tracer

I'm listening to the NIV translation of the bible as a book-on-tape, because I have a long commute and know I'll never be able to make myself read the whole thing in print. After trudging through 36 cassettes over the last half-year or so, I've finally gotten up to the New Testament.

The first thing that struck me as odd in the Book of Matthew was the way it talked about what John the Babtist did -- baptising. Matthew talks about John baptising people as though baptism was a normal thing for folks to do, starting long before Christianity was invented. Yet I don't recall any mention of baptism anywhere in the Old Testament. This seems strange for a Gospel that was obviously written for a Jewish audience.

When/how did baptism start? Is it mentioned in the Apocrypha somewhere? (The NIV was translated by Protestants and thus lacks the Apocrypha, so I didn't stumble upon any hints in my audio-book listening.)

beowulf_king

The earliest form of baptism that I know of is with Mithra. I'm not sure if it's the first, but it's the earliest that I know of.

"The sacrifice of the bull was reenacted in the Mithraic baptism, a mystery rite in which the initiates were splattered with the blood. The initiate was then said to have been "born again.""

"Naturally enough, the baptism of bull's blood came to be interpreted in a more spiritual sense than that of its originally magical purpose. The bath of bull's blood cleansed the initiate from sin; its performance was regarded as the day of his spiritual birth…; he was reborn into eternity…"

from http://www.truthbeknown.com/mithra.htm

Hope this helps.

tracer

Okay ... considering the parallels between early Christianity and Mithraism, that certainly makes sense.

But as Matthew was writing for a Jewish audience, this implies that the practice of baptism had by that time worked its was into mainstream Judaism. When/how did that happen? Was it one of the relics of the Hellenistic occupation of Judea prior to the Maccabees? Is Mithraism part-and-parcel of both Greek and Roman classical civilization, or is it a distinctly Roman practice?

Hazel-rah

Oh, ya gotta love Google!

Here is a Christian take on the subject, complete with Bible references; and a Jewish explanation, mostly citing The Jewish Book of Why.

tracer

Hmmm ... that "Jewish explanation" has a dove-and-cross logo in the upper-left corner. <raises eyebrow Spockishly>

Hazel-rah

Ah, yes, forgive the inaccurate expression. Shall I say, "an explanation of baptism from its roots in Judaic tradition" instead?

(Careful, buddy. Spockish eyebrows make me all gooey inside...)

Toto

Christians link baptism to the Jewish Mikvah, although the Mikvah was done periodically as purification and not just once.

Jewish background of Christian baptism

Jews for Jesus on baptism

tracer

If the Jews for Jesus told me that the sky was blue, I'd go outside and check. They're not exactly the most forthright organization on the face of the planet.

The haydid.org link looks interesting, though. (But what's the deal with Focus on the Family on their homepage?)

Toto

I know what you mean about JFJ.

I don't know much about the Haydid link. It came up on the google search and had a lot of sources, but it does appear to be one of these back-to-the-1st-century-basics Christian groups. The Focus on the Family reference links to a garage sale they are having of an FOF video.

spin

As baptism is an ostensibly non-temple based idea you won't find it in the Hebrew bible, though you will find the use of ritual bathing both in the literature of Qumran and in the architecture. Ritual baths, known as mikva'ot (singular = mikva), have also been found in Jerusalem. The idea of ritual purity was maintained by the wealthier classes in Jerusalem. Less wealthy may have had them as well. There is a site above En Gedi which was of a poor community which had a communal mikva. When someone entered the temple they almost certainly had to wash themselves to be pure before the Lord, as is the case when one enters a mosque now with its wasing facilities at the entrance. The poor would find the return to purity through those who would emerse themselves in river water.

At some stage, the rite leading to ritual purity became the rite of ritual initiation, probably a person's first ritual bathing.


spin

(We have no documentation of pre-xian Mithraic rites.)