# Debate For Christians: Born Of Water **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 6, 2001, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-for-christians-born-of-water/64540 "2001-05-06T14:25:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2001, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-for-christians-born-of-water/64540/21 "2001-05-08T15:25:11Z")
I’ll bet this whole obsession with “water” in the New Testament was primarily because the writers were living in a desert region. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2001, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-for-christians-born-of-water/64540/22 "2001-05-08T16:20:52Z")
Um, it wasn’t exactly the Mojave, Tracer. There was the Mediterranian Sea, the Sea of Galilee, the Dead Sea, the River of Jordan, etc. There were the coastal and inner plains, with large groves of citrus trees, the mountains and hills, with large groves of olive trees, as well as almond, apple, and fig trees, the Jordan valley and Ghawr, with rich soil, ringing the two large lakes. The desert was a small triangular patch, but still quite fertile near its edges. Perhaps you have something to contribute with respect to the topic. ---
**Author:** ![VarlosZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d78d45/32.png) [@VarlosZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VarlosZ)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2001, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-for-christians-born-of-water/64540/23 "2001-05-08T17:23:45Z")
> [@](#): > > I just think it is more natural that Jesus gave Nicodemus, whom He greatly respected, direct answers to his questions rather than wrapping him around the maypole the way He did so often with the Pharisaic politicians. Your familiarity with the Bible, no doubt, dwarfs mine, so I’m willing to accept that this is likely. I don’t really have any more criticisms to offer, but I would suggest one thing more. > [@](#): > > “Frankly, Jesus, I don’t see how a man can be born twice!” > > “Not just born from a womb, Nicodemus, as in your first birth. A whole new kind of birth is required, as in the birth I give you, the birth of the Holy Spirit of God.” I don’t think that an interpreatation of “born of water” as referring to baptism contradicts the above in any meaningful way, nor do I think that it necessarily implies that one needs to literally be baptised in order to be saved. In short, I can have my cake and eat it too. > [@](#): > > Good luck on your final, by the way! Thanks, they _both_ went well. Now for that philosophy paper due in a few hours . . . and the foreign policy paper due tomorrow morning . . . and the book I have buy to write the foreign policy paper . . . and the 40 hours of sleep I need to catch up on. I don’t know why we procrastinators are stigmatized. We worker harder than anyone else, just in extremely small, dense doses. ---
**Author:** ![VarlosZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d78d45/32.png) [@VarlosZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VarlosZ)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2001, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-for-christians-born-of-water/64540/24 "2001-05-08T17:28:10Z")
Incidentally, **tracer** may just have **whoooshed** you, but I’m really not sure. Of course, now he’s got to _claim_ that he did, regardless. Sorry, Lib. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2001, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-for-christians-born-of-water/64540/25 "2001-05-08T18:04:38Z")
Hmmm, well, if whooshing me makes Tracer happy, let him whoosh away. At any rate, I was hoping to hear from Chaim and Zev because I think one angle they might take would be the best one in support of an argument against me. Ezekial 36:25-27 (Amplified) > [@](#): > > Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness; and from all your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you shall heed My ordinances and do them. I thought a Rabbinical scholar might be able to comment on the likelihood that Jesus and Nicodemus might have been discussing these passages. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2001, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-for-christians-born-of-water/64540/26 "2001-05-08T18:11:22Z")
**Lib** , your interpretation is harder to impose on the passage in the OP when that passage is read _in pari materia_ with the other New Testament passages I cited in my earlier post. All of these passages taken together seem to make it pretty plain that the early Christians considered baptism a requirement for salvation. (BTW, as an atheist, I have no dog in this fight. I’m only debating the practices and beliefs of first and second century Christians as expressed in the New Testament.) ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2001, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-for-christians-born-of-water/64540/27 "2001-05-08T19:06:52Z")
Spoke, I appreciate your contributions, and your point is well taken that early Christians might have thought baptism (bapto) was perhaps as important as spiritual immersion (baptizo). But why must this particular conversation between the two rabbis be about that? Why didn’t Jesus just say “you must be baptized”? Nicodemus was no doubt familiar with the practice. Talking about being “born again” seems like a strange way to lead up to baptism. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2001, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-for-christians-born-of-water/64540/28 "2001-05-08T22:48:18Z")
Very slight hijack, Lib., but something I’ve never shared with you as yet – that Ezekiel passage you quoted is to me as “Before Abraham was, I AM” is to you…I was supposed to _read_ it at our Easter Vigil back in 1990; instead I _lived_ it – courtesy of a cardiac surgeon and the grace of God. ---
**Author:** ![Gaudere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e495f1/32.png) [@Gaudere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gaudere)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2001, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-for-christians-born-of-water/64540/29 "2001-05-08T23:45:14Z")
> [@](#): > > I do wish Gaudere had addressed that particular issue from her frame of reference, i.e., what does “born of water” mean — when contrasted this way against “born of the Spirit” — from the perspective of someone, like her, who does not yet know that the Love in her heart is the Living Love Himself. Well, at first it seems that water is an analogy to spirit when Jesus says he is the water of life. (I just noticed that spirit is usually (exclusively?) compared to fire in the OT, but Jesus compares it to water, wind and earth (the story of the seeds falling on various types of ground) too. All four elements; how very Hellenistic.) Yet it seems curious that Jesus would speak of being born of water _and_ the spirit if they are both supposed to be the same thing. So you argue that being born of water refers to the first birth. However, I am still be inclined to think that being “born of water” _was_ a reference to being baptized, not birth, given the repeated references that you have to be baptizied to be “reborn”. If your opening passages was viewed without the later explicit references to being baptized as neccesary to be acceptable to God, I would think your interpretation would be much more plausible, but as it stands I lean towards the baptismal interpretation. “Baptizo” may have more often referred to the “union” rather than physical baptism, but not always. Perhaps we should give a certain amount of weight to the practices of the early followers, in this case; John the Baptist did baptize people as a preparation for Jesus, who he said would come later and baptize with the spirit. So there does seem to be the sense that there are two baptisms–water and spirit. > [@](#): > > Talking about being “born again” seems like a strange way to lead up to baptism. Well, if baptism is required to be “born again”, and you must be born of water (baptized) _and_ the spirit, I don’t see it as a particularly unusual way to put it. I don’t know the context of the Ezekial passages, but Jews practice(d) ritual cleansing with water (and there was a particular one for new converts at one time, IIRC–don’t know if this is still the case), but it is/was not the same as Christian baptism. ---
**Author:** ![Studoggie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b487fb/32.png) [@Studoggie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Studoggie)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2001, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-for-christians-born-of-water/64540/30 "2001-05-10T01:44:38Z")
honesty, im not sure what the correct interpretation is. It seems unlikely that Jesus meant that physical baptism was a requirement of salvation. This can be demonstrated by the fact that Jesus promises salvation to the dying man on the cross next to him. This man only confessed his faith to Jesus, but was not Baptised in any way. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-for-christians-born-of-water/64540.md?page=1)