Does repunctuating the verse dissolve the crux? (Foschini's rhetorical-questions reading of 1 Corinthians 15:29)

Type: supporting argument (off-timeline) · Assessment: weak — re-dividing the (originally unpunctuated) Greek so the verse becomes a string of sneering rhetorical questions, in which no baptism-for-the-dead is described at all, is ingenious and rests on a true fact — the autographs carried no punctuation — but it settles nothing: Foschini still renders ὑπέρ “for,” so the disputed preposition is only relocated, not escaped; the new division reads against the flow of vv. 30–34; and the same “unpunctuated text” licence spawns rival re-divisions, so it multiplies readings rather than adjudicating them · advanced by Bernard M. Foschini (following P. Dürselen), with a kindred re-voicing proposed by Jerome Murphy-O’Connor.

The claim

— Bernard M. Foschini’s rendering of 1 Corinthians 15:29. He repunctuates the Greek — setting a question mark after οἱ βαπτιζόμενοι (“those who are baptized”) and another after βαπτίζονται (“why are they baptized”) — so that “for the dead?” and “for them?” become clipped, sarcastic follow-up questions rather than a description of any rite: on this reading Paul is taunting the resurrection-deniers (are the baptized washing themselves only to be numbered among the corpses that never rise?), and no proxy or creedal baptism is in view at all.¹

Who advances it

The reading is Bernard M. Foschini’s (following an earlier proposal of P. Dürselen), set out in his multi-part study of the verse — a Franciscan priest’s book-length attempt, avowedly aimed at severing the passage from the Latter-day Saint practice, to show that “no such ‘Baptism for the dead’ existed.” It belongs to a small family of “re-read the words so Paul endorses nothing” proposals. The best known cousin is Jerome Murphy-O’Connor’s: that v. 29 is a Corinthian slogan denigrating Paul’s converts, re-voiced by Paul for his own ends (“will they continue to work, those who are being destroyed on account of an inferior class of believers who are dead…?”). The most drastic cousin drops the verse altogether — William O. Walker’s proposal that 15:29–34 is a non-Pauline interpolation, the “nuclear option” that removes the offending line rather than reads it. All three share one instinct: the plain sense is an embarrassment to be neutralised.²

The evidence for

The autographs carried no punctuation. Paul’s letters were written in scriptio continua — no stops, no question marks, no spaces or capitals; the punctuation in every printed New Testament is editorial, imposed centuries later. Re-dividing a sentence is therefore, in principle, a legitimate move and not a violation of the text, since the received division is itself an interpretive choice.³

The context is a chain of rhetorical questions. The tone of v. 29 shifts abruptly from the measured argument of vv. 20–28, and vv. 30–34 run on as a series of pointed questions (“why stand we in jeopardy every hour?”). Reading v. 29 itself as taunting questions is not, on its face, out of key with its surroundings.

It keeps Paul clear of an unrebuked rite. Like the non-vicarious readings and the locative reading, the repunctuation spares Paul the awkwardness the vicarious reading concedes — here more radically still, by denying that the verse reports any distinct baptismal practice whatever.

Adversarial assessment

What holds. The textual premise is simply true: the autographs were unpunctuated, so re-punctuation is a real tool, not a cheat, and reading v. 29 within the question-run of vv. 29–34 is not absurd. As a demonstration that the received punctuation is not sacrosanct, the proposal makes a fair point.

What fails. Four defeaters. (1) It never escapes the preposition. Foschini still translates ὑπέρ “for” — “for the dead? … for them?” — so the very ambiguity he set out to dissolve survives untouched; the repunctuation only shifts where the sentence breaks, leaving the disputed word doing exactly the disputed work. (2) The sense is tortured. “For the dead? (that is, are they baptized to be numbered among the dead who never rise)?” is unintelligible without the long parenthetical gloss Foschini supplies; two words are made to carry a whole sarcastic argument that the text does not state. (3) It fits the flow worse, not better. The plain reading gives Paul a concrete practice to use as a lever, exactly as v. 30 (“why stand we in jeopardy?”) presses another practice; the repunctuated taunt has no clear referent and leaves the “they” hanging. (4) The mechanism proves too much. If “the autograph had no punctuation” licenses Foschini’s division, it equally licenses Murphy-O’Connor’s slogan, Walker’s excision, and others — so the move multiplies candidate readings instead of settling among them; it is a licence to re-divide, not an argument that this division is right. Unsurprisingly, Foschini’s solution, like the attempts before and after it, has failed to win broad acceptance.⁴

A framing caution. Foschini’s driving motive was openly apologetic — to sever the verse from the modern Latter-day Saint practice — which is a reason to weigh his division on the evidence rather than on the result it was built to reach, not a refutation of it in itself.

Assessment

Weak — repunctuation is a legitimate tool resting on a true fact about the unpunctuated autographs, but as a solution to 15:29 it fails: it neither escapes ὑπέρ (which Foschini still renders “for”) nor yields a natural sense, and its licensing premise spawns as many rival re-divisions as it forecloses. Not false in the manner of a factual error, but a less-probable and self-undercutting reconstruction — an ingenious escape hatch that leaves the room exactly where it found it.

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