Baptism & King James

I wouldn't say I've been avoiding writting about baptism but I suppose I have. It's become a point of focus over the last year because of the Church of Christ I am attending. I cannot become a member because I haven't been baptised in a mode they recognise. (I was baptised age 6 with pouring rather than the full immersion).

Church of Christ (or at least the one I attend) dictates that to become a member full immersion adult baptism must be followed. I'm not really interested in debating baptism as such in this post but for completeness sake I don't beleive there is biblical support for invalidating modes of baptism other than full immersion (e.g. sprinkling, pouring, immersion). And before anyone starts quoting verses of defining the word baptism I am reasonably well read both scripturally and theologically on Baptism and am aware of "scriptural interpretations" that lead people judge others interpretation of baptism.

The real point of this post is to try to get some information. We had a baptism sermon on Sunday gone. Our pastor explained that baptism derives from Greek and means "immersion" (which I believe is over simplified) and went onto explain why we use the word baptism in the English language rather than the word immerse. Aparently when King James ordered the translation of the bible into English, the translators got to the word baptism and had a problem. If they used the word immersion, as they should, because baptism means immersion, King James would have had their heads because he was sprinkled. So after deliberation, the best the translators could come up with was no translating the word and just leaving baptism. Tada! Baptism entered the English language.

Now I had read this story on an essay on the etymology of the word baptism (written by a baptist) indicating that this story was an unsubstaniated conspiracy theory, and that there are texts showing use of the word baptism in English several hundred years before King James in the 1600's. So whilst baptism was a transliteration it wasn't transliterated to hide the true meaning of baptism being immersion.

Anyway, I was wondering whether any of you had any info on the topic or had heard similar stories and know of any others or if there's any work been done on substantiating King James' sneaky translation story.

The sermon on the weekend got me thinking a bit about content of sermons. I was thinking our pastor ain't a historian, and he should really stick to scripture which is more his area of expertise. I'll see if I can get any reference off him for where he got his info from, but I would be quite concerned if the story is just an unsubstantiated story passed off as fact to an unsuspecting congregation.

My 2 cents for today ;)

Boys and Girls and Washing Cars

I washed my car on the weekend. It's really very therapeutic for me. Strangely (or not) it makes me feel like I'm on top of things and it gives me a bit of a confidence boost.

Anyway, while washing my car I was thinking about boys and girls. This is a gross generalisation, but there's nothing wrong with that :) Boys are very toy orientated. Boys are practical and physical. We like something to work on and fix or clean or maintain. I'm not even an overly handyman but I still enjoy that sort of thing. I know boys who "love" their golf clubs, car, computer console, etc.

Now girls on the other hand aren't toy orientated. Girls are people orientated. Sometimes I'd even say drama orientated :). Usually girls seem to be trying to figure out how people feel and what people think about them. That and it seems (at least from my experience with girls in my life) inventing worst case scenario's for what other people think about them.

The amusing thing for me is that despite the differences between boys and girls, both sexes in general are really bad at communication. You'd think (and this is stereotype) that guys would be the worse communicators. But after thinking about it that's not what I've actually observed.