Featured Baptism for the Dead???

How nice of you! Maybe you should have found an easier question.

Unfortunately you can probably get a lot more good answers about what it doesn't mean than on what it does! In his Commentary on the Bible Adam Clarke wrote of this verse: “This is certainly the most difficult verse in the New Testament; for, notwithstanding the greatest and wisest men have labored to explain it, there are to this day nearly as many different interpretations of it as there are interpreters.” John D. Reaume says over 200 various interpretations of this verse have been proposed! (Another Look at 1 Corinthians 15:29, “Baptized for the Dead”)

Over the years I have shifted between different positions and never been completely satisfied with any of them -- while being totally satisfied that this verse has zero validity for performing proxy baptism on behalf of already dead people.

It seems to me that Paul must have been arguing from practice known and accepted by the Corinthians (at least some of them), else what validity would it have in supporting the resurrection if they didn't believe in it?

D. A. Carson thinks this is an argument “like a Protestant writing, ‘Why do they then pray for the dead, if the dead do not rise at all?’ No one would take this as an endorsement of the practice of praying for the dead; it is a criticism of the inconsistency of praying for the dead while holding that the dead do not rise.” The problem with this thinking, though, is that it is only a useful argument when addressing someone who prays for the dead. This would be because of the inconsistency of the praying for the dead while not believing the resurrection. But if you don't hold this inconsistency the argument really carries no weight. If I were to tell someone that Catholics praying for the dead is a proof of the resurrection, both beliefs could be simply dismissed as wrong and no headway is made. So I think aiming this text at some heretical practice outside of Christianity misses the point. That is why I continue to look within what was practiced in the New Testament churches to try to understand the passage.

Perhaps we can strain at a gnat in this text while swallowing a camel. The big picture is that Paul is saying to those within the Corinthian Church who say that there is no resurrection of the dead that their belief is inconsistent with the practice of baptism with reference to the dead (whether in reference to the dead is that of continuing community rites when the entire basis of the faith is vain, or in reference to “the dead” in the sense of baptism being a picture of death and resurrection).

Right. I like the possible interpretation that “the dead” means Christ -- really seems to fit the context -- but the plural dead sure seems to point to dead believers/persons rather than the Christ himself.

Something of a side bar, I noticed when looking at percho’s point about the plural. The UBS and TR have a slightly different text here, though to my thinking it doesn't affect the meaning (nekros used 3 times in TR).

 

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

Uh, leave them underwater?

HankD

 

Good point, but it could be a category plural.