Hi, James, it is funny to see you struggle to fight against your own scriptural heritage, when the issue is a verse where you are uncertain. You give the exact same type of arguments that are given...
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Steven Avery
Admin
Hi,
James, it is funny to see you struggle to fight against your own scriptural heritage, when the issue is a verse where you are uncertain. You give the exact same type of arguments that are given by those contra the scriptural Mark ending. (Maybe it does not matter that much, yada yada...).
Acts 8:37
And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest.
And he answered and said,
I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
Here is James B. Henshall in his excellent article defending the authenticity of Acts 8:37 in the Millenial Harbinger, 1860.
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"My own mind is made up on the reason why it was left out of some manuscripts, and marked doubtful in others. If it had not been such a clear witness against Infant Baptism, my judgment is, we should never have heard of its absence from a single manuscript!!!
It was much easier for a Pedobaptist to defend Infant Baptism against the commission of our Lord; "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved,"' than against Philip's answer to the question, "What doth hinder me to be baptized,"— "If thou believes! with all thy heart thou mayest." There it stands,
monumental!"
.... Abp. Newcome expunges it from his emended version; but I do not wonder at this, when he treats the inspired scripture as he does. Here are his remarks on the 38th verse:
"I do not see any proof that the eunuch was baptized by immersion. He and Philip—stood in the water; and Philip poured some of the water upon him. Nor do I see reason to think that John the Baptist used immersion; but rather otherwise. It is contrary to decency, and the respect we owe one to another."—(N. T. Vol. 1, p. 525.)
... Dr. Whitby believed that the passage was expunged because it stood in the way of the delay of baptism ... That may have had something to do with it; but the clear requirement of faith before baptism, and as entitling the party to it, was the moving cause of its removal."
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Henshall even points out that Acts 8:37 is more directly salient than the Mark ending: Yet you go stumbling around above trying to pretend that the verse is doctrinally insignificant.
And the issue is not that the omission of the verse leaves you with a text that supports infant baptism:
James Snapp
" What possible basis this could provide for infant-baptism"
... the Logic 101 issue is that the inclusion of the verse refutes infant baptism, by directly declaring the necessity of the confession of faith:
Acts 8:37
And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest.
And he answered and said,
I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
Amazing.
Consistency, the jewel.
And note the type of abject confusion around the double position that James takes on "major doctrines are changed" and "inerrancy" issues.
When the bumbling and dancing and double-position is done by Wallace, James is willing to point it out, effectively. When the bumbling is his own ... oops.
Steven Avery
