@El'endiaStarman @fredsbend done...

I don't mind stealing bread

from the mouths of decadence

This answer: christianity.stackexchange.com/a/300/10486

has been up for over three years, is the top-voted and accepted answer to the question, and no-one in that time has realised it is self-contradictory?!

.. actually self-contradictory is not quite right - It's just logically value-less, an example of petitio principii (begging the question).

I think what they are saying is that it isn't a contradiction. Basically, their argument is that in the name of Jesus refers to in his authority and as he commanded, which would be to actually say the 3 in the course of the baptism as that is how Jesus said to do it

his argument makes sense because he is simply stating that the accounts that say "in the name of Jesus" refer to "in the way that Jesus declared it and under his authority to baptize"

he doesn't explain it very well, but his answer is consistent

and logically valid

...so in the name of Jesus is not normative but in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is? And the logical validity of that is...???

maybe I'm a bit slow - could you spell it out really simply for me, because I'm not seeing it

the OPs question was that Jesus says to baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy spirit

but that the passages in Acts show the early church baptizing only in the name of Jesus

the answerer is explaining that in the context of the Acts passages, they were baptizing under the authority of Jesus

which is to say that they were doing it in the way Jesus presecribed

the problem is inherently the unclear nature of "in the name of"

so basically he is stating that the Acts passages can refer to doing it in the way Jesus described based on how they are written

he is offering an alternate way of interpreting the passages in Acts that is not logically inconsistent with Jesus' description of how to baptize

@bruisedreed One baptizes "in the name of [that is, by the authority of] Jesus"; and one baptizes "in the name of [that is, invoking the names of] the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" - as the authority of Jesus specified.

so Jesus says "In the name of" he means "use these words as a formula" but when Peter says "in the name of" he means "in the authority of"?

so what is the basis for interpreting the uses differently other than tradition?

@bruisedreed It's an available interpretation; I can't think of anything against this.

@bruisedreed mostly logical consistency

it doesn't make sense that they would baptize in the name of Jesus in a way that is different from Jesus' own prescription

but you're interpreting it as a prescription because that's how it's been interpreted traditionally

it would be kind of like if you started calling "God is great, God is good and we thank him for this food" as the Lord's Prayer.

It just wouldn't make any sense

it's nothing like that at all

Jesus actually said, in scripture, directly to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit

just like he directly gave us the Lord's Prayer

the name (singular) - which is it?

@bruisedreed He didn't say "Baptize using the name(s)".

do you mean he actually meant: intone the name of the Father and the name of the Son and the name of the Holy Spirit? Don't you think you might be reading a little into that isn't there AJH?

@aaronj.courtney: The answer you posted earlier was made with an unregistered account, and you were trying to use your registered account to edit it. I suggest you see this help page: Merging accounts. Unfortunately, I do not have the power to merge your accounts.

Or perhaps he did; I don't know all the possible interpretations of the Greek.

@MattGutting I agree

@bruisedreed But that doesn't necessarily mean that "Baptize using the name(s)" isn't a reasonable interpretation of the Greek wording.

@El'endiaStarman I don't think he has the rep for chat does he? How much do you need?

@bruisedreed I'm betting that a superping can give him access anyway. Looking to see if I can find confirmation/denial of that.

@bruisedreed Since I don't know the Greek wording, and couldn't interpret it if I did, I'm stuck; that's more a BH question.

@MattGutting again, I agree. What is not reasonable is to throw that logic out the window in interpreting the examples in Acts - we should apply a consistant hermeneutic

@bruisedreed The problem is, if there are two possible uses for "in the name of", how do we know that the same usage is meant in both cases? If different usages are intended, then we shouldn't apply a consistent hermeneutic.

I may just have to create a separate chat room.

@MattGutting but if the only reason we apply an inconsistent hermeneutic is because of a received tradition, the Protestant view would be to question the received tradition and see if there is an alternative interpretation that is valid with a consistent hermeneutic. Why not interpret both to mean 'in the authority of' - the whole idea of mandating a formula in extra-biblical: it is not the 'magic words' that make any difference. cf: Acts 19:13-17

That appears to be making the assumption that we ought to make a consistent hermeneutic whenever we can make one. Why ought I to make this assumption?

@MattGutting you don't have to make it an assumption, but it is a good operating principle as it can be an effective guard against eisegesis.

@bruisedreed That's a reasonable point.

Are there, then, any other appearances of "in the name of the Father, etc."?

do Catholics accept some form of 'scripture interprets scripture' or is it only 'church (traditions and teaching magesterium) interprets scripture'

@bruisedreed Good question; I'm not sure.

@MattGutting there is no other text mentioned here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinitarian_formula

hmm de dmmm de dmmm * goes to skim through Catechism *

there are other verses where the trinity is mentioned together, but I'm not sure with quite that construction

I'm only seeing that one reference: usccb.org/…

58 apparantly! bible.ca/trinity/trinity-text-triadic.htm

@bruisedreed I'm not entirely sure I agree with all of that exegesis - and I'm looking for cases where the Three Names are invoked per se.

if you were to go by this alone: biblegateway.com/quicksearch/… it could be viewed as strong support against the trinitarian formula

- the most common invocations are the variations of 'the name of (the Lord)(Jesus)(Christ)'

@MattGutting Anyway, good chatting, but I'd better head off...

@bruisedreed Fare well!

@fredsbend They're pretty good and answering at a level which matches the questioner.

@TRiG The last question I asked the highest upvoted answer wrote half of it in hebrew.

This one: judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/45046/…

I had to ask for it in english.

@El'endiaStarman I thought mods could do that. I guess not.

@fredsbend Yeah, I too thought mods could do it, but wasn't able to find the capability.

On a different note:

I hired a web guy about 6 months ago. I'm pleased with his work mostly.

I've never seen his face, which didn't bother me until now. I've spoken to him many times on skype, so I know his voice. But today, he sounded like a different person and his chat messages seems a little out of characteristic.

There's a few other things that make me wonder what's going on, like we took until last week to pay him for July and he didn't even notice.

I'm wondering if he is outsourcing to india (because he sounded indian today).

Anyone ever heard of anything like this?

Or perhaps the guy I think he is doesn't exist. Instead it's a team of indians working under this guy's name as a pseudonym.

I'm a little bothered, and the chances of this seem small, but I keep telling myself that he is doing real work for me that i typically like and for a fair price.

@All Zoe used to be in here everyday...

@fredsbend I vaguely recall something about the merge account power being removed from mods because it's an irreversible action.

@TRiG Hey, Mr. Green. Are you a programmer?

@PaulVargas I build websites.

@TRiG Do you build them or do you hire someone else?

@fredsbend I am hired by someone else.

I work as a code-monkey for a small five-person company.

Five core employees, one work-experience student, one part-time guy working remotely, and one semi-retired accountant (the boss's dad), who spends quite a bit of time here. So eight people in total.