In this through and well-documented study of the sacrament of Holy Baptism, G.R. Beasley-Murray presents a critical defense of the doctrine of believers' baptism on the basis of the New Testament evidence. The author one of the leading New Testament scholars in England is himself a Baptist; but his discussion transcends denominational liners. Beasley-Murray begins by discussing various rites that precede Christian baptism historically, and analyzes the relationship between these earlier rites and baptism. From these antecedents Old Testament ritual washings, Jewish proselyte baptism, the iIlustrations practiced at Qumran, and the baptism of John the Baptism-the author proceeds to the foundations of Christian baptism in the career of Jesus, its emergence as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles and its development in the New Testament epistolary literature.