1 Corinthians 15:29 — “Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead?”

Verse 29 of 1 Corinthians 15 is one of the most peculiar verses in the New Testament. Paul’s statement about this Corinthian practice raises a major interpretive problem which has plagued the church from the beginning–“what is this business of baptizing people on behalf of those who have already died?” There is no comparable statement anywhere in the Old or New Testaments. Conzelmann calls verse 29 the most hotly disputed text in the entire epistle.[1] He may be right. One prominent New Testament scholar counted thirty different interpretations, while another counted forty.[2] Still another commentator, who must have had better research assistants than the others, identified over 200 interpretations of this unexpected passage.[3] Yet, putting all the variety of interpretations aside, Paul’s reason for mentioning this practice is crystal clear. If there is no bodily resurrection of the dead at the end of the age, why then are people being baptized for the dead? The Corinthian practice (whatever it is) makes no sense whatsoever, if there is no resurrection.

Most of the proposed answers to this practice assert that this is some sort of vicarious baptism on behalf of the dead–recently departed or otherwise. One widely held view is that according to the second clause of the verse, (“baptized for them”–hupere) people were being vicariously baptized in the place of those who had already died, presumably without having been baptized before death. This particular baptism was being done so that the benefits of baptism would apply to people who had already died without themselves being baptized so as to protect them from the demonic, or claim for them a place in the afterlife.[4] This would reflect the Corinthian’s struggle to properly understand spiritual things, especially what happens at death.

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