Water Baptism STUDY — ;
BRITANNICA ENCYCLOPEDIA
11TH edition, Vol 3, Pg 365-366
The baptismal formula was changed from the name of JESUS CHRIST to the words Father, Son, & Holy Ghost by the Catholic Church in the second century.
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BRITANNICA ENCYCLOPEDIA
Vol 3, Pg 82
Everywhere in the oldest sources it states that baptism took place in the name of Jesus Christ.
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CANNEY ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION
Pg 53
The early church always baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus until development of Trinity doctrine in the 2nd century.
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CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA
Vol 2, Pg 263
Here the Catholics acknowledged that baptism was changed by the Catholic Church.
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HASTINGS ENCYCLOPEDIA
OF RELIGION
Vol 2, Pg 377
Christian baptism was administered using the words “In the name of Jesus”.
Vol 2, Pg 378
The use of a Trinitarian formula of any sort was not suggested in early Church history.
Vol 2, Pg 389
Baptism was always in the name of Lord Jesus until the time of Justin Martyr when Triune formula was used.
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CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA
Vol 8
Justin Martyr was one of the early Fathers of the Roman Catholic Church.
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HASTINGS ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION
Vol 2, Pg 377 on ACTS 2:38
NAME was an ancient synonym for “person”. Payment was always made in the name of some person referring ownership. Therefore one being baptized in Jesus Name became his personal property. “Ye are Christ’s.”
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NEW INTERNATIONAL ENCYCLOPEDIA
Vol 22, Pg 477
The term “Trinity” was originated by Tertullian, a Roman Catholic Church Father.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION AND ETHICS
(1951), II, 384, 389
The formula used was ‘in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ’ or some synonymous phrase; there is no evidence for the use of the trine name… The earliest form, represented in the Acts, was simple immersion….in water, the use of the name of the Lord, and the laying on of hands. To these were addedm at various times and places which cannot be safely identified, (a) the trine name (Justin)….
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INTERPRETERS DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE
(1962) I, 351
The evidence … suggests that baptism in early Christianity was administered, not in the threefold name, nut ‘in the name of the Lord Jesus’.
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A HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN THOUGHT (Otto Heick)
(1965), I, 53
At first baptism was administered in the name of Jesus, but gradually in the name of the Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
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HASTINGS DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE
(1898), I, 241
[One explanation is that] the original form of words was ‘into the name of Jesus Christ’. Baptism into the name of the Trinity was a later development.
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A HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
Williston Walker, (1947), Pg 58
The Trinitarian baptismal formula … was displacing the older baptism in the name of Christ.
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THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE
(1957), I, 435
The New Testament knows only baptism in the name of Jesus …, which still occurs even in the second and third centuries.
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CANNEY’S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGIONS
(1970), Pg 53
Persons were baptized at first ‘in the name of Jesus Christ’ … or ‘in the name of the Lord Jesus.’… Afterwards, with the development of the doctrine of the Trinity, they were baptized ‘in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BIBLICA
(1899), I, 473
It is natural to conclude that baptism was administered in the earliest times ‘in the name of Jesus Christ,’ or in that ‘of the Lord Jesus.’ This view is confirmed by the fact that the earliest forms of the baptismal confession appear to have been single – not triple, as was the later creed.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA
11TH edition, (1910), Vol 2, Pg 365
The Trinitarian formula and trine immersion were not uniformly used from the beginning… Bapti[sm] into the name of the Lord [was] the normal formula of the new Testament. In the 3rd century baptism in the name of Christ was still so wide spread that Pope Stephen, in opposition to Cyprian of Carthage, declared it to be valid.
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The evidence is overwhelming. This is obviously the way the apostles baptized in the first Church. Don’t you think if you are going to be in Christ’s Church, YOU should be baptized in the NAME of Jesus? “And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.” (Matthew 10:22