The Messiah's Baptism: Moving Beyond the Ritual Washing

The teaching that water baptism is required by the Lord for all believers is almost universal in Christian religion. Why question it? The earliest Jewish Messianic followers did, and their disputes with first-century author Tertullian (considered the Father of Latin Christianity) remain almost unknown today.

When they claimed that water baptism was no longer necessary for salvation, an angry Tertullian fought back in his treatise, On Baptism. With the full power of Rome backing him, these early Jewish Messianic voices were lost to time and tradition.

This book takes a fresh look at the scriptures to see if what has been handed down to us is truly accurate, or if the Roman Church (and later the Protestants) missed something on this important subject.

Was there a transition period in the baptism doctrine as seen in the Book of Acts as Christ's followers moved into the promised New Covenant? (As a hint, remember that John the Baptist said that God called him to baptize in water, but that Jesus would baptize in the Holy Spirit.) And Jesus himself said similar things at several different times.

With painstaking analysis and careful attention to interpretive nuance, this book invites readers to view baptism from another vantage point-through the original idioms and perspective of first-century Jewish believers. You may never think about baptism the same way again.

After graduating from Bible college in Seattle in 1983, T. Alex Tennent entered the graduate degree theology program. Motivated by a love for God's word, he continued studying the Greek language to better interpret and understand the original scriptures. This journey led to harmonizing the Greek scriptures relating to the Last Supper controversy, in turn opening the door to even greater understandings.