ὃ καὶ ὑμᾶς ἀντίτυπον νῦν σώζει βάπτισμα, οὐ σαρκὸς ἀπόθεσις ῥύπου ἀλλὰ συνειδήσεως ἀγαθῆς ἐπερώτημα εἰς θεόν, δι' ἀναστάσεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ,
1 Peter 3:21 (Westcott and Hort 1881)
and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also--not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
1 Peter 3:21 (NIV)
What is the basis for translating ἀντίτυπον as "symbol" in 1 Peter 3:21?
We need to consider more of the passage, I think, to understand what the word ἀντίτυπος means in context:
1 Peter 3:20–21 (NIV)
... to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also ...
The English word "antitype", though somewhat obscure, would have been the literal translation here of ἀντίτυπος - antitypos. A more literal translation is found in the Orthodox New Testament:
... who once were disobedient, when the long-suffering of God was waiting in [the] days of Noah, while an ark [was] being constructed, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved by means of water. There is also an antitype which now saveth us - baptism ...
The water of the flood, explains Peter, is an Old Testament type (typos) - a foreshadowing - of the later antitype of baptism.
John Breck, former Professor of New Testament studies at St. Vladimir's Orthodox Seminary, writes of the use of types and antitypes in Scripture in his book, Scripture in Tradition: The Bible and Its Interpretation in the Orthodox Church (p.22):
Within the framework of salvation-history, select events that occur in the experience of a people, particularly the Hebrew people, constitute "types" (typoi) or prophetic figures of persons, events and institutions to come, that will be fulfilled in the messianic age. The relation between the two Testaments is a "typological" relationship in which God's promises of salvation, expressed by events in Israel's history as well as by oracles of the prophets, will be fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ and in the life of the Chruch.
The Old and New Testaments represent a unified witness to salvation-history. The relation between the two Testaments is that of Promise and Fulfillment. An inner, organic unity exists between the two, such that key persons and events of the Old Covenant find their ultimate meaning in those of the New. This relationship of Promise to Fulfillment, inherent in the historical process itself, can be described as a relation of type to antitype.
