John's Baptism of Jesus

[MrMacSon]

Mat 28:19 Therefore go [and] make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,

Act 2:38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Act 8:16 For [the Holy Spirit] had not yet fallen upon any of them; they had simply been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus.

Act 10:48 So he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to stay [for a few] days.

Act 19:5 On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

1Cor 1:13 {Is} Christ divided? {Was} Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul?
(...)
1Cor 1:15 so no one can say that you were baptized into my name.

1Cor 10:2 They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea

A clear case of "making m up as they go".
Most interesting are the errors: there is baptism, and there is reception of the holy spirit. And while the former may lead to the latter, Christianity invents that there also are other ways to lay hold on the holy spirit.

To highlight that differently:

1Cor 1:13-15
13 {Is} Christ divided? {Was} Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul?
14 I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius,
15 so no one can say that you were baptized into my name.

1Cor 10:2 They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea

Mat 28:19 Therefore go [and] make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit

Acts 2:38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Acts 8:16 For [the Holy Spirit] had not yet fallen upon any of them; they had simply been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus.

Acts 10:48 So he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to stay [for a few] days.

Acts 19:5 On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

And Paul has a few goof ups there when he tries to achieve either:

Two traditions are known to him concerning the possession of holy spirit. According to one, one can be a Christian and even be baptised to prove it, without possessing this spirit. The eleven are apostles and are addressed by Jesus as his disciples before they have received the baptism of the holy spirit, 1:5, 8. There is a circle of about 120 “brethren” who meet regularly and take decisions, 1:15; 2:1, but not all receive the holy spirit.
Although 2:1-13 is somewhat obscure in this respect, 1:5, 8 says clearly enough that the promise, the power of the holy spirit, i.e. the outpouring of that spirit according to 2:1-13 is for the apostles and not for everyone else.
Accordingly, Peter stands up to testify “with the eleven”, 2:14, and not with the 120 brethren. He wants the defeated in heart to repent and be baptised, after which they will receive the gift of the holy spirit, 2:38, but it does not appear that the latter occurs, even though they were baptised, 2:41. Whatever they are, according to the ideal drawing of 2:42-47and 4:32-37, a characteristic of these first Christians is not that they are in possession of holy spirit. Nor are Peter, Stephen, Paul always so, if in some circumstances they could emphatically be called πλησθείς or πλήρης πνεύματος Ἁγίου 4:8; 7:55; 13:9. On certain occasions, and so not always, all”, with whom the dismissed prisoners Peter and John had joined, were filled with holy spirit, 4:31. Philip christens and baptises Samaritans, but they receive holy spirit only later through the intervention of Peter and John, 8:4-5, 15-17. Simon the sorcerer also becomes a believer and is baptised, but he does not receive holy spirit, even forfeits his chance to do so and remains a Christian, 8:13, 1824. The chamberlain from Ethiopia is taught, baptised and travels his way with joy, obviously as a Christian, but he has not come into the enjoyment of holy spirit, 8:26-39. The believers from the circumcision are amazed that holy spirit is communicated to still unbaptised Gentiles. They apparently know baptism, but not the holy spirit, as a characteristic of the Christian, 10:44-48. Apollos is experienced in the Scriptures, well versed in the way of the Lord, even fervent in spirit, a zealous preacher of all things Jesus, but nevertheless familiar only with John’s baptism, i.e. he does not possess the holy spirit and does not even know anything about it, 18:2425 cf. 1:5; 11:16. He is not the only one; there are more μαθηταὶ who have never heard of the holy spirit and therefore never thought of holding it as a characteristic of the Christian as well as or instead of baptism, 19:1-3.
In contrast, according to another tradition, the possession of the holy spirit is the touchstone and hallmark of the Christian. Thus where the exalted Jesus, according to Ananias says to Saul-Paulus: ὅπως ἀναβλέψῃς καὶ πλησθῇς Πνεύματος Ἁγίου, where there is no mention of baptism, though it is mentioned in the immediately following message, 9:17-18;
where the βαπτισθήσεσθε ἐν Πνεύματι Ἁγίῳ of Christians is contrasted with the βαπτίζειν ὕδατι of John, 11:16 cf. 1:5; where Stephen and Barnabas, not just for once, but throughout, may be called: πλήρης Πνεύματος Ἁγίου, 6:5; 11:24. The proof, that Cornelius and his followers have the unquestionable right to be recognised as Christians, lies not in the baptism, which they have not yet received, but in the holy spirit, which has come upon them, 10:44-48 cf. 11:15 17.The μαθηταὶ at Antioch in Pisidia, believers from the Gentiles were not baptised as far as we know, but they “were”, apparently through and through, “filled with holy spirit”, 13:52.
The Gentiles hear the preaching of the Gospel, become believers and receive the holy spirit, Peter says, as if these three things formed a well-concluded whole, without mentioning baptism, 15:7-8. The μαθηταὶ at Ephesus, with whom Paul comes into contact and who have never heard of the holy spirit, are not yet true “disciples”, even though they bear that name. They become so only when, under the imposition of Paul’s hands, the Holy Spirit has come upon them, 19:1-7.

Van Maanen, Paulus I

The mistakes are the following, due to the mixing mentioned above:

Consequently, he gives the confused impression that the μαθηταὶ mentioned above had to be baptised again before they could receive the holy spirit, 19:5; that Saul-Paul was baptised, even though this could be considered superfluous in view of the holy spirit promised to him, 9:18, as was true of those defeated on the first Christian Pentecost in Jerusalem, 2:38, 41; and that Peter still had Cornelius’ family, already filled with holy spirit, baptised, 10:44-48.

Peter and John came from Jerusalem and communicated the holy spirit to Samaritans who had “only been baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus”, 8:14-16, a counterpoint to the communication of the holy spirit by Paul to “disciples” in Ephesus who had never heard of it, 19:1-7.

It's an incredible mess Mac, no matter in which order you read it: none of the Christians has any clue about baptism, the holy spirit, or anything else. It evidently is all on loan, without any note attached

• Yep, no consistency at all

[MrMacSon]

To the OP.
This is a topic that academia has already spent a lot of time on. First, we all know it is generally considered that the letters were before the gospels. And there are mentions of baptism in the letters, specifically 1 Corinthians, and Galatians as a ritual already present in Christianity ... In 1 Corinthians 15 we even have a defense of the practice of baptism of the dead, since those before did not know Christ, so could not be saved in their life (we all loved our dear aunt Gertrude, and it would be so wrong for such a lovely and kind person to be shut out of heaven because she lived before Christ was revealed to us).

1 Corinthians is fairly 'oblique', to say the least

Some of Paul's Accounts of Baptism:

1 Corinthians 1:13-17
{Is} Christ divided? {Was} Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul?
14 I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius,
15 so no one can say that you were baptized into my name.
16 Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that I do not remember baptizing anyone else.
17 For Christ {did} not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with words of wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of [its] power.

---

1 Cor 10:2
They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.

1 Cor 12:13
For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free, and we were all given one Spirit {to drink}

1 Cor 15:29
If [these things are] not so, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If [the] dead are not raised at all, why are [people] baptized for them?

ie. 1 Cor 1 is all about Paul: what he did and did not do and, it seems, whether people were baptized into the name of Paul.

Ephesians 4:5 - 6 is pretty vague, too

one Lord, one faith, one baptism (6 one one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all)

Galatians 3:27 just has

For all of you [who] were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

In Colossians and Romans we are let known it is a ritual to share in his death and rising.

Colossians 2:12
And having been buried with Him in baptism, you were raised with [Him] through [your] faith in the power of God, who raised Him from the dead.

---

Romans 6:3-4
Or aren’t you aware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 We therefore were buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from [the] dead through the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life

Romans 6 indicates the recipients of baptism didn't know what it was about ...

[mlinssen]

To the OP.
This is a topic that academia has already spent a lot of time on. First, we all know it is generally considered that the letters were before the gospels. And there are mentions of baptism in the letters, specifically 1 Corinthians, and Galatians as a ritual already present in Christianity ... In 1 Corinthians 15 we even have a defense of the practice of baptism of the dead, since those before did not know Christ, so could not be saved in their life (we all loved our dear aunt Gertrude, and it would be so wrong for such a lovely and kind person to be shut out of heaven because she lived before Christ was revealed to us).

1 Corinthians is fairly 'oblique', to say the least

Some of Paul's Accounts of Baptism:

1 Corinthians 1:13-17
{Is} Christ divided? {Was} Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul?
14 I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius,
15 so no one can say that you were baptized into my name.
16 Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that I do not remember baptizing anyone else.
17 For Christ {did} not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with words of wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of [its] power.

---

1 Cor 10:2
They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.

1 Cor 12:13
For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free, and we were all given one Spirit {to drink}

1 Cor 15:29
If [these things are] not so, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If [the] dead are not raised at all, why are [people] baptized for them?

ie. 1 Cor 1 is all about Paul: what he did and did not do and, it seems, whether people were baptized into the name of Paul.

Ephesians 4:5 - 6 is pretty vague, too

one Lord, one faith, one baptism (6 one one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all)

Galatians 3:27 just has

For all of you [who] were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

In Colossians and Romans we are let known it is a ritual to share in his death and rising.

Colossians 2:12
And having been buried with Him in baptism, you were raised with [Him] through [your] faith in the power of God, who raised Him from the dead.

---

Romans 6:3-4
Or aren’t you aware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 We therefore were buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from [the] dead through the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life

Romans 6 indicates the recipients of baptism didn't know what it was about ...

Romans 6 actually is half right, for only the latter part, and is the only correct original application of baptism, as it was a ritual for spiritual birth.
Hence the criticism of Philip, who was raised with the Chrestian variant:

Philip logion 97 (Paterson Brown)

97. Those who say that first they shall die and (then) they shall arise are confused. If they do not first receive the resurrection (while¹) they live,² they will receive nothing (when¹) they die. Thus also it is said regarding Baptism,³ (that¹) Baptism is great, (for¹) those who receive it shall live

https://metalogos.org/files/ph_interlin/ph097.html

Philip may even be criticising Romans 6 here - whether via the very text or the underlying idea

[Stuart]

MrMacSon,

Romans 6 is a development of the theology of the ritual, to explain it.

The ritual came first. And that is basically what I'm saying. It predates formal Christianity, with the explanation evolving. Eventually it grew to incorporate Jesus himself being Sanctified. But by the time that happens it's fully Christian. Remember gospels are (mostly) after the letters.

[John T]

John's baptism of Jesus was not for sin (Mat. 3:13-17) rather as a theophany.

John was looking for new recruits for the Essene community at Qumran.

John served as Yoda the Jedi scout if you will.

"The force is strong in this one I sense."...Yoda

[ABuddhist]

John's baptism of Jesus was not for sin (Mat. 3:13-17) rather as a theophany.

John was looking for new recruits for the Essene community at Qumran.

John served as Yoda the Jedi scout if you will.

"The force is strong in this one I sense."...Yoda

But why should we trust the account in GMatthew? Or link John to the Essenes?

[nightshadetwine]

I think John's baptism of Jesus in the Gospels is similar to a royal coronation ceremony. Same goes for the transfiguration scenes. Kings were often purified with water and then declared to be the son of god during their coronation ceremony. The Egyptian pharaoh was purified with water and then transfigured into a divine being during his royal coronation ceremony.

King and Messiah as Son of God: Divine, Human, and Angelic Messianic Figures in Biblical and Related Literature (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2008), Adela Yarbro Collins and John J Collins:

Eckart Otto has argued persuasively that Psalm 2 combines Egyptian and Assyrian influences... The declaration that the king is the son of God, however, has closer Egyptian parallels. The idea that the king was the son of a god is not unusual in the ancient Near East... Only in the Egyptian evidence, however, do we find the distinctive formulae by which the deity addresses the king as "my son". The formula, "you are my son, this day I have begotten you," finds a parallel in an inscription in the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut: "my daughter, from my body, Maat-Ka-Re, my brilliant image, gone forth from me. You are a king, who take possession of the two lands, on the throne of Horus, like Re." Another inscription of Amenophis III has the god declare: "He is my son, on my throne, in accordance with the decree of the gods." At the coronation of Haremhab, Amun declares to him: "You are my son, the heir who came forth from my flesh." Or again, in the blessing of Ptah, from the time of Rameses II: "I am your father, who have begotten you as a god and your members as gods." Such recognition formulae occur frequently in Egyptian inscriptions of the New Kingdom period. Otto suggests that the psalm does not reflect direct Egyptian influence, since the closest Egyptian parallels date from the New Kingdom, before the rise of the Israelite monarchy. Rather, the Hofstil of pre-Israelite (Jebusite) Jerusalem may have been influenced by Egyptian models during the late second millenium, and have been taken over by the Judean monarchy in Jerusalem. The formulation of the psalm, "this day I have begotten you," is widely taken to reflect an enthronement ceremony. The idea that the enthronement ritual in Jerusalem was influenced by Egyptian models was argued by Gerhard von Rad... Von Rad's insights were taken up and developed in a famous essay by Albrecht Alt, who argued that the passage in Isaiah 9 was composed for Hezekiah's enthronement, and celebrated not the birth of a child but the accession of the king. The interpretation of Isaiah 9 in terms of an enthronement ceremony is not certain. The oracle could be celebrating the birth of a royal child. The word is not otherwise used for an adult king. But the accession hypothesis is attractive, nonetheless, in light of Psalm 2. The list of titles is reminiscent in a general way of the titulary of the Egyptian pharaohs. Most importantly, the passage confirms that the king could be addressed as elohim, "god"... The king is still subject to the Most High, but he is an elohim, not just a man. In light of this discussion, it seems very likely that the Jerusalem enthronement ritual was influenced, even if only indirectly, by Egyptian ideas of kingship. At least as a matter of court rhetoric, the king was declared to be the son of God, and could be called an elohim, a god.

Iesus Deus: The Early Christian Depiction of Jesus as a Mediterranean God (Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2014), M. David Litwa:

Recently, Michael Peppard has fruitfully compared Mark’s use of “son of god” with its use chiefly among Roman emperors (the cosmocrators of Mark’s day). Peppard emphasizes that Roman imperial sonship occurred through adoption, that is, the election of a grown man by the ruler producing a transfer of power (since the adopted one inherited the rule of his father). With Marcus, Peppard views the formula “You are my beloved son” spoken at Jesus’ baptism—and restated at the transfiguration—as a means of adopting him to divinity. This is not a low christology. “To the contrary,” Peppard observes, “adoption is how the most powerful man in the world gained his power.” This “most powerful man in the world”—the Roman emperor—was also a god. Peppard, in accord with new trends in conceiving of the emperor’s divinity, concludes that “son of god”—when applied to the emperor—does not imply “absolute” divinity or an abstract divine essence. (This notion of divinity, he rightly points out, is restricted to philosophical circles.) Rather, like the emperor, Jesus was divine in terms of his status: as Yahweh’s declared son and heir, Jesus was now able to exercise Yahweh’s power and benefaction... For Peppard, Jesus’ baptism is “the beginning of his reign as God’s representative.” Virtually the same declaration (“This is my beloved son!”) heard by the disciples at the transfiguration, Peppard observes, confirms Jesus’ adoption as if it took place in a comitia curiata or “representative assembly” (practiced in Roman ceremonies of adoption). In the transfiguration, Jesus’ divine rule is proved to be more than a private vision. It is a revelation to faithful witnesses. Now the disciples know (or should know) that Jesus is Yahweh’s divine son and thus ruler of the world. The rule of God, as Jesus said, has come in power (Mark 9:1)... For Philo as for the Roman emperors, adopted sonship is real sonship... Mark’s understanding of Jesus as “son of God” is—as in emperor worship—less a matter of being than of rank: Jesus is the divine Messiah, empowered by God to inaugurate the kingdom...

"Water Rites in Ancient Egypt" by Jan Assmann and Andrea Kucharek in Ablution, Initiation, and Baptism: Late Antiquity, Early Judaism, and Early Christianity (Walter de Gruyter, 2011):

What is the function of the "Baptism of Pharaoh" - the purification of the king - within the sequence of rites outlined at the beginning? Its mediating position can be seen from the situation within the sequence: the purification stands between leaving the palace and the coronation by the gods and is thus before entering the actual temple to settle: the purification, as the formulas 'Your purity is mine purity' and 'Your purity is the purity of Horus' etc., offset the king into a god-like state of purity, which first enables him to face the gods in action and to be recognized by them as one of their kind... In the three-part scheme of a "rite de passage" the purification would thus occupy the mediating phase of the transformation. The first phase, the detachment, is marked by leaving the palace, the third phase is reintegration through coronation, initiation and crowning confirmation. This ritually repeated coronation was evidently presented as a rejuvenation or even rebirth of the ruler... A purification as a prerequisite for initiation to the deity was also required when entering the afterlife... This was precisely the function of the cleansing also when the king enters the temple.

Becoming Divine: An Introduction to Deification in Western Culture (Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2013), M. David Litwa:

The ka was the divine spirit of the king, a spirit he shared with all pharaohs who came before him and all who would come after. Although the king's ka was shaped and molded as the "twin" of the king at his birth, it was officially inherited at his coronation. For the Pharaoh, the ka was the divine principle in his person: the "immortal creative spirit of the divine kingship". It was the spirit of the creator and king of gods Amun-Re himself. Apart from his ka, Amenhotep III was a normal human being, subject to all human foibles and frailties. Endowed with the divine force of ka, however, Amenhotep III was son of the living God and god himself.

Temples of Ancient Egypt( I.B. Tauris, 1997), Byron E Shafer:

The royal ka was the immortal creative spirit of divine kingship, a form of the Creator's collective ka. The ka of a particular king was but a specific instance, or fragment, of the royal ka...Possessing the royal ka and being possessed by it were potential at a person's birth, but they were actualized only at his coronation, when his legitimancy upon the Horus Throne of the Living was confirmed and publicly claimed. Only at a person's coronation did he take on a divine aspect and cease to be solely human. Only in retrospect could he be portrayed as predestined by the Creator to rule Egypt as truly perfect from the beginning, as divine seed, son of the Creator, the very flesh of god, one with the Father, god's incarnation on earth, his sacred image.

[nightshadetwine]

Some of Paul's Accounts of Baptism:

1 Cor 12:13
For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free, and we were all given one Spirit {to drink}

Colossians 2:12
And having been buried with Him in baptism, you were raised with [Him] through [your] faith in the power of God, who raised Him from the dead.

---

Romans 6:3-4
Or aren’t you aware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 We therefore were buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from [the] dead through the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life

Romans 6 indicates the recipients of baptism didn't know what it was about ...

Paul describes baptism as an initiation like in the mystery cults and the Egyptian mortuary ritual. In 1 Cor 12 Paul describes those who have been baptized/initiated as making up one body. A similar thing is said in The Bacchae about the followers of Dionysus.

Porphyry's Against the Christians: The Literary Remains (Prometheus Books, 1994), R. Joseph Hoffmann:

Paul's use of body imagery in his first letter to the Corinthians and the theme of spiritual communion through the incorporation into "the body of Christ" (1 Cor. 12.27f.) is familiar from the language of the Dionysiac mysteries: "Blessed is he who hallows his life in the worship of God, he whom the spirit of God possesseth, who is one with those who belong to the holy body of God" (Euripides, Bacchae 73-75). Pagan critics of the early movement pointed to the fact that Christians addressed Jesus in terms equivalent to those used by the bacchantes(Dionysus' worshipers). Jesus was kyrios(lord) and lysios, redeemer.

Paul describes baptism as a ritual death and rebirth that reenacts the story of Jesus's death and resurrection, similar to what you find in the Egyptian mortuary ritual and the mystery cults.

Cosmology & Eschatology in Jewish & Christian Apocalypticism (Brill, 1996), Adela Yarbro Collins:

Two sayings attributed to Jesus in the Synoptic tradition seem to use the word baptism metaphorically to mean death, especially the death of Jesus. In these sayings, the operative symbol has shifted from cleansing that leads to a pure and holy life to death that leads to new life. These sayings are close to Paul's interpretation of baptism in Romans 6, one of the most important passages on baptism in the NT... In Romans 6: 1-14 the ritual of baptism is explicitly interpreted as a reenactment of the death and resurrection of Jesus in which the baptized person appropriates the significance of that death for him or herself. In this understanding of the ritual, the experience of the Christian is firmly and vividly grounded in the story of the death and resurrection of Christ. These qualities of reenactment of a foundational story and the identification of the participant with the protagonist of the story are strikingly reminiscent of what is known about the initiation rituals of certain mystery religions, notably the Eleusinian mysteries and the Isis mysteries.

Corresponding Sense: Paul, Dialectic, and Gadamer (Brill, 2001), Brook W. R. Pearson:

Following some of Wagner's critics, my assessment is that the evidence does indeed suggest that Paul's interpretation of baptism in Rom. 6:1-11 is parallel to elements in the mystery religions, especially the Isis cult, which was located in many different Hellenistic centres throughout the Greco-Roman world. In my opinion, the most important element of this similarity is the language of identification utilized by Paul of the individual Christian's 'sharing' (Rom. 6:5) in the activities of Jesus by participation in a ritual reenactment of Christ's death. As we shall see, the language used in Romans 6 to describe this participation, in addition to the similarities of Paul's equation of baptism and death with the similar equation in the Osiris myth, clearly evokes a connection with Rom. 1:23, and stands in developed contrast to typical Jewish use of similar language... Paul uses the example of Christ's death and resurrection, linking the presuppositions of this experience through baptism: 'Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life'... The language of identification and imitation in this passage is not reminiscent of Jewish ideas—Jews were not called to participate in ritual so as to identify with the actions of Yahweh, nor to imitate their God, but rather to follow his Law. Other cults of the ancient Near Eastern and Greco-Roman worlds, however, contain many different levels of such identificatory phenomena.

Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt (Cornell University Press, 2005), Jan Assmann:

We now understand why the embalming ritual had to portray the corpse not just as a lifeless body but as a dismembered one... The myth dramatized this condition, telling how Seth slew his brother Osiris, tore his body into pieces, and scattered his limbs throughout all of Egypt. In the embalming ritual, this myth was played out for each deceased person, even if he had in no way been killed and dismembered but rather had died a peaceful, natural death... This first phase was carried out in the name of purification. Everything “foul,” that is, everything perishable that could represent a danger to the goal of achieving an eternal form, was removed from the body. For this reason, in the few representations of the embalming ritual, this phase is represented as a purifying bath. The corpse lay “on” (that is, in) a basin, and water was poured over it. The Egyptian word for such a basin is Sj, “lake,” and such a “lake” is mentioned repeatedly in the accompanying spells, some of which we shall cite in chapter 5... In Egyptian mortuary belief, Osiris was the prototype of every deceased individual. Everyone would become Osiris in death and be endowed with life by Isis... In this last stage of the mummification process, the deceased experienced the Judgment of the Dead and received the aristocratic status of a follower of Osiris in the netherworld. He was vindicated against all accusations and absolved of any and all guilt, of any sin that could hinder his transition into the next life... The Judgment of the Dead represented an extreme spiritualizing and ethicizing of the mythical concept of vindicating the deceased against death... The guilt of the deceased was that which stood in the way of his transformation into the eternal form of a “transfigured ancestral spirit.” It was the Egyptian form of the Pauline concept, “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23)... What mattered was whether he had lived righteously, already judging himself during life against the norms of the next world... If condemned, the deceased could not become a transfigured spirit; rather, he had to vanish from the created cosmos, and that was the second death... In the Hellenistic Isis religion, the goddess embodied her adherents’ hope for eternal life, and she brought a great deal from her Egyptian past to this role. It was she who had awakened Osiris to new life through the power of her magical spells. And since, according to Egyptian belief, every individual became an Osiris by means of the mortuary rituals, his hope for immortality depended on Isis as well. There is good reason to think that ancient Egyptian burial customs lived on in the Hellenistic Isis mysteries, though in the latter case, they were enacted and interpreted not as a burial of the deceased but as an initiation of the living.

Becoming Divine: An Introduction to Deification in Western Culture (Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2013), M. David Litwa:

In the ancient world, typically only kings and pharaohs claimed the divine prerogatives of immortality and ruling power. Yet in the mysteries of Dionysus - the topic of chapter 3 - deification was made available to all who underwent initiation...Orphic deification is experienced, interestingly, as a postmortem rebirth from the goddess Persephone and consequently an assimilation to Persephone's divine son, Dionysus. As Orphic initiates identified with the god Dionysus, so the Apostle Paul morphed with the divine Christ. "I have been crucified with Christ," he once claimed, "I no longer live- Christ lives in me"(Gal 2:19-20).