Baptism history is a battle usually waged over things like mode of baptism (i.e. immersion, sprinkling, pouring/effusion) or recipients of baptism (i.e. professing believers or also their infants). The armies usually use church history to try and figure out who has the earliest tradition on their side. A more foundational argument would go to the Scripture first, and use tradition as a demonstration that one’s understanding of Scripture was part of the Apostolic tradition in the early church.
In my opinion, Baptists have done the best job at this, looking closely at the NT texts to identify who was being baptized (and who wasn’t) and how they were performing the rite. There have been many fine contributions showing that the early church agreed with these baptistic conclusions on immersion and the non-baptism of infants). Paedobaptists do not do as much work in actual baptismal texts for the simple reason that their arguments are sustained in other places (for example, a theology of infant baptism is not derived from any NT text, but from Abraham circumcising his infants). NT texts such as household baptisms or children coming to Jesus are then used as demonstration that one’s understanding of the covenant of grace (read “Abrahamic covenant”) was the same as the understanding of the NT.
It is not that I think it is wrong to place the OT as foundational to a theology of baptism, as many of my baptistic brethren argue. It is that I think it is misguided to root a practice of baptism in the practice of circumcision. Instead, baptism history should begin with the first baptism, in the creation event itself in Genesis 1. It should then proceed forward in time, looking at all the other baptisms in the OT. When this is done, it becomes clear very quickly why baptistic exegesis of NT baptismal passages are spot on. The NT practice was being informed by a good baptism history from the OT! If you want to learn more, we have a whole book dedicated to this subject called Waters of Creation.
