Mormon's encourage baptism for the dead..

[A fellow servant]

Mormon leaders encourage more baptisms for the dead - The ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/.../mormon-leader-encourages-more-baptisms-for-the-...

4 hours ago - Mormon leaders reminded church members Saturday about the importance of performing ceremonial baptisms on dead ancestors who didn't ...

 

All I want to know is....where in the scriptures is this mentioned that Jesus said to do this?         I am so glad that I didn't stay in the Mormon religion.        THANK YOU JEHOVAH!

[Tortuga]

I read that this morning and I wondered why they were in the news for meeting together.  The GB meet all the time and it's not in the newspapers. ..

[Tbs77]

King James version Paul misapplied... It's not in NWT... Research wol.jw.org you will enjoy the breakdown

[carlos]

1 hour ago, A fellow servant said:

All I want to know is....where in the scriptures is this mentioned that Jesus said to do this?         I am so glad that I didn't stay in the Mormon religion.        THANK YOU JEHOVAH!

Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?  (1 Corinthians 15:29 KJV).

 

Otherwise, what will they do who are being baptized for the purpose of being dead ones? If the dead are not to be raised up at all, why are they also being baptized for the purpose of being such? (1 Corinthians 15:29 NWT)

 

A rather mysterious scripture, the Slave isn't sure of what Paul meant here. The original Greek does say "those who are baptized for the dead". The NWT rendering is a little forced, not impossible but very unusual.

 

The "21st Century New Testament" translated by Vivian Capel who was a brother, gives an interesting alternative explanation for this scripture that agrees well with the Greek text and with the Bible teaching about baptism:

 

Quote

Certain ones in the Corinthian congregation had died suddenly, possibly by martyrdom, thus jolting others who had not yet  been baptized to do so quickly, not knowing if their end may be similarly close, and not wanting to die in the unbaptized state. They thus were baptized "by reason of" or "because of the dead", which renderings are also permissable for the Greek hypo. Paul's testimony of his own nearness to death in the next verse supports this view. This satisfies the criteria that the application was only to the Corinthian congregation, that it was to a group within that congregation, it is grammatically correct, and does not involve manipulation of the text. Paul's argument was that such action would be pointless if there was no resurrection of the dead, since in what way would they be benefited?

 

Whatever it means, surely it doesn't mean we have to get baptized on behalf of dead people.

 

[Beggar for the Spirit]

Hi Carlos,

Can you help me? I think I am misunderstanding what you wrote when you said,

"A rather mysterious scripture, the Slave isn't sure of what Paul meant here. The original Greek does say "those who are baptized for the dead". The NWT rendering is a little forced, not impossible but very unusual."

 

The FDS has understood what this verse has meant for many decades now, the FDS doesn't appear at all to be unsure of what Paul meant as we can see from this article back in 1981 which is quite similar in explanation to a more recent article in 2008.

 

*** w08 7/15 p. 27 par. 4 Highlights From the Letters to the Corinthians ***
15:29—What does it mean to be “baptized for the purpose of being dead ones”? Paul was not suggesting that living people be baptized on behalf of those who died in an unbaptized state. Paul is here speaking of the immersion of spirit-anointed Christians into a course of life wherein they keep their integrity until their death and subsequent resurrection to spirit life.
 

*** w81 12/15 p. 22 par. 3 Zealous for “the Work of the Lord” ***
Paul was addressing Christians who had been anointed by God’s spirit, and who were required to undergo a baptism into death
 

Also, if we look at the most recent 2013 Revised NWT and compare it with the older 1984 NWT, the renderings do not appear to be forced. In fact they match almost precisely which shows a consistency in understanding of the Greek text for many decades. 

RNWT 2013

(1 Corinthians 15:29) 29 Otherwise, what will they do who are being baptized for the purpose of being dead ones? If the dead are not to be raised up at all, why are they also being baptized for the purpose of being such? 
NWT 1984

(1 Corinthians 15:29) 29 Otherwise, what will they do who are being baptized for the purpose of [being] dead ones? If the dead are not to be raised up at all, why are they also being baptized for the purpose of [being] such? 
 

So I apologize Carlos if I am not understanding what you were trying to say, I just didn't want anyone thinking that the FDS wasn't clear as to the meaning of 1 Cor 15:29.

[EccentricM]

21 minutes ago, Beggar for the Spirit said:

 

RNWT 2013

(1 Corinthians 15:29) 29 Otherwise, what will they do who are being baptized for the purpose of being dead ones? If the dead are not to be raised up at all, why are they also being baptized for the purpose of being such? 
 

So, in other words; 

"What's the point of being baptised for the purpose of saving your life from everlasting death if there is no resurrection of the dead?"

[Sunnyside]

What a horrible prospect of actually baptising dead people.

Sent from my SM-T530NU using Tapatalk

[Alexa]

To all, there are billions of dead that could be an opportunity to be a mormon for them..

Mormon: Can we baptize the dead?

Householder: It doesn't matter

Probably almost some of Mormons were really dead in numbers of their members but thats not really wholeheartedly decided  

 

[EccentricM]

1 hour ago, Sunnyside said:

What a horrible prospect of actually baptising dead people.


 

They can submerge those skeletons in water all they want, they wont get any more hydrated...

[Tortuga]

10 hours ago, EccentricM said:

They can submerge those skeletons in water all they want, they wont get any more hydrated...

[tucker]

I have a distant relative who is Mormon. She has mentioned 'baptism by proxy' whether the 'candidate' is living or dead. By this practice, a Mormon can have an acquaintance baptized, for the purpose of 'saving that ones everlasting life.' So she could have had me baptized as a Mormon to save my ' everlasting life', knowing I am one of Jehovah's Witnesses and by her beliefs, not 'saved'. Perhaps this is related to the  1 Corinthians  subject.

[carlos]

On 02/04/2017 at 3:21 AM, Beggar for the Spirit said:

Can you help me? I think I am misunderstanding what you wrote when you said,

"A rather mysterious scripture, the Slave isn't sure of what Paul meant here. The original Greek does say "those who are baptized for the dead". The NWT rendering is a little forced, not impossible but very unusual."

 

The FDS has understood what this verse has meant for many decades now, the FDS doesn't appear at all to be unsure of what Paul meant as we can see from this article back in 1981 which is quite similar in explanation to a more recent article in 2008.

Thanks, Neil for the additional information. It's true that the Slave has given a consistent explanation of that scripture that agrees well with the context and the rest of the Scriptures.

 

There are many difficult scriptures in the Bible that are ambiguous and can be translated in more than one way. When the brothers come across one of these scriptures with several possible meanings, they pick the one that agrees better with the context. But that doesn't mean that rendering is necessarily the one the writer had in mind. That's why the Reference Bible often gives possible alternative renderings, which in many cases change the meaning completely.

 

1 Corinthians 15:29 is one of those cases. Scholars agree it's one of the most difficult verses in the Christian Scriptures. The Greek text literally says:

 

οἱ βαπτιζόμενοι ὑπὲρ τῶν νεκρῶν

the ones being baptized over the dead ones (KIT)

 

The key word here is hyper, which can mean a lot of things. These are the meanings the very concise Thayer's Lexicon gives for this term:

1) in behalf of, for the sake of
2) over, beyond, more than
3) more, beyond, over

 

Other dictionaries contain several pages of possible meanings of hyper depending on the grammatical function of the words following it. A Biblist says this word can have 36 different meanings.

 

As you see from the above, the normal translation of the sentence would be: "those baptized in behalf" or "for the sake of the dead". The problem with this rendering is that it makes no sense. Being baptized in behalf of the dead doesn't make sense, since baptism is just a public confirmation that one is dedicated to Jehovah. You cannot dedicate someone dead to Jehovah. So the brothers chose another rendering that agrees much better with the context.

 

The New World Translation Committee noted that sometimes the preposition hyper followed by a genitive (as in this scripture) was used in the sense of purpose. This rendering agreed perfectly with the context and what we know about baptism. The problem is that this usage is only found in Attic Greek, while Paul was writing in Koine, a different dialect. In fact, there is no other scripture in the Bible where this grammatical structure is rendered that way. So the meaning the brothers chose is a very unusual one. That's why I say it's forced. It seems very unlikely to me that Paul would use a grammatical quirk in a different dialect than the one he and his readers spoke. The New World Translation Committee was not dogmatic about this scripture, as shown by the footnote in the Reference Bible that suggests "baptized by reason of the dead" as a possible alternative rendering.

 

So maybe the right translation is "baptized for the sake of the dead" or "by reason of the dead" or "because of the dead" instead of the one in the main text. Brother Capel gives a possible explanation that I quoted above, and that explanation agrees well both with the grammar and the context. I am not saying  the Slave is wrong or that we should prefer brother Capel's rendering. In fact, both interpretations are not exclusive of each other. My point is that 1 Corinthians 15:29 is very ambiguous and there are several possible renderings. The translation committee picked the one they considered more likely, but left room for alternative explanations.

Edited April 3, 2017 by carlos

[Beggar for the Spirit]

Hi Carlos,

You mentioned a Brother Capel?  Is he 1 of those brothers who are knowledgeable about Greek and has written some books?

 

Also, I was thinking about how intriguing if we could read the specific notes and explanations by the NWTCommittee on this verse! They likely came across some very interesting points in their research which helped them(and of course with Holy Spirit helping) to choose the rendering they did.

 

If I was a little fly      I could zip inside Bethel and go to where NWTCommittee's has all of their files & notes and start reading. It would be so fascinating that I probably would just stay there and never leave!

Edited April 3, 2017 by Beggar for the Spirit

[Brother_Bliss]

Saying that a rendering is a little "forced" is not necessarily a bad thing. This verse is an extremely difficult passage to translate. A literal rendering based on words and grammar alone are not enough to suffice here in my opinion as well as the opinion of many others. In fact,  more than two hundred interpretive solutions have been proposed for this verse. Any interpretive translation can be considered "forced". 

 

Here is mine....

 

Paul mentions that perhaps they "became believers for nothing" in verse 1 and then talks about how Christ was raised up and appeared to hundreds of brothers and sisters including Paul himself as an eyewitness, and this is an essential part of the good news that they believed at first and then decided to become Christians. And so he asks in verse 12. "how is it that some among you say there is no ressurection of the dead?" and that if there is no resurrection of the dead then everything they believe and teach is all for nothing. "Your faith is useless" he says in verse 17 and explains that if this is the case, then those who have already fallen asleep in death have perished completely. So what's the point (verse 19)?

 

 

Then in verses 20-28 he reinforces the TRUTH of the matter, that Christ did rise and so will those who belong to him.

 

Verse 29 is simply reiterating the questions he raised in verses 12-19 in a simplified, summarized manner.

1 Corinthians 15:29 "Otherwise, if the truths I just reminded you in the previous verses aren't actually true at all, then what will they (those who are saying there is no resurrection) do, they who are being baptized just for the sake of ending up dead? If the dead are not to be raised up at all, why are these individuals being baptized if they are just going to die anyway? Why do we also put ourselves in danger every hour for all of this?"

So contextually, the NWT does a much better job than most translations, but since they try as best as they can to not be too wordy, it still requires some explanation.

[carlos]

 

On 4/4/2017 at 0:11 AM, Beggar for the Spirit said:

You mentioned a Brother Capel?  Is he 1 of those brothers who are knowledgeable about Greek and has written some books?

 

Yes, in a previous post I quoted a note from "The 21st Century New Testament", which is a translation by a brother, Vivian Capel. It's a little known but very interesting translation, especially for the end notes.

 

On 4/4/2017 at 0:11 AM, Beggar for the Spirit said:

Also, I was thinking about how intriguing if we could read the specific notes and explanations by the NWTCommittee on this verse! They likely came across some very interesting points in their research which helped them(and of course with Holy Spirit helping) to choose the rendering they did.

Is there room for two little flies instead of just one? There is a video about the story of the NWT where those notes are briefly shown. It would be great if we could have a look at them.

[minister159]

19 hours ago, Dismal_Bliss said:

Verse 29 is simply reiterating the questions he raised in verses 12-19 in a simplified, summarized manner.

1 Corinthians 15:29 "Otherwise, if the truths I just reminded you in the previous verses aren't actually true at all, then what will they (those who are saying there is no resurrection) do, they who are being baptized just for the sake of ending up dead? If the dead are not to be raised up at all, why are these individuals being baptized if they are just going to die anyway? Why do we also put ourselves in danger every hour for all of this?"

So contextually, the NWT does a much better job than most translations, but since they try as best as they can to not be too wordy, it still requires some explanation.

I think Paul is alluding in vs. 29 to the fact that all those who are baptized with holy spirit are baptized into Christ's death, in that they embark on a sacrificial course ending in a death and resurrection comparable to Jesus'. As he says, "what will they do who are being baptized for the purpose of being dead ones?" and "Why are they being baptized for the purpose of being such?" They know going in, that they will have to sacrifice everlasting human earthly life and all earthly ties in order to receive a resurrection like his that requires their death, in one way or another.

 

His letter to the Romans puts it this way, "Or do YOU not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?" --- Romans 6:3

 

Edited April 5, 2017 by minister159

[Old]

 ( First, this is almost the same as Carlos' post above, I forgot and left it in WORD from a day or so ago, but here is my 2 cents worth.))  

 

 Putting the Mormons aside, here is a simple understanding of 1 Corinthians 15:29. I have never seen it as complicated. Maybe I need to reread it so as to find it confusing.

    My understanding is based on the theme of the 15^th chapter of 1 Corinthians.  There were those that were teaching that there was no resurrection of the dead. Paul is pointing out that such and idea is ludicrous in view of what he had taught them. Vs 11 “… this is the way we preach” that Christ was resurrected. Vs 12 “… How is it that some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead?”

    Paul emphasizes the vanity of such an idea, the whole purpose of preaching the Christ would be without purpose, no resurrection, no forgiveness of sins their faith is valueless. I read Paul a little bit of sarcasm in Paul’s words when he says Vs 19 “In this life only [Remember the opponents were claiming this life was all there is.] we have hoped in Christ, we are to be pitied.” In next series of verses, 20 – 28., he reiterates what he had preached to them originally.

In verse 29 he drops to showing them how fallacious there reasoning is. These false teachers had no hope, there baptism would not save them from anything, neither sin nor death.

     Paul questions their reasoning on this matter, Read verse 29 with sarcasm, Vs 29 “ Otherwise, what will they do who are being baptized for the purpose of being dead ones?”h “…If the dead are not to be raised up at all, why are they also being baptized for the purpose of being such?” If there is no ressurection, why be baptized, are you baptizing for the purpose of being dead? Makes no sense, why be baptized? Who wants to be dead?

32 “If the dead are not to be raised up. “Let us eat and rink for tomorrow we are to die.” No need to live the pious Christian life, if no ressurection we might as well live it up now!

    Vs 34 “Come to your senses [stupid ones, there is nothing to reason on]… I am speaking to move you to shame.” Oh, and by the way, any that teach there is no ressurection are bad associates. He then goes on to reexplain the ressurection of Christ and what it means in Jehovah’s grand scheme.

    In this chapter Paul makes a point, belief in the ressurection is the litmous test of being a Christian, If you fail to beleive in the ressurection then Christ wasn’t ressurected, it is pointless to be baptized into Christ because it is a meaningless activity, being baptized for the purpose of dead ones? Fallacious!

    Anyhow that is how I have allways understood it, now I might have to make it complicated.  

 

 

 

Edited April 5, 2017 by Old