘a means to remove impediments to grace resulting from the effects of original sin and the power of Satan over fallen nature.’ But it is obvious from the folk belief, still widespread, that the church’s teaching was that every newborn infant before baptism belonged to the devil. St. Augustine’s doctrine of original sin laid the foundation for this idea, and Tertullian said every baby is born evil; its soul is ‘unclean’ and ‘actively sinful’ before baptism. Medieval theologians held that any infant still in the womb is doomed to eternal damnation. Priests refused to baptize a child within forty days of its birth, for both mother and infant were considered impure (hence too dangerous for priests to touch) during that period.”
Within a century after Augustine, infant baptism became the norm, and in the Council of Florence (1438-45), the custom was given the force of law. Parents now were obliged to have their infants baptized shortly after birth. It was at this same time that sprinkling replaced full immersion.
Some Christians do not believe in infant baptism, but still claim baptism’s beginnings as being a replacement of the “Old Testament” command of circumcision. “From the time of Abraham onwards, the Jew [he means Israelite] had felt it a solemn religious obligation to claim for his sons from their earliest infancy the same covenant relation with God as he himself stood in. There was sufficient parallelism between baptism and circumcision (cf. Col. 2:11) for the Jewish-Christian father to expect the baptism of his children to follow his own as a matter of course…to the mind of Jew and Gentile alike, the baptism of infants and children yet unable to supply the conditions for themselves was so natural, that St. Luke records so simply that when Lydia believed, she was baptized ‘with her household’; when the Philippian jailor believed, he was baptized, and all those belonging to him. If there were children in these households, these children were baptized on the ground of the faith of their parents; if there were no children, then the principle took a still wider extension, which includes children; for it was the servants or slaves of the household who were ‘added to the Church’ by baptism on the ground of their master’s faith.”
The problem here is that circumcision of eight-day-old Israelite children was a direct command from God, as a sign of their being His, whereas baptism was a pagan rite thousands of years old by the time of its introduction into Christianity by Paul. We see no “parallelism” between circumcision and baptism.
Bokenkotter says that, “Theologically, the grounds for insisting on infant baptism no longer seem valid…historical studies show that in the early Church, adult baptism was the norm…moreover, [its] practice has helped to create the situation of a Church composed formally of a large, inert mass of nominal Christians who have little understanding of what it means to be a member of a Christian community…definitely diminishes the credibility of the Church’s claim to be, in the words of Vatican II, ‘a sacrament or sign of intimate union with God and of the unity of all mankind.’”
So here we have non-Catholic Christians berating Catholics for one aspect of baptism, that of infant baptism, when both are just as guilty for their derivation of the rite of baptism itself from earliest paganism.
Origin of Baptism
The Bible Almanac (p. 541) says that baptism was a common event of Christian worship in Paul’s time, but that Christians were not the first to use baptism. “Jews baptized their gentile converts, some Jewish sects practiced baptism as a symbol of purification, and John the Baptist made baptism an important part of his ministry.”
However, prior to the “New Testament,” no Scriptural source [OT] is given for the comment, “Jews baptized their gentile converts.”
The statement by Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:2, “And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea,” is NT terminology to “legitimize” a pagan rite, thereby continuing an ongoing attempt to subject NT “theology” into the [OT] Hebrew Scriptures.
“Baptism was everywhere the rite of initiation into the church, mainly by immersion; although there is definite mention, 120 A.D., of baptism by pouring water upon the head, indicating that it was already a custom.”
“Baptism: from the Greek baptizein, to dip. Originally, it referred to dyeing fabric, but came to be used by Pagans for initiation ceremonies, using water or blood in sprinkling. The true Hebrew word is TEVILA, where a person is immersed in a body of water, called a MIKVAH. It also signifies repentance, and it is the most important event in one’s life in the conversion of a Gentile, to become engrafted into Yisrael. It is a covenant sign to obey [YHWH], and identifies the convert with the death and burial of [Jesus?], and is the death and burial of one’s mind of the flesh. Rising up from the water of Tevila, a convert is identified with the resurrection, and walks in obedience, enabled to obey by the Spirit. [Jesus?] gave us His example.”
“Moreover, the reference [on NT day of Pentecost] to baptism is held to show that this rite now became the entry rite to the new Christian religion, taking the place occupied by circumcision in the Jewish religion…Peter’s use of baptism was simply a continuation of the practice of Jesus and John the Baptist: not an induction into a new religion, but symbolic of a return to God in preparation for the great event of the Messianic kingdom—in this case to be inaugurated by the reappearance of Jesus, expected in the near future.”
The only “possible” reference to the pagan rite of baptism in the Hebrew Scriptures is in Leviticus 15:22: “And whosoever touches anything that she sat upon shall wash his clothes, and bathe in water, and be unclean until the even.”
This is mentioned in The Bible Almanac, p. 404, under Ritual bath. “Priests washed various cult objects in this basin [pictured] to achieve ceremonial purity. The early Hebrews considered cleanliness to be both a physical and a moral attribute. Diseased people and the objects they touched were considered unclean (Lev. 15:22).”
Peloubet’s Bible Dictionary, (1925, 1947), p. 73, says, “It is well known that ablution or bathing was common in most ancient nations as a preparation for prayers and sacrifice or as expiatory of sin. Baptism in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is the rite or ordinance by which persons are admitted into the Church of Christ. The command to baptize was co-extensive with the command to preach the gospel. All nations were to be evangelized; and they were to be made disciples, admitted into the fellowship of Christ’s religion, by baptism.
Hislop stated, “It is well known that regeneration by baptism is a fundamental article of Rome, yea, that it stands at the very threshold of the Roman system.”
Conclusion
To repeat, “The most important theology of baptism is Paul’s. He took it from the Hellenistic missionary communities and ‘corrected’ it at decisive points to coincide with his cross-centered Christology….” These “Hellenistic [pagan Greek] missionary communities” derived their beliefs directly from the Mystery Religion of Babylon and Egypt. The same “religion” wound up in Rome. Paul, the probable founder of “Christianity,” was an earnest admirer of Roman culture. He had Romanized his name from Saul to Paul, and, in Acts 22:27, even claimed himself to be a Roman.
It is apparent that water baptism is a purely Christian rite borrowed from the Babylonian Mystery Religion, not from purification rites of the ancient Hebrews. Neither is there any evidence or justification whatsoever that it “replaced” circumcision as outlined in the OT.
