Jordan pictures

[qatarperegrine]

The Dukes have put some of their pictures from the Jordan trip online. The first half of the trip has captions; the second half, you have to guess what we're doing. :-) Actually, I think the only one that still needs explanation is that the next-to-last picture is of some Dead Sea scrolls.

Click the below picture to go to their album!

Comments

Re: Thanks

[qatar.livejournal.com]

Infant baptism is another thing different (American) denominations argue about. There are some churches that say you can't enter into the covenant except through an act of will, and thus you have to be adult enough to make that decision on your own. Historically, though, it seems that the church has been practicing infant baptism since our very earliest days. (One of my pictures of Jordan, when I dig it up, is a picture of a very ancient baptismal font with a separate font for babies.) We Methodists see baptism as being a symbol of God's prevenient grace, i.e. "the divine love that surrounds all humanity and precedes any and all of our conscious impulses." Infant baptism is a statement that God is at work in the lives of our infants before they are even old enough to recognize or acknowledge that fact.

I think you're right that baptism may be analogous to tevillah (is that the right word?) or to circumcision, depending on the circumstances. The idea of being born into a covenant is somewhat alien to Christianity, though. And perhaps, in a sense, that's why we have infant baptism at all -- because we don't really think of children has being born Christian, even if they're born into Christian families.

Also, don't forget that we have a separate process called confirmation as well as baptism. If you are baptized as an infant, as I was, then confirmation is when you "claim the faith of the Church proclaimed in baptism as [your] own faith." (If you are baptized as an adult, on the other hand, you get confirmed at the same time.) So we do have a ritual way of affirming that personal choice a person makes about their life of faith. Baptizing babies is a reminder, though, that God's grace precedes whatever personal decision we make.

That makes sense

[shmuelisms.livejournal.com]

Yes T'villah is the correct word. Although, in transliterating it, I prefer to drop the initial 'e'. The "vowel" under the first letter, is actually a Shvah which is best described as a "null-vowel" - it does NOT have a sound (Doesn't Arabic have such a "vowel"?). Although it is VERY common to fill in an 'e' when transcribing a Hebrew Shvah to English, it is phonetically incorrect (and I find it annoying ;-)). I've no idea why people insist on doing this. The 'i' vowel is also closer to the 'ee' sound, but not as long. The vagaries of Hebrew/English transcription are amusing.

The idea of being born into a covenant is somewhat alien to Christianity

I can see why Christianity would have everybody entering the covenant baptized. Seeing as historically there are no "native" Christians, it would more sense, initially to just baptize everybody who "comes to Jesus", thus the precedent would be set, and as you say, the covenant is considered much more dependent on individual choice. In Judaism we take the exact opposite approach: The covenant is historical and binding on all Jews for all Time. So someone born a Jew, is bound by this contract, whether they choose to "accept" it or not (this is also why converts are considered 'reborn'). Circumcision is NOT "entering the covenant", so much as putting your signature on the line of an existing contract (or conversely, by putting G-d's "signature" on our flesh, align ourselves with this covenant, by saying that the flesh has a higher purpose in life). If this was not so, then one could "leave" the covenant, merely by not being circumcised. To take things a step further, a Jew also can't leave the covenant by converting to another religion. I could say the Shahadah or be baptized until I was blue, and still be considered as Jewish as ever. No additional act would be required to "revert" back to Judaism.

Re: Thanks

[y-pestis.livejournal.com]

Interesting synchronic explanation, but I feel the need to throw in some historical context. In medieval times I think the standard Christian belief was that anyone unbaptized (both babies and people of other religions) couldn't go to heaven - at best, would end up in purgatory. Particularly with high infant mortality rates at the time, this meant there was a clear reason to get the young'uns baptized as soon as you found a priest, so that if anything happened at least they could go to heaven.

Oh, and a side note on the Hebrew shvah - it's incorporated into English (and Linguistics) as schwa, the mid-central unstressed vowel found in such words as the first syllable in "Peninsula".

Re: Thanks

[qatar.livejournal.com]

Oh, good point about the babies-going-to-heaven thing. I didn't even really think about it, since it's not part of the (Methodist) church's view of baptism.

P.S. Catholicism -- WOW! ;-)