Friedrich Avemarie

This book might daunt the general reader, but anyone who enjoys interacting with top-notch German scholarship will profit from this examination of the baptism accounts in the New Testament book of Acts.
Baptism is such a self-evident part of Christian practice that one often fails to notice what we do not know for sure about its origins. Yes, Jesus was baptized in the Jordan by John, but were all of his disciples? On the day of Pentecost recorded in Acts 2, Peter exhorts the listeners to be baptized, but this rite soon becomes more than John's baptism of repentance. Instead, it now takes place "into" the name of Jesus (occasionally in the name of Jesus). Just how and why does this shift occur? Further, in most cases, baptism is followed by conveying the holy spirit, usually through the laying on of hands.
Avemarie's training was in the Tübingen school. Its master was Martin Hengel, and Avemarie shares Hengel's high estimation of Acts' historical value. The assumption is that this book is from the pen of the author of the Gospel of Luke (most would concede this). By comparing Luke with the other two synoptic Gospels (Mark and Matthew), we can verify that Luke uses sources (again, few dispute this); moreover, he uses them conservatively. Much of his editorial revision is stylistic; his is some of the best Greek in the New Testament. He puts his theological stamp on his work more by what he leaves out than what he composes. Let us suppose he works the same way in creating the Book of Acts. If he did, then the book, although written in the last third of the first century, contains older source material.
By careful reading of these accounts, Avemarie finds we can establish Luke's own view of normative Christian baptism, as well as the existence of earlier traditions, especially in the accounts of baptisms performed by the missionary Philip. Avermarie also believes we can localize the addition of the formula "into the name of Jesus," the connection with receiving the holy spirit, and the practice of welcoming the newly baptized convert into fellowship (usually marked by sharing a meal) in the expansion of the Jesus movement beyond Galilee and Judea and into the Jewish diaspora and the wider, non-Jewish world.
This conclusion collides with the biggest reason many scholars are skeptical of the historical value of Acts. Luke makes Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, one of the two leading figures of his work. Paul dominates the second half of the book as Peter (whose baptism practice, Avemarie concludes, most closely accords with Luke's view of proper practice) did the first. In Christian tradition, the author is called "Luke" on the assumption that he is the beloved physician named as a companion of Paul. Yet the Paul in Acts, in the many speeches that come from his mouth, conveys little of the characteristic teachings central to his own writings, such as the Epistle to the Romans.
This seeming ignorance of Paul's central doctrines extends to baptism. In Paul's theology, baptism represents a dying and rising with Christ: conformity with his crucifixion and a new, Christ-like life. Avemarie's proposed solution to this conundrum is to take recourse to what we can know of Luke: his avidity in collecting all available sources (why wouldn't this have included at least a rudimentary collection of Paul's letters?), his conservative use of those sources, and his viewpoint established more by omission than by composition. This reasoning leads Avemarie to conclude that Luke knew of Paul's baptism theology but—for whatever reason—did not view it as normative and thus omitted it.
This conclusion might not convince all scholars but is seriously reasoned and worth consideration. There is also a question in my mind about the degree of credence he gives to what the Gospels record of John the Baptist's self-abasement when he meets Jesus, and his oracle of one coming after him who would baptize with the spirit, but that is not essential to his main argument.
Nevertheless, this book displays masterful scholarship that merits careful consideration in any investigation of the origins of Christian baptism.… (meer)