I’m wanting to conduct a search for how the prepositional phrase ἐξ ὕδατος (out of water) in John 3.5 is used across the Greek New Testament on an iPad—but not sure how (or even if possible) to go about running such a study.
Full disclosure, I recently heard an apologist state that this prepositional phrase is consistently used to describe water baptism in the NT and, although I do believe that John 3.5 is referring to water baptism, from what I’m seeing so far I think the polemicist might have his Greek prepositions mixed up. It seems that perhaps he’s making an argument from the noun usage of ὕδατος (water) alone, which, IMO, is less convincing (but not to say that it’s not noteworthy). For example, he appealed to Matthew 3.16 where Christ came up “out of the water,” but it’s not the same Greek preposition as used at John 3.5, nor is it syntactically parallel due to the arthrous ὕδατος which also doesn’t appear in John 3.5.
Just thought I’d run it by those far more savvy than myself. If I’ve posted this in the wrong area pls. pardon my mistake🥴. May take me a couple of days before I’m able to respond, but just wanted to post this while I was thinking about it—thank you in advance👍.
