{"id":54505,"date":"2026-09-15T03:22:32","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T09:22:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=54505"},"modified":"2026-09-14T05:27:56","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T11:27:56","slug":"baptisms-for-the-dead-among-the-early-christians-what-does-the-literature-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2026\/09\/baptisms-for-the-dead-among-the-early-christians-what-does-the-literature-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Baptisms for the Dead Among the Early Christians: What Does the Literature Say?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Baptisms for the Dead at Corinth<\/em><\/p>\n

Baptisms for the Dead among early Christians is occasionally touched on in apologetics works, but like my earlier piece on <\/span>female ordination and early Church structure<\/span><\/a> I wanted to do a deeper dive on what the research literature had to say about the subject. I read\/perused the articles below (I only had access to abstracts for some of them). My take-aways from this:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The general agreement is that Paul in 1 Corinthians was indeed referring to proxy baptism. There are occasional speculations that it was something else, but those scholars always concede the fact that their take is a minority one. <\/span><\/li>\n
  2. The more controversial issue is whether Paul approved of the practice. A lot of commenters are quick to point out that the language doesn\u2019t require<\/i> Paul to approve of the practice. He could have just been using their own practice to drive home a logical point. That\u2019s true enough, but I didn\u2019t see a lot of solid evidence or argumentation for the idea that he didn\u2019t <\/i>approve. The text really is silent on the issue, so the best they can say is that without any priors we don\u2019t know, although a priori<\/em> I think it would be weird for Paul to rhetorically invoke a practice that he saw as aberrant without referring to it as such.<\/li>\n
  3. Early Christian commentators largely saw the practice as one of proxy baptism, but saw Paul as either not approving the practice or they were conflicted. However [my opinion], these early Church theologians were commenting over a century or two or three after the Corinthian practice, so it\u2019s doubtful their insights reflected some close, inside information on the practices of the earliest Christianity.<\/li>\n
  4. Some heterodox Christian groups like the Marcions practiced baptism for the dead, but a) as is often the case, we only know about the practice from their enemies, and b) they were doing so nearly a century after the Corinthian practice, so again it is unclear how much genealogical link there is between the Marcionate practice and the Corinthian one. The Marcionite practice was interesting: it was performed on people who were \u201cinvestigating\u201d Christianity with the aim of eventual baptism (\u201ccatachumens\u201d), but who presumably died before they were able to get through the hoops. The deceased body of the catechumen was present at the ritual, but a living person was baptized for them.<\/li>\n
  5. My own side comment\u2013it\u2019s noteworthy that 1 Corinthians is considered one of the authentic Pauline letters. It\u2019s one of the earliest Christian documents, making baptisms for the dead one of the earliest confirmed rituals practiced by early Christian communities.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    References<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    DeMaris, Richard E. 1995. \u201cCorinthian Religion and Baptism for the Dead (1 Corinthians 15:29): Insights from Archaeology and Anthropology.\u201d <\/span>Journal of Biblical Literature<\/span><\/i> 114 (4): 661\u2013682.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Marecek, Petr. 2025. \u201cCrux Interpretum in 1 Cor 15:29.\u201d <\/span>Studia <\/span><\/i>Theologica <\/span><\/i>27 (1): 1\u201325. In Czech, with an English abstract.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Murphy-O\u2019Connor, Jerome. 2009. \u201c\u2018Baptized for the Dead\u2019 (1 Cor 15:29): A Corinthian Slogan?\u201d In <\/span>Keys to First Corinthians:<\/span><\/i>Revisiting the Major Issues<\/span><\/i>, 242\u2013256. Oxford University Press.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Patrick, James E. 2006. \u201cLiving Rewards for Dead Apostles: \u2018Baptised for the Dead\u2019 in 1 Corinthians 15.29.\u201d <\/span>New Testament Studies<\/span><\/i> 52 (1): 71\u201385.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Stark, J. David. 2023. \u201cTraditional Conflict Management: How Early Interpreters Address Paul\u2019s Reference to Those Baptized for the Dead (1 Corinthians 15:29).\u201d <\/span>Religions<\/span><\/i> 14 (6): 772.<\/span><\/p>\n

    White, Joel R. 2012. \u201cRecent Challenges to the <\/span>communis opinio<\/span><\/i> on 1 Corinthians 15.29.\u201d <\/span>Currents in Biblical Research<\/span><\/i> 10 (3): 379\u2013395<\/span><\/p>\n



    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Baptisms for the Dead at Corinth Baptisms for the Dead among early Christians is occasionally touched on in apologetics works, but like my earlier piece on female ordination and early Church structure I wanted to do a deeper dive on what the research literature had to say about the subject. I read\/perused the articles below (I only had access to abstracts for some of them). My take-aways from this:\u00a0 The general agreement is that Paul in 1 Corinthians was indeed referring to proxy baptism. There are occasional speculations that it was something else, but those scholars always concede the fact that their take is a minority one. The more controversial issue is whether Paul approved of the practice. A lot of commenters are quick to point out that the language doesn\u2019t require Paul to approve of the practice. He could have just been using their own practice to drive home a logical point. That\u2019s true enough, but I didn\u2019t see a lot of solid evidence or argumentation for the idea that he didn\u2019t approve. The text really is silent on the issue, so the best they can say is that without any priors we don\u2019t know, although a priori I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10403,"featured_media":54506,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2907,2900],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-testament","category-temples"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/d22007c5-d9cc-4211-9c51-9b2c9f044ba2.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10403"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54505"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54505\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54533,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54505\/revisions\/54533"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}