Tuesday, April 14, 2026

In and out of the waters of baptism

This afternoon, I was researching and thinking about a verse in the Book of Mormon that quotes Isaiah but adds to his "out of the waters of Judah" (Isa. 48:1, usually understood to mean "descended from Judah," with no reference to literal waters) the gloss "or out of the waters of baptism" (1 Ne. 20:1). The phrase "waters of baptism" is not used in the Bible and occurs only twice in the Book of Mormon. The first, just quoted, is about coming out of those waters; the other speaks of "going into the waters of baptism" (Alma 7:15).

Immediately after doing that word search and discovering the two contrasting instances, I checked Synlogos. At the very top of the feed was a new post from the Junior Ganymede, titled "The Waters of Baptism in the Red Sea." The title alone was a sync, but when I clicked I found an even stronger one. The post is just a single sentence, so I reproduce it here in full, with emphasis added:

We emphasize completely going under the water as the baptism rite, which is correct, but the key thing to me seems to be the coming back up again.

That is such a perfect match with the contrast I had just noted between the two "waters of baptism" verses that I almost wonder if the post was prompted by G.'s noticing that very contrast. (I'm not sure where the Red Sea fits in, though. The only people "baptized" there were the armies of Pharaoh, and they never came back up.)

1 comment:

G. said...

I did not notice that in the Book of Mormon at all, and it is very interesting.
No, I was just thinking about how the Red Sea is a symbolic baptism, not in that the Israelites got wet, but that they went down into the waters and *came back out again* and it occurred to me that that was the most important part.

So this is a true and eerie synchronicity.

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