Jimmy
Akin is a Catholic apologist who works for Catholic Answers (to see my review
of a Catholic Answers production on “Mormonism” by Trent Horn, click here).
In the following video, he is addressing a (Oneness Pentecostal?) interpretation
of 1 Cor 15:29, but touches upon the Latter-day Saint practice of baptism for
the dead:
Commenting
on the LDS interpretation of this verse, Akin offered his own interpretation--beginning
at 3:22, Akin argues that:
"Another understanding, and I personally find
this one very intriguing, is that being baptised for the dead doesn't mean
being baptised in place of them, but on account of them. So, let's say you have
a relative, let's say you are a pagan, and you have a relative who's a
Christian, so your relative has been baptised, and then your relative dies, and
you're thinking, okay, well, I love my relative (let's just say it was your wife),
ok, my wife has died, she's gone to the Christian heaven, I want to be with my
wife in the afterlife, I want to go to the Christian heaven, too, so I'm going
to get baptised and become a Christian, and in that situation, you could talk
about I'm being baptised for the dead, in other words, so that I can go where
they go."
This is eisegesis.
Firstly,
the preposition ὑπὲρ in 1 Cor 15:29 is followed by a noun in the genitive
(plural [των νεκρων, “the dead ones”]), so it has the meaning of "in
the stead/place of," "on behalf of"; not "on account of.”
Note the following from BDAG on υπερ followed by the genitive:
c. in place of, instead of, in the name of (Eur.; Polyb. 3, 67, 7; ApcEsdr 1:11 p. 25, 3
Tdf.; Jos., C. Ap. 2, 142; Just., D. 95, 2.—In pap very oft. ὑπὲρ αὐτοῦ to explain
that the writer is writing ‘as the representative of’ an illiterate pers.;
Dssm. LO 285, 2 [LAE 335, 4]; other exx. of pap in DWallace, Greek Grammar
Beyond the Basics ’96, 384-86) ἵνα ὑπὲρ σοῦ μοι διακονῇ Phlm 13. Somet. the mng. in
place of merges w. on behalf of, for the sake of Ro 9:3. οἱ βαπτιζόμενοι ὑπὲρ τῶν νεκρῶν 1 Cor 15:29a is debated;
cp. 29b (s. the lit. s.v. βαπτίζω 2c; also KBornhäuser, Die Furche 21, ’34,
184-87; JWhite, JBL 116, ’97, 487-99 [esp. 497f] favors a causal sense). εἷς ὑπὲρ πάντων ἀπέθανεν 2 Cor 5:14; cp. 15ab,
21 (Eur., Alc. 701 κατθανεῖν ὑπέρ σου).
Louw-Nida
offer the following comment about υπερ + genitive:
90.36 ὑπέρ (with the genitive): a marker of a participant
who is benefited by an event or on whose behalf an event takes place - 'for, on
behalf of, for the sake of.' ὅς ἐστιν πιστὸς ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν διάκονος τοῦ Χριστοῦ 'who is a faithful servant of Christ on your
behalf' Col 1.7; ἵνα εἷς ἄνθρωπος ἀποθάνῃ ὑπὲρ τοῦ λαοῦ 'in order that one person might die on behalf
of the nation' Jn 11.50; δεήσεις, προσευχάς, ἐντεύξεις, εὐχαριστίας, ὑπὲρ πάντων ἀνθρώπων 'petitions, prayers, intercession and
thanksgiving on behalf of all people' 1 Tm 2.1; τοῦ δόντος ἑαυτὸν ὑπὲρ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν 'he who gave
himself on behalf of our sins' Ga 1.4. In a number of languages, one cannot
speak of 'doing something on behalf of sins'; only a person can be benefited by
an event, and therefore one must translate 'who gave himself on behalf of us
who had sinned' in Ga 1.4. S
Other examples would be offered, but
there is no linguistic and scholarly support for Akin’s approach to 1
Cor 15:29. Such errant appeals to the Greek is part-and-parcel of popular Catholic apologetics
(e.g., James
Salza on Luke 1 and Mariology; Robert
Sungenis on τρωγω).
Do
note the following comments from one non-LDS scholar about 1 Cor 15:29 and the
great discomfort its plain meaning is for many, Akin included:
It cannot be denied that Paul is here speaking of a vicarious baptism: one is baptised for the dead to ensure for them a share in the effect of baptism, and this must relate to a post-mortal life. It is also clear that Paul himself refers to this baptismal practice, and without distancing himself from it (This is the embarrassing perception which is the reason for some (comparatively few) interpreters making an imaginative attempt to ignore that this relates to a vicarious baptism).
Søren Agersnap, Baptism and the
New Life: A Study of Romans 6:1-14 (Langelandsgade, Denmark: Aarhus
University Press, 1999), 175-76.
The
long-standing Latter-day Saint understanding of 1 Cor 15:29 is on sound
footing, from both exegesis and scholarship; the reading offered by Akin is
borne out of an attempt (informed by Catholic dogma) to avoid its plain meaning, and not from any careful
historical-grammatical exegesis of the text.