18 Dimensions of Baptism
can hardly be that they were dipped in wine. The same metaphor, of a
person drowned in wine, is found in Josephus (Ant. 10.169). It would,
therefore, appear that the strict meaning of immersion does not fully repre-
sent the usage of the verb. It may also have the idea of being drenched in a
liquid poured out from above.^29 In terms of the results there is not a lot of
difference in the end between being immersed in water or being over-
whelmed by a torrent or being caught in a cloudburst (like Noah's flood):
one is soaked to the skin and if the event is on the grand scale the results
can equally be fatal.
It is important to bring in here the fact that archaeological evidence
supports the view that in some areas Christian baptism was administered
by affusion. Discoveries of early baptisteries shows that they were incapa-
ble of being used for immersion.^30 With the exception of the find at Dura
Europos the evidence is admittedly not very early (that given by Emming-
haus is from the fifth to the seventh centuries). But it is corroborated by
the reference in Did. 13 to sprinkling with water as an acceptable substi-
tute where a fuller supply of water is not available; G. Theissen argues that
sprinkling is better explained as a derivative of affusion rather than of
immersion.^31 There is, of course, indubitable early evidence for a form of
baptism in which the candidates were either immersed in water or perhaps
stood in water while they were affused with water; this is to be found in
the use of the terms 'go down' and 'come up' with reference to baptism
(Barn. 11.11; Hernias, Sim. 9.16).^32
- For the variety of usage see Oepke, TDNT, I, pp. 529-30; cf. E.W. Burrows,
'Baptism in Mark and Luke', in Porter and Cross (eds.), Baptism, pp. 99-115 (p. 104);
Dunn,' "Baptized" as Metaphor', pp. 302-303. Oepke, TDNT, I, p. 538, finds in John's
baptism^4 the idea of a life-giving inundation'. - E. Stommel, 'ChristlicheTaufritenundantikeBadesitten', J^C2(1959),pp. 5-
14; J.H. Emminghaus, 'Die Gruppe der fruhchristlichen Dorfbaptisterien in Zentral-
syrien', RQ 55 (1960), pp. 85-100. See also Schumann, Lukasevangelium, p. 156, espe-
cially n. 62, p. 176; C.E. Pocknee, 'The Archaeology of Baptism', Theology 74 (1971),
pp. 309-11; Taylor, The Immerser, pp. 53-54.
For illustrations of early baptisteries, see F. van der Meer and C. Mohrmann, Atlas
of the Early Christian World (London: Nelson, 1958), pp. 42, 125-31. - G. Theissen, A Theory of Primitive Christian Religion (London: SCM Press,
1999), pp. 131,345. - O. Skarsaune, In the Shadows of the Temple: Jewish Influences on Early
Christianity (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002), pp. 366-67. See further
J. Danielou, The Theology of Jewish Christianity (London: Darton* Longman & Todd,
1964), pp. 233-48 (cited by Skarsaune).