Eckhard Schnabel, «The Meaning of Baptizein in Greek, Jewish, and Patristic
Literature.», Vol. 24 (2011) 3-40
The treatment of the Greek term Baptizein in the standard English lexicons is unsystematic. The use of the English term ‘to baptize’ for the Greek term Baptizein in English versions of the New Testament is predicated on the assumption that the Greek verb has a technical meaning which warrants the use of a transliteration. Since the first fact is deplorable and the second fact is unsatisfactory, an investigation into the meaning of the Greek term in Greek, Jewish, and patristic literary and documentary texts is called for in order to define the meaning of the term in classical and Hellenistic Greek with more precision than usually encountered in New Testament research, with a view to construct a more helpful lexicon entry for Baptizein.
10 Eckhard J. Schnabel
This entry is virtually unchanged from earlier editions of the English
translation of W. Bauer’s dictionary.20 The definition of βαπτίζειν within
the confines of New Testament usage, with the standard meaning in
Greek literature relegated to introductory matters, is problematic since
meanings such as ‘overwhelm’ are never considered by translators, and
seldom by commentators, presumably only because this sense does not
have a separate ‘number’ in BDAG.
More representative of Greek usage was the earlier Greek-English
Lexicon of the New Testament by Joseph H. Thayer.21
I. 1. prop(er) to dip repeatedly, to immerse, submerge;
2. to cleanse by dipping or submerging, to wash, to make clean with water;
3. metaph(orical) to overwhelm;
II. In the NT ‘used particularly of the rite of sacred ablution’
a. abs(olute) to administer the rite of ablution, to baptize;
b. use with prepositions
The Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic
Domains published by Johannes P. Louw and Eugene A. Nida gives three
senses for βαπτίζω:22
20
Walter Bauer, William F. Arndt, and F. Wilbur Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon
of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature [BAG] (A Translation and
Adaptation of Walter Bauer’s Griechisch-deutsches Wörterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen
Testaments und der übrigen urchristlichen Literatur, Fourth Revised and Augmented Edi-
tion, 1952; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), s.v. βαπτίζω: “dip, immerse, mid-
dle dip oneself, wash;” in non-Christian literature also ‘plunge, sink, drench, overwhelm;’
in our literature only in ritual sense; 1. of Jewish ritual washings; 2. in special sense: to
baptize a. of John the Baptist, b. of Christian baptism; 3. in fig. sense, through related to
the idea of Christian baptism, a. typologically of Israel’s passage through the Read Sea;
b. (baptism with fire); c. of martyrdom. Cf. Walter Bauer, William F. Arndt, F. Wilbur
Gingrich, and Frederick W. Danker, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and
Other Early Christian Literature [BAGD] (A Translation and Adaptation of Walter Bauer’s
Griechisch-deutsches Wörterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments und der übrigen
urchristlichen Literatur. Second Edition Revised and Augmented from Walter Bauer’s Fifth
Edition, 1958; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), s.v. βαπτίζω.
21
Joseph Henry Thayer, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament; being Grimm’s
Wilke’s Clavis Novi Testamenti. Translated, revised, and enlarged (orig. 1886; repr., Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1970), s.v. βαπτίζω.
22
Johannes P. Louw and Eugene A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament
Based on Semantic Domains [LN] (2 vols.; New York: United Bible Societies, 1988), 1:535,
536, 538, 522 (no. 53.31, 53.41, 53.49, 47.11). The verb βάπτω is given one sense: ″to dip an
object in a liquid, to dip in.⁇
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