I believe there is a name for this logical error-- assuming there are only two or three (or whatever) possibilities when there are numerous possiblities.
In this case, your choices are kind of like these choices:
"Mrs. Smith has a brand new baby. Where did the Bible come from?
A. It grew in the cabbage patch in the garden and she picked it and brought it home.
B. A stork flew by her house and dropped a new baby on her doorstep."
Neither solution is a good one, and neither are one of yours. Paul says nothing about being baptized in the name of saints. Who does that? I've never heard of such an idea. He never says anything about resurrected saints indwelling people. I think you are attributing bizaar non-Hebraic religious notions to Paul in this passage.
I'd have to take a stab at what this is about, but I'd image someone was baptized as a proxy for someone else who had died. For example, if there was a new catechumen-- and that may be an anachronistic use of the term-- maybe a new 'seeker' who had confessed his faith but died before his baptism, maybe someone was baptized on his behalf. That's a total guess, and it presents some theological problems. But this is a problem passage.
It's conceivable there were people who just got baptized again when someone died to remember he would rise again. Or maybe there was some kind of Jewish purification ritual, like a mikveh after touching a dead body, that they would do, but somehow connected it to the resurrection.
Again, these are just guesses, but at least they are not as strange a leap as your ideas are. You read ideas into passages that offer no support at all for the ideas. For example, Paul talking about death working in his body while he was alive is not evidence that his spirit would be dispersed among saints when he died. Here, you seem to be doing the same with the baptism for the dead verse.
In this case, your choices are kind of like these choices:
"Mrs. Smith has a brand new baby. Where did the Bible come from?
A. It grew in the cabbage patch in the garden and she picked it and brought it home.
B. A stork flew by her house and dropped a new baby on her doorstep."
Neither solution is a good one, and neither are one of yours. Paul says nothing about being baptized in the name of saints. Who does that? I've never heard of such an idea. He never says anything about resurrected saints indwelling people. I think you are attributing bizaar non-Hebraic religious notions to Paul in this passage.
I'd have to take a stab at what this is about, but I'd image someone was baptized as a proxy for someone else who had died. For example, if there was a new catechumen-- and that may be an anachronistic use of the term-- maybe a new 'seeker' who had confessed his faith but died before his baptism, maybe someone was baptized on his behalf. That's a total guess, and it presents some theological problems. But this is a problem passage.
It's conceivable there were people who just got baptized again when someone died to remember he would rise again. Or maybe there was some kind of Jewish purification ritual, like a mikveh after touching a dead body, that they would do, but somehow connected it to the resurrection.
Again, these are just guesses, but at least they are not as strange a leap as your ideas are. You read ideas into passages that offer no support at all for the ideas. For example, Paul talking about death working in his body while he was alive is not evidence that his spirit would be dispersed among saints when he died. Here, you seem to be doing the same with the baptism for the dead verse.
Not only are you wrong but also confused for dismissing what you believe, an end of age resurrection which was part of the options given.
There can't be many possibilities when it comes to truth, just one truth out of many lies.
You've never heard anyone baptize people for the dead saints? Catholics have been doing this since inception yet they are still wrong because they baptize babies who still don't know right from wrong.
Do not also bring the Mormon practice of baptizing on behalf of the dead, Paul was not talking of 'on behalf' but 'for' the dead.
You have to understand that Paul quotes this practice as part of his resurrection argument thereby endorsing it because the underlying belief was true. By asking the question, Paul is trying to help us think on the kind of resurrection he taught. So, there's only one truth when it comes to resurrection and not so many possibilities and that truth is what those that baptized for the did believed also.
I'm also trying to think out loudly here when it comes to baptizing for the dead;
why would anyone baptize for the dead:
Is it because they believe resurrection is future or because they believe that resurrection is current and what did the Apostles teach about resurrection? And what did the prophets and the law say about it?
To me, it is clear, the Apostles taught that their own deaths would benefit their listeners and the Law prophesied that the OT saints would be 'gathered to their people'. And that's that.