A THEORY ON THE ORIGINS OF BAPTISM

The best-known story of the baptism of Jesus is found in Matthew 3:13-17. However, a very interesting pericope appears in Mark:15-16, in which the resurrected Jesus says to his eleven apostles, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whosoever does not believe will be condemned.” This wording seems to say that in order to be saved, one must first “believe” and [only] then be baptized. In trying to unpack this, one must bear in mind that Mark’s gospel was written about 40 years after the death of Jesus, and Matthew’s gospel was likely written about ten years after Mark’s. So, what happened before and after the death of Jesus and the baptism narratives in the New testament? Is it plausible that as Christianity moved from being a “following” to becoming an institution in its own right, it was necessary for its leadership to formalize its foundation in some way?

The Rite of Initiation in Judaism

Since Jesus was an observant Jew, how was baptism observed in Jewish life? The simple answer is that it was not observed at all. The word “baptism” comes from the Greek word baptismos, which means “ceremonial washing,” and is not mentioned in the Hebrew bible. However, Jewish law required purification rites that appear to be at least linguistically related to baptism. For example, tvilah is an act of immersion in naturally sourced water to establish ritual purity. However, baptism per se (as we understand the term) was not a Jewish ritual.

Perhaps a more important Jewish ritual was the bris milah found in the Torah where God commands Abraham that, “This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your seed after you; every man child among you shall be circumcised.” The circumcision was thus a physical token of the God’s covenant with the Jews, in which all males were to be circumcised eight days after their birth (Genesis:17:8-12). This was (and is) a ritual which continues to be observed to this day. Circumcision of the male was established as a rite of initiation. It is the expression of Jewish identity, and it is the point at which the boy is given his Jewish and secular names.

The Gradual Emergence of Christianity

Christianity, as both a community of faith and a separate religion, did not exist during Jesus’ lifetime. It emerged slowly and unevenly after his death. It began first as a community of faith in which the immediate followers of Jesus sought to understand the meaning of his life and especially his death. As time went on, a community coalesced based the commentaries of those who knew him in life and who wanted to show others “the way,” as it was then called. Christianity as a religion was most likely established by Paul, who oddly enough, never personally knew Jesus while he was alive.

Paul first sought to articulate his understanding of Jesus in synagogues but was resoundingly rejected because his teachings were not orthodox. He then turned to non-Jews, where his arguments didn’t conflict with social custom at the time. Since the idea of many gods was widely accepted, his proto-Christianity didn’t offend non-Jewish sensibilities. However, there was a fundamental problem. Since Jesus was a Jew, it was essential that the movement in his name had to emerge from Judaism and evolve into a distinct religion with its own systematic theology. In a nutshell, in order to succeed, the nascent Christianity had to overlap with orthodox Judaism and draw on its historical roots in order to give it both legitimacy and a vehicle for prophecy.

Christianity evolved through a process known as the routinization of charisma. This happens when the followers of a charismatic leader alter traditional boundaries by introducing a new (and usually challenging) paradigm. It is most effective after the death of the charismatic personality, because that person is no longer in a position to either speak for himself or to challenge novel ideas and beliefs developed in his name by his followers. Dostoevsky brilliantly captured the kind of problem this can lead to in the story of the Grand Inquisitor in his book The Brothers Karmazov.

Covenants and Documentation

Jesus was clearly a charismatic leader, and his preaching was quite radical for his time. His teachings were embraced by his followers, who shaped them into an acceptable understanding of who he was and what his life and death meant. But, in order for “the way” became a religion, it needed its own systematic theology. To accomplish this, it needed beliefs that answered certain questions and set a new direction for the future. Most of all, it needed a new covenant. The new testament incorporated Paul’s letters and the church history provided by what are now the synoptic gospels. Interestingly, the names of those authors are eponymous, and we really know very little about them.

A New Rite of Initiation

All social institutions are defined both by who is in them and who is not. Emerging from orthodox Judaism, a new rite of initiation had to be developed. That rite combined the existing Jewish rites of ritual purity and initiation: mikvah merged with bris to form baptism.

Sin and Redemption

From an institutional perspective, baptism by itself came to be seen as necessary but not sufficient: drawing on the Genesis story in the Torah, baptism had to include redemption from original sin combined with absolution provided by the new, emerging Christian priestly class. Central to this process was affirmation: the initiate had to believe in Jesus as a savior (hence the wording in Mark:15-16.

To give it gravitas, Jesus himself had to be baptized, although in life no such ceremony existed, and according to the proto definition of Jesus, he was free of original sin. This is why Jesus is baptized by John the Baptiser in Matthew 3:13-17, and why it is presented at the outset of the new testament (covenant). Later Christology taught that baptism is a plenary indulgence for the remission of sin and a necessity for the ultimate entry into the Kingdom of God. It also gave the church control over its members, because its clergy were alone given the “keys to the kingdom.”