Hey! Sorry I’ve been away from the blog for a while. I’ve been working on my Masters thesis, “The Centralization of Worship in Ancient Israel” on a paper about Romans 10:5-13 and on another paper regarding 1 Corinthians 15:29.

1 Corinthians 15:29 reads, “Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people being baptized on their behalf?” (ESV)

Many different solutions (over 40) have been proposed for understanding the phrase “baptized for the dead.” But the one I like the most and which seems most fitting is that the punctuation is incorrect. As you probably know, ancient biblical manuscripts and papyri had no punctuation at all, not even spaces between the letters or capitalization. That means the punctuation we have was added centuries after Paul died. So the verse can easily be re-punctuated like this: “Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized? For the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people being baptized? For them?”

The problem is that Paul is using this sentence when he is arguing for the resurrection. I think the re-punctuation solution is the best!