{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 175/1917-04-10/p013","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"It suddenly dawned on me that the way in which John the Baptist is presented to us in the Gospels carries most important implications. What was the significance of baptism with water? Externally, of course, John the Baptist baptized with the waters of Jordan. We know that the candidates for baptism suffered total immersion. During the immersion they experienced a kind of loosening of the etheric body, which bestowed on them a temporary clairvoyance. This is the real significance of the baptism by John and of similar baptisms. But when John spoke of baptism with water he was referring not only to this form of baptism, but more especially to the passage in the Old Testament which says: “The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” What was the purpose of the baptism with water in Jordan? It was intended that through the loosening of their etheric bodies and the experiences they underwent the candidates for baptism should feel themselves transposed into the condition of consciousness of the time before the “Fall”. Everything that had occurred since the Fall was to be erased from their consciousness. They were to be restored to their pre-lapsarian state in order that they might experience the condition of man before the Fall. They were made aware that through the Fall man had entered upon a wrong path and that to continue on this path would be to court disaster. He had to return to his original state of innocence, to cleanse his soul of the evil which this aberration had brought.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"Lecture III","site_heading":"Christ's Cosmic Mission and the Transformation of Faith","site_heading_note":"A heading the site wrote for this unit from a summary of it; not in the edition, and not the words of Rudolf Steiner or of the translator. Cite the unit by its title and locus, never by this heading, and do not quote it.","date":"1917-04-10","location":null,"word_count":260,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/175/1917-04-10/p013","alignment_confidence":"high","alignment_reason":"beads:length","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"A. H. Parker","identified_edition":"RSP1972","book_title":"Building Stones for an Understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha","publisher":"Rudolf Steiner Press","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA175/English/RSP1972/19170410p01.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line","publisher_note":"The publisher is inferred from the edition code in this lecture's source URL, not stated by the source page. The translator IS verified for this lecture: its own source names the translator (evidence: the lecture's page, rsarchive's lecture list, or the cover of the book it was published in), and that page's text was matched against this unit (see match_score and source_url). Cite the translator with confidence; attribute the publisher only as probable."},"edition_coverage":{"de":["original"],"en":["English"]},"available_versions":[{"lang":"de","edition":"original","edition_basis":null,"is_original":true,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/175/1917-04-10/p013"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/175/1917-04-10/p013","paragraph_aligned":true}],"record":{"record_type":"unknown","scope":"volume","note":"How this text was taken down (shorthand transcript, listeners' notes or manuscript) is not on record here. Unknown is not an assurance of a stenogram: check the edition's own notes before resting an argument on one word.","evidence":null,"evidence_translation":null,"evidence_source":null},"german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"1917-04-10","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 175/1917-04-10/p012","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/175/1917-04-10/p012"}],"bead_confidence":"high","pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false,"length_check":{"de_words":329,"en_words":315,"ratio":0.96,"partial":false},"correspondence":"established","note":"English passage numbering is edition-relative, so the same number need not name the same paragraph in the German. The German original passage(s) above are the edition-invariant anchor — fetch them (lang='de') to verify wording before quoting across editions."},"paired_german":{"status":"paired","german":[{"locus":"GA 175/1917-04-10/p012","passage_number":12,"text":"Man versteht nicht, was eigentlich mit der Wassertaufe — die Art, wie sie vorgenommen wurde, habe ich ja öfter erzählt — gemeint ist, worauf angespielt ist, wenn man nicht eben gerade versucht, geisteswissenschaftlich sich der Sache zu nähern. Ich habe mich jahrelang bemüht, gerade hinter diese Dinge ein wenig zu kommen mit Hilfe derjenigen Mittel, die eben die Geisteswissenschaft an die Hand gibt. Da geht einem plötzlich auf, daß die ganze Charakteristik, in der uns der Täufer Johannes entgegentritt, etwas sehr, sehr Bedeutsames ist. Was sind es eigentlich letzten Endes für Wasser, mit denen Johannes tauft? Selbstverständlich, äußerlich sind es die Wasser des Jordan. Aber wir wissen ja: die betreffenden Täuflinge wurden ganz untergetaucht, so daß in der Tat während des Untertauchens eine Art Lockerung ihres Ätherleibes von dem physischen Leibe stattfand, daß sie für einen Augenblick sich hellsichtig sehen konnten. Das ist ja die wirkliche Bedeutung der Johannes-Taufe und ähnlicher Taufen gewesen. Aber Johannes meint nicht das allein, indem er von der Wassertaufe spricht, sondern er meint vor allen Dingen einen Hinweis auf jene Stelle des Alten Testamentes, wo gesagt wird: Der Geist der Götter schwebte über den Wassern. Denn was soll erreicht werden durch die Wassertaufe im Jordan? Durch die Wassertaufe im Jordan soll das erreicht werden, daß die Täuflinge in ihrem Bewußtsein durch jene Lockerung des Ätherleibes, durch all dasjenige, was mit ihnen vorgeht, sich zurückversetzt fühlen in die Zeit vor dem, was man den Sündenfall nennt. Es soll gewissermaßen aus ihrem Bewußtsein ganz ausgelöscht werden all dasjenige, was seit dem Sündenfall vorgegangen ist; sie sollen in den Unschulds-Urzustand zurückversetzt werden, damit sie sehen, was der Mensch vor dem Sündenfall gewesen ist. Gewissermaßen soll den Täuflingen klar werden: Der Mensch hat durch den Sündenfall einen Irrweg eingeschlagen, und wenn er auf diesem Irrweg weitergeht, so kann es mit ihm nicht gut ausgehen. Er muß umkehren bis zum Anfang, er muß gewissermaßen aus seiner Seele ausreißen alles dasjenige, was durch den Irrweg in diese Seele hineingekommen ist.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":329,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/175/1917-04-10/p012"}],"english":["GA 175/1917-04-10/p012","GA 175/1917-04-10/p013"],"method":"length","confidence":"high","correspondence":"established","length_check":{"de_words":329,"en_words":315,"ratio":0.96,"partial":false},"pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":0.99,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":8744,"original_word_count":8870,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"A. H. Parker","identified_edition":"RSP1972","book_title":"Building Stones for an Understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha","publisher":"Rudolf Steiner Press","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA175/English/RSP1972/19170410p01.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line","publisher_note":"The publisher is inferred from the edition code in this lecture's source URL, not stated by the source page. The translator IS verified for this lecture: its own source names the translator (evidence: the lecture's page, rsarchive's lecture list, or the cover of the book it was published in), and that page's text was matched against this unit (see match_score and source_url). Cite the translator with confidence; attribute the publisher only as probable."},"entity_parity":{"status":"ok","checked_against":["GA 175/1917-04-10/p012"],"missing_from_translation":[],"present_only_in_translation":[],"bead_confidence":"high","note":"Every load-bearing name in the German counterpart appears in this English passage. That is a check on NAMES only: a translation can keep every name and still reverse who acts on whom, change a number, or soften a claim. Read the German for anything you intend to rest an argument on."},"note":"quote_safe certifies the bytes of this text. This block is about the translation as a WITNESS: who made it, and whether it carries the same names as the original. See witness_completeness for how much of the original this witness holds."}}