The Meaning of βαπτίζειν in Greek, Jewish, and Patristic Literature 17 on the result of the action of plunging or immersing. It should be noted that the primary reference to the action of immersing is not lost in the extended meanings. Extended meanings are contextual meanings, not lexical meanings in the strict sense (even if they are listed in a lexicon).46 In distinction from the physical or ‘literal’ meaning of βάπτειν and βαπτίζειν,47 a metaphorical meaning is present when the medium into which someone or something is immersed is not a tangible substance (such as water, dyes, or bodies), but an abstract reality (such as debts or an argument). The metaphorical meaning can be described as ″to over- come or overpower⁇, a possible gloss is ‘to overwhelm’. In the context of Aristotle’s definition, this is the fourth form of metaphor:48 in analogy to people or objects who are plunged into a tangible medium such as water or other liquids—either drowning or sinking (people and ships in the ocean), or emerging from the liquid with a different appearance (textiles from dyes, bronze vessels from liquid gold)—it is intangible realities such as debts or arguments that ‘overwhelm’ the person.49 The use of βάπτειν and βαπτίζειν with reference to drunkenness could be taken as an ex- tended sense of the literal meaning: as ships are ‘overpowered’ by water when they are ‘immersed’ in the ocean, people are ‘overpowered’ by wine when they have drunk too much of the intoxicating liquid. However, since people are not ‘immersed’ in wine (unless they drown in a large barrel in 45 Ferguson, Baptism, pp. 42-45, lists examples for the meaning ‘to dye’ or ‘to temper’ under ‘metaphorical usage,’ which presupposes that the basic meaning of βάπτειν and βαπτίζειν is defined as ‘to put something or someone into water’ or ‘to immerse, plunge, dip in(to) water.’ Using Aristotle’s definition that “metaphor is the application of a strange term either transferred from the genus and applied to the species or from the species and applied to the genus, or from one species to another or else by analogy” (Aristotle, Poet. 81; W. H. Fyfe), the use of βάπτειν to denote ‘to dye’ represents the third form of metaphor, i.e. transfer of βάπτειν from one species (water) to another species (dyes). In the context of the broader definition given above (‘to put something or someone into a yielding medium’), the use of βάπτειν to denote ‘to dye’ is a literal, not a metaphorical use of the Greek verb. 46 For the difference between lexical meaning and contextual meaning see Peter Cotte- rell and Max M. B. Turner, Linguistics & Biblical Interpretation (London: SPCK, 1989), pp. 164-67; see also Greg H. R. Horsley and John A. L. Lee, ″A Lexicon of the New Testament with Documentary Parallels: Some Interim Entries 1⁇, FilNeot 19–20 (1997), pp. 62-64. Lee, History of New Testament Lexicography, 160, refers to the principle that “the lexical meaning of a word is exactly what the word itself brings to the context and no more”. 47 Cf. George B. Caird, The Language and Imagery of the Bible (Grand Rapids: Eerd- mans, 1980), p. 133, who suggests that “words are used literally when they are meant to be understood in their primary, matter-of-fact sense”. 48 See n. 45. 49 For the problem of figurative meanings see Nida and Louw, Lexical Semantics, pp. 70-72. For a discussion on metaphor see James D. G. Dunn, ‘“Baptized” as Metaphor’, in Baptism, the New Testament and the Church: Historical and Contemporary Studies in Honour of R.E.O. White (ed. S.E. Porter and A.R. Cross; JSNTSup 171; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), pp. 296-98.