Clarke Morledge -- Computer Network Engineer, College of William and Mary...
I hiked the Mount of the Holy Cross, one of the famous Colorado Fourteeners, with some friends in July, 2012. My buddy, Mike Scott, snapped this photo of me on the summit.
Due to the expected snowstorm coming to Williamsburg, Frank Turek’s speaking event at William & Mary tomorrow night (Thursday, February 20, 2025), has been POSTPONED. A new date for Frank’s engagement will be announced at a later point in time.
For more information about the original announcement, see the recent Veracity blog post to learn more about Frank Turek. Frank’s appearance at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, Nebraska got moved last week to a nearby church, after a snowstorm there closed the UNL campus, but you can view that talk with Q&A here. The YouTube page has timestamps marking the different questions students asked. You probably will not agree with every answer Frank gives, but I am impressed at how well he handles very controversial and thoughtful questions off the cuff from the floor.
The English Standard Version (ESV) was first published in 2001, based on a revision of the Revised Standard Version Bible (RSV), which had been published by the National Council of Churches. The RSV was a revision first completed in the 1950s of the long-standing King James Version (KJV) of the Bible, which dates back to 1611. The RSV was the most popular successor in mainline Protestant churches to the KJV, until the National Council Churches opted to branch out for a major revision in the 1989, the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), which has now been superseded by the NRSV Updated Edition (NRSVue) in 2022.
The architects behind the ESV thought that the RSV would make a suitable base for a major Bible translation, while tweaking certain elements in the RSV which were perceived to have a progressive theological bias. Since then, the ESV has risen to become the second most popular Bible translation sold in the United States, just behind the New International Version (last revised in 2011), as of 2022. While the KJV is still one of the most used Bible translations among English speakers, the ESV, along with the New International Version (NIV), has become a favorite in English-speaking conservative evangelical churches.
Other translations which appeal to conservative evangelical churches include the New Living Translation (1996), the successor to the Living Bible, and the Christian Standard Bible (2017), the successor to the Holman Christian Standard Bible.
The two most noteworthy changes include Genesis 3:16 and 4:7, which reverses the 2016 change in those verses back to the original 2001 translation. In 2025, the English phrase “contrary to” has reverted back to the original “for.” Egalitarian theologians and even some complementarian theologians disagreed with the 2016 change on this verse, a discussion that has been around for many decades, so it is interesting that the Oversight Committee reversed course to return to the 2001 translation.
English Bible translators have to strike a delicate balance between being faithful to the original Greek and Hebrew manuscript traditions on the one side, with the changing world of the English language on the other. Mix in with that advances in scholarship, this explains why we have so many English Bible translations to begin with.
For example, in the new ESV revision, in several places the phrase “heaven and earth” has been replaced by the more accurate “the heavens and the earth.” What difference does that make? Well, interpretive decisions like this are generally left to those who write commentaries and preach sermons, whereas the text itself is left as it is with some measure of ambiguity.
Thankfully, English speakers are blessed to have a multitude of great Bible translations available, where readers can use tools like the online Biblegateway.com to compare how different translations render different passages of the Bible. I make use of such tools like this (and others like the Step Bible) in my own personal study of Scripture. That being said, it is generally helpful to stick with one Bible translation, like the ESV, which reads fairly well, and then consult other translations as needed, in order to double-check our understanding of the text.
Dr. Frank Turek, a Christian evangelist and apologist, will be speaking at the College of William and Mary, on Thursday, February, 20, 2025, 7pm-9pm, at the Commonwealth Auditorium, in the Sadler Center, the main student gathering place on campus.
Frank Turek is the author of I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, co-authored with the late Norman Geisler. He gives talks at colleges and universities across the country covering the primary questions discussed in his book:
Does truth exist?
Does God exist?
Are miracles possible?
Is the New Testament true?
His talk at William & Mary will be followed by a Q&A session. This event is sponsored by the William & Mary Apologetics Club, and is open to the public.
From his CrossExamined.org website, “Frank is a widely featured guest in the media as a leading apologetics expert and cultural commentator. He has appeared on hundreds of radio programs and many top TV networks including: Fox News, ABC, and CBS. He also writes a column for Townhall.com and several other sites.
A former aviator in the US Navy, Frank has a master’s degree from George Washington University and a doctorate from Southern Evangelical Seminary. He and his wife, Stephanie, are blessed with three grown sons and two grandsons (so far).”
Frank hosts the CrossExamined radio program on American Family Radio, and has a Wesleyan theological background. He has publicly debated prominent atheists about the truth claims of the Christian faith, such as Michael Shermer and the late Christopher Hitchens. Frank gives thoughtful answers to a wide range of questions raised by skeptics and inquiring Christians from the floor.
The event maybe livestreamed. If so I will update with a link here.
Below is a 2-minute clip of one student asking Frank a question, followed with his answer:
I just read today that one of the world’s most recognized Egyptologists, Kenneth Kitchen, died Thursday, February 6, 2025, at age 93. Kitchen was an idiosyncratic legend, an archaeologist who studied the Ancient Near East, specializing in ancient Egyptian history, and who upheld the Old Testament as a reliable source for understanding the history of the ancient world. In my mind, he was the “real Indiana Jones.”
Few today would be dazzled by Kitchen’s study on The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt. But for the Christian interested in the intersection between the Bible and archaeology, his 2003 erudite defense of the Bible, On the Reliability of the Old Testament, stands squarely in the maximalist tradition, affirming the historicity of the Exodus and the biblical Patriarchs. I read his book almost twenty years ago and was blown away by the breadth and depth of his scholarship.
While many scholars today tend to be skeptical of the story of Moses and the flight of Israel out of Egypt, spending forty years wandering the Sinai desert, Kenneth Kitchen was resolute in marshaling detailed evidence to support the testimony of the Bible. Kitchen was careful not to say that the biblical stories of the Patriarchs could be “proved” by the archaeological record, but he likewise stressed that archaeology has not “disproved” this history as presented in the Bible either.
Kenneth A. Kitchen’s On the Reliability of the Old Testament is a modern classic defending the historicity of the Old Testament. Kitchen begins with the most recent period in Israelite history, working his way backwards towards the earliest Patriarchs, showing that figures like Moses and Abraham line up with what we read in the archaeological record.
Born in Scotland, the life-long bachelor Kitchen was a contrarian in several ways, and not afraid of being combative in his research. Not only did he take on minimalist colleagues, such as Ronald Hendel, who concluded that the historical Moses was a fictional product of Israelite imagination at least four or five centuries after the traditionally dated Exodus period, Kitchen was critical of even conservative Old Testament scholars for not reading the text carefully enough. He rejected the traditional, early date for the Exodus, in the mid 15th century BCE, around the year 1446, while Amenhotep I, Thutmose I, or Thutmose III served as Pharaoh, an interpretation which has been based on a non-metaphorical reading of the years described in 1 Kings 6. Archaeologists like Bryant Wood continue to hold to this traditional view.
Instead, Kitchen favored a late date alternative, about 200 years later in the 13th century BCE, when Rameses II served as Pharaoh. Kitchen argued that the early date has lacked sufficient archaeological support. Instead, the city of Rameses in Egypt was known in the 13th century, corresponding to what has been read from Exodus 1:11, and that archaeological evidence for the destruction of Hazor in the 13th century matched what has been described by Joshua’s conquest of the Promised Land in Joshua 11:10-11.
Kitchen also chided Old Testament scholars who insisted that the large numbers associated with texts like the census in Numbers 1-2, following a non-metaphorical interpretation of such numbers, did not match the archaeological data, which has supported a smaller, yet still sizable group of Israelites wandering the Sinai wilderness for some 40 years.
Kitchen’s views even went against the idiosyncratic proposal by atheist and fellow Egyptologist David Rohl, who has argued that a new chronology for Egyptian history should be adopted, which pushes the possible date for the Exodus earlier than what the late date proposes. David Rohl’s innovative hypothesis has been popularized by Tim Mahoney’s Patterns of Evidence franchise of documentary filmmaking. Kitchen rejected this view as “100% nonsense.”
What helped to win me over to the late date for the Exodus was the argument regarding the location of the slave city near a residence for the Pharaoh. The ancient city of Thebes, located near modern day Luxor, Egypt, was the primary residence for the Pharaohs during the Late Bronze Age. However, we have evidence that in the 13th century the city of Rameses, thought to have been a residence of a Pharaoh of the same name, was located in the Nile delta area. Rameses was in the northeast region of Egypt not that far from the modern city of Cario, and was built by slaves living in a nearby slave city, Avaris.
The journey from that slave city to Rameses would have been less than a few hours by foot, which makes sense of the many meetings that Moses would have had with Pharaoh mentioned in the Book of Exodus. However, any look at the map shows that a journey from the Nile delta to Thebes took at least 6 days to walk, which makes the late-at-night journeys that Moses took from the slave city to Pharoah’s residence rather ludicrous. Unless the Hebrews had built some nuclear-powered speed boat for Moses to travel quickly up the Nile to visit Pharaoh in Thebes, it is hard to imagine how Moses could have made such a relatively quick visit in the middle of the night to Pharoah.
Advocates for an early date for the Exodus might respond by saying a 15th century Pharoah might have built a residence within close walking distance near the 15th century slave city or encampment, but that we simply do not have evidence for such a residence…. at least not yet. But why appeal to evidence we do not currently possess when we actually have evidence that supports a different date, and that still affirms the testimony of Scripture? In my mind, this is a case of having a bird in the hand is worth two in a bush. It is better to hold onto the evidence you already have than it is holding out for evidence which you may never find. Kitchen was that type of evidentialist who opted for the former.
What I did not know about Kitchen was just how idiosyncratic he really was. As Tyndale House scholar Peter J. Williams puts it:
His abode was a small three-bedroom terraced house, without central heating or any modern appliance. [Kitchen] was very proud that nothing was connected to the internet so there could be no possibility of a virus destroying his work…..
Ken Kitchen basically didn’t have a kitchen: it was a tiny box room. Ken lived all his life without a refrigerator. He had milk delivered fresh, and had no need for the complexities of unnecessary equipment. He lived in the utmost simplicity….
Despite his great learning, Ken Kitchen was a man of a deep and simple faith in Jesus Christ as his Saviour and Lord. Though he knew a lot, he was also humble and aware of his own fallibility and frailty. He would want us in remembering him to think of the One he served. As I think about Ken’s life, as a bachelor living a life of ascetic discipline and dedication to scholarship, I find myself challenged by his work ethic and his incredible focus, even as I recognise that Ken was one of a kind. We will not see the like of him again.
Actually, in his later years, Kitchen finally was forced to get a refrigerator after he contracted food poisoning. His doctor strongly advised him to a get refrigerator, for his own safety.
This might be near the top of the list of the most confusing Bible passages. In 1 Corinthians 15:29, what is Paul talking about when mentioning people being baptized for the dead?
When was the last time you heard a sermon about this? I am not a gambling person, but if I was I would wager to say, “NEVER.”
Hip-hop artist Lecrae was “rebaptized” in the River Jordan, in September, 2019…. Baptism is a central feature of the Christian faith. But what do we make of Paul’s mention of “baptism for the dead” in 1 Corinthians 15? That is a real puzzler.
My mother spent a number of years researching the genealogical records for our family. Anyone who has labored in genealogical research knows that one of the best sources of information is found with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, commonly known as the Mormons. They interpret 1 Corinthians 15:29 as saying that a Mormon could undergo a kind of “proxy baptism” on behalf of dead people, normally family members. In order to do that, you need to have good records to identify deceased members of your family tree. LDS genealogical resources are therefore available for converts to Mormonism who want to undergo a proxy baptism for deceased family members, going generations back, as a means of making sure that there is a place in God’s Heaven for them, according to that theology.
Most scholars today put the Mormon interpretation down towards the very bottom of the list of being the most legitimate way of understanding this text. So, if Joseph Smith missed it, what is the right way to interpret 1 Corinthians 15:29? The verse reads in the ESV translation:
Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf?
Context for “Baptism for the Dead” in 1 Corinthians 15
Some context does help immensely here. In the 1 Corinthians 15 chapter as a whole, Paul is writing to certain Corinthian believers who have some serious doubts about the bodily resurrection of believers in Christ when the Lord Jesus comes back at his final return, to set the world right. Paul is aware of this practice of some Christians being baptized on behalf of those who have already died. He is not making a judgment on the practice in verse 29, right or wrong. But he is using the practice as an illustration to correct this theological error about the resurrection among the Corinthians.
In other words, what is the point of being baptized on behalf of the dead, if there is no future resurrection? If there is no future resurrection, then the practice of “baptism for the dead” does not make sense.
Here is the main takeaway of the passage: There is going to be a future resurrection of believers!!
Parsing Out the Best Interpretation of 1 Corinthians 15:29
Still, what is this “baptism for the dead” all about, anyway?
Without going off on some endless rabbit trail, some have suggested that this “baptism for the dead” was actually a pagan practice, possibly connected with the Greco-Roman mystery religions. However, most scholars take the view advanced by the late and eminent Gordon Fee that there is no real evidence to support this idea. Some of these ancient mystery cults had rites for water purification, but they did not have the same importance and meaning that the early Christians had regarding baptism. For Fee, this “baptism for the dead” was an infrequent practice, but it was nevertheless performed by some early Christians (Fee, NICNT Commentary on First Corinthians, first edition, p. 764).
Is this passage talking about water baptism or some metaphorical understanding of baptism?
Why are these people undergoing this baptism? Is it a form of penance for the Purgatorial relief of the dead? In other words, was Joseph Smith onto something?
Is the phrase “baptized on behalf of the dead” really just a reference to a ritual washing of dead bodies, not having anything to do with baptism as we normally think of it?
Interestingly, Eastern Orthodox priest Stephen De Young, author of The Religion of the Apostles: Orthodox Christianity in the First Century, takes a very similar approach that Michael Heiser does. One particular observation, rooted more in the original Greek text of the letter, which tends to be obscured in many English translations, is that “the dead” spoken here in this verse are actually deceased Christians. Paul had been going around preaching the Gospel across the Roman Empire, and some believers had already died before Jesus’ return.
In the New Testament era, it was quite common for Christians to believe that Jesus would be returning within the lifetime of the apostles, and of those who had become Christians in that same generation. Christians back in the first century might never have imagined that the timing of the Second Coming might be delayed by at least around 2,000 years! So, what about those believers who had died in that first generation before the return of Jesus?
Was it because those dead believers were possibly not baptized, suggesting that a form of “proxy baptism” was practiced? Well, this is highly unlikely as the normative practice in that era of the early church was to baptize people immediately after conversion. It was not until some time had passed, and more pagan-background people were coming to have faith in Christ, that it became necessary to delay baptism, in order that these new believers had sufficient enough instruction to undergo baptism, to make sure that these new Christians knew more about what they were getting themselves into! By the third or fourth century or so, when more and more people without much background knowledge of the Bible were coming into the church, the typical delay for baptism after conversion could have been up to THREE YEARS! (See J. I. Packer’s Grounded in the Gospel).
Most probably these deceased believers were already baptized before they died. We can reasonably infer that some kind of “proxy baptism” was not in view here. So if indeed “proxy baptism” is off the table, what is really going on here?
A careful look at the text again in various translations helps: The KJV takes a very word-for-word approach with the idea that these living Christians were being “baptized for the dead.” But translations like the ESV take an extra step more aligned with more thought-for-thought translations: “baptized on behalf of the dead.” The same Greek word translated word-for-word as “for” is translated in much the same way in the ESV of Philemon 1:13,”I would have been glad to keep him with me, in order that he might serve me on your behalf during my imprisonment for the gospel.” Acts 9:16 is similar, as is 2 Corinthians 1:6.
In 1 Corinthians 15:29, this idea of being “baptised for the dead” can be translated in four possible ways:
Baptised vicariously in the place of the dead, or just baptized in place of the dead. But this interpretive translation can be ruled out since Jesus already vicariously died in place of the dead believers with his own death. No one else would have to die to benefit those already dead, since Jesus already took care of that.
Baptised for the benefit of the dead. Again, what is the benefit for the dead person or persons? There is no known reason to explain this. So, we can rule this out as well.
Baptised for the sake of the dead. This is much better. It suggests that there is some goal in mind. However, that goal is not terribly clear in this passage, so we should be cautious here.
Baptised in honor of the dead. Heiser agrees that this is the best option available. There is no benefit for the person or persons who have already died. If there is a benefit, it is more an honorific benefit. A good example of this is when someone you know dies, and the family asks that any gifts for the survivors be given to a charity that the deceased person really likes; like an animal shelter or a medicine-based charity; such as, fighting to end cancer. You honor the dead person by providing some type of benefit to that charity.
So, which translation is best? Of the four possible translations, this last interpretation ties in best with the context of 1 Corinthians 15 as a whole. Remember that Paul mentions that some 500 people witnessed the bodily resurrection of Jesus. But by the time Paul was ministering in Corinth, there was a good chance that a number of these 500 witnesses might have already died, and not been given the opportunity to witness the Second Coming of Jesus within their earthly lifetimes. Therefore, there were some new Christians in Corinth who decided to get baptized, partly as a way of honoring those believers who had already died, as well as themselves also receiving the benefits of baptism, thus marking ones’ entry into the Christian community.
The Religion of the Apostles, by Stephen De Young, shows how the beliefs and practices of the early church connect with the world of Second Temple Judaism, the historical context for Jesus of Nazareth and the New Testament. One of the oddest practices among some, though clearly not all, early Christians is the rite of baptism for the dead, giving honor to believers who have already died. See the four part Veracity review of De Young’s book for more.
Christians Being Baptized in Honor of Other Dead Believers in the Early Church
Stephen De Young, in The Religion of the Apostles, agrees with this honorific interpretation of 1 Corinthians 15:29, noting that there was an ancient practice among the early Christians to do exactly this; that is, to be baptized in a way that gave honor to those believers who had already died. De Young says that these early Christians were doing this, but they were not explicitly making reference to this passage of 1 Corinthians 15:29 to support this practice (De Young, p. 162).
De Young also notes that the act of baptism is passive. It is not “those who baptize for the dead,” but rather “those who are baptized for the dead” (De Young, p. 162).
This interpretation proposed by both Stephen De Young and Michael Heiser is the most convincing to me, as has the least amount of problems with it as compared to alternative views, though every time I think about it, I still scratch my head a bit. Stephen De Young suggests that this odd passage explains why the practice of saint veneration took off even in the era of the early church, building on the “baptism for the dead” ritual. The practice continues today in many Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox circles. Because of the Protestant Reformation’s rejection of saint veneration , particularly with respect to icon veneration, (many Protestants call it an accretion), this practice died off within at least the last 500 years, in most of Protestant Western Christianity.
Should Christians still practice “baptism for the dead?” Paul himself refers to the practice in the third person (see the Christian Standard Bible translation of this verse, which uses the pronoun “they”), and neither as a practice he himself advocates nor practices (no “I” or “we”). Since Paul makes only passing reference to the practice, neither approving or disproving it, it can simply be regarded as a custom and not a command of Scripture. We should honor the lives of Christians who have died, but the Bible does not dictate any specific way to do this which transcends culture.
But at least this interpretation helps to make better sense of a very, very puzzling passage of Scripture.
Veracity 