Did Baptism Originate with Christianity?
Most people haven’t considered where baptism originated and assume it was with the advent of Christianity. John 1:19-27 shows it was not. Here Pharisees were sent to question John the Baptist as to who he was and why he was baptizing. They didn’t ask him, “Why in the world are you dunking folks in the water?” Their concern was not about what he was doing to people in the water because they were already familiar with the ritual.
Therefore baptism did not start with Christianity nor did it start with John the Baptist. It started before this—perhaps well before this—but when? Therefore I set out to determine definitively when the ritual form of baptism started.
By “ritual form”, I mean an official process where an authorized person of some sort immerses an individual in water and then brings them back up to accomplish some purpose. This is an admittedly generic definition, but it does separate it from what I will call the “non-ritual form”.
How Did the Jews Use Immersion?
The non-ritual form of baptism was for purification specified in the Mosaic Laws collectively called the Tivlah. Tivlah purifications were performed by the individual themselves–there was no need for anyone to do the immersion nor for anyone to witness it as the person was an Israelite responsible before their God. When an Israelite did something (for example, eating impure food) or had something happen to them (like someone dying in their presence) that required purification, they would go on their own volition and immerse themselves in one of the pools at the Temple called a Mikvah. These purification rites have been performed since before 1400 BC when the Law was given.
Note also that the Tivlah rites were for Israelites—not as a means of converting to Judaism. The conversion process, on the other hand, depended upon whether the individual was a descendant of Abraham or not.
Male descendants of Abraham need only be circumcised on the eighth day, and female descendants needn’t do anything. The Bar Mitzvah and Bat Mitzvah ceremonies are more recent creations. The first mention of these ceremonies of 13 year old Hebrews does not appear until the Talmud (well into the 4th century AD).
Slaves and aliens, on the other hand, were not Jews by lineage and had to convert. Naturally males would have to be circumcised and all would have to swear allegiance to the Law, but ritual purification was also required to wash off their past iniquities. Although this is not mentioned in the Mosaic Law, it is well established in many other later Jewish writings such as the Mishnah, Yebamoth 46a.
Where, When, and How did Purification Turn Into Baptism?
So where did what I’m referring to as the “ritual form” of baptism originate? I have found only two theories that fit with the Jewish historical documents and are in harmony with the culture of the Jews. In both cases, the ritual emerged during the last fifty years of a period of relative peace in Israel known as the Hasmonean Dynasty.
- After securing peace in Israel, ambassadors were sent out to establish their nation. Many Gentiles in those neighboring countries wanted to convert to Judaism after hearing the amazing works God had performed.
- During that same period of stability, there were many slaves and aliens in Israel who wanted to convert to Judaism.
The following is a summary for the events that lead up to this era:
- When Alexander the Great died in 323 BC, his empire was divided into four kingdoms led by his four generals.
- Israel fell in the Seleucid Kingdom, but was near the Ptolemaic Kingdom.
- The Seleucid Kingdom believed strongly in the Hellenistic philosophy, which meant “converting” all “lessor” cultures to the Greek way of culture and life.
- This was especially difficult for Israel, since, as has been the case throughout its storied history, the Israelites just won’t convert to another culture!
- One emperor in particular, Antiochus IV, hated that the Jews wouldn’t “Hellenize”, so he attacked them on the Sabbath, knowing that they wouldn’t fight. His army slaughtered 40.000 Jews and made slaves of another 40,000. He also sacrificed pigs to Zeus on the alter of God and setup prostitutes in the Temple! Many biblical scholars believe this is the “abomination that causes desolation”, prophesied in Dan 9:27, 11:31, and 12;11.
- A group of Jews revolted in 167 BC and fought what are called the Maccabean Wars. This is when the miracle of Hanukkah occurred, as God helped the small Jewish guerrilla force beat the heavily-armed Seleucids. Truth be told, the Seleucids were also fighting against their Greek neighbors, the Ptolemaics, which spread them thinly, but nevertheless God did a great thing. Thus the Jews won the right to govern themselves in 160 BC.
- At first their independence was limited to not being bothered by the Seleucids, but in the years 120 to 40 BC, in what is known as the Hasmonean Dynasty, they became an independent country and even expanded their territory around the area of modern day Israel.
- After decades of tyranny and persecution, Israel used their freedom to fully embrace the Law. It is during this period the Pharisaical sect was born and gained power.
It was at some point towards the end of this period that ritual baptism arose. Before this time, there is no reference to ritual baptism—just purification [Studies in Pharisaism and the Gospels, Volume 1, IV. Pharisaic Baptism]—but after this period and well before John the Baptist steps on the scene it was born.
I was able to find support both hypotheses–in fact it’s possible that combination of both occurred. The first hypothesis, (that baptism originated when Israelite ambassadors shared the miracles of God to the nations they visited) is one taught by Aaron Budjen on his website. Unfortunately he provides no historical references. This is pretty common due to an oral-tradition culture which continues even to the present. The second theory is more popular in educational circles.
The common theme is that Jewish officials felt strongly that Gentiles could not be trusted to immerse themselves properly or to profess any tenets. Godless Gentiles could not be trusted with such important things; therefore, unlike regular Jews who could purify themselves on their own, the Gentiles would need assistance and monitoring. The assistance came in the form of a Pharisee performing the immersion of the proselyte and helping him with any words, and the monitoring came in the form of another Pharisee or rabbi witnessing the process to ensure everything was done properly. This is where ritual baptism was born–somewhere towards the end of the Hasmonean Dynasty (142 – 63 BC)
Is it important if Christianity did not “invent” baptism? I hope not because it definitely did not. Does it matter? Only insofar as one must know there are multiple baptisms with different meanings in existence during the NT. In other words, the same ritual of someone immersing someone in water had different meanings and purposes. Sometimes this is clear in passages like Acts 10 or Acts 19, where the baptisms in question are mentioned explicitly. Add to the list of ritual baptisms the list of metaphoric baptisms (like Jesus’ reference to his crucifixion in Mark 10:38-40), and now that me must be very careful when interpreting the word “baptism”.
The Purpose of John the Baptist’s Baptism
We don’t need to wonder about when John’s baptism originated, as it’s clear it originated when he started baptizing people about four years before Jesus’ crucifixion about 29 AD +/-3 years. What is not immediately known is why John baptized Jewish individuals and what the relationship was between his baptism and the rabbinical proselyte baptism.
Recall that when the Pharisees went out to confront John the Baptist, their concern was not about why he was immersing people in the river, but instead about why he thought he had the authority to baptize Jews. All this takes place in the Jordan at Bethany (John 1:28) and therefore all the people John was baptizing were Jews.
Why would a Jew need to be baptized? Wouldn’t the fact that they were children of Abraham be enough to be saved? What does the idea of “being saved” mean to the Jews anyway?
Remember that there were many ways a Jew could lose their status and be excommunicated–things like missing one of the five holidays one was required to travel to Jerusalem or getting a particularly bad type of skin infection or leprosy. Of course there were many things that required one’s death, but I’m talking about “lesser” offenses that just required excommunication.
It’s also true that many Jews didn’t even believe in an afterlife. The Sadducees and all who subscribed to their theology did not believe in the afterlife or in the concept of “being saved”. For the Sadducees, the only proper way of living was observing the Law and receiving the blessings God promised to those who followed it (see Deut 28). This life was available to all the sons of Abraham (by virtue of their heritage) and to those who converted to Judaism.
In the only argument recorded in the Gospels where the Pharisees actually won, Jesus sides with them when the Sadducees try to corner Him with a ridiculous argument (Mark 12:18-27). The argument was about to whom a woman would be married in the afterlife if she had had multiple husbands from the same family (brothers were bound by the Law to marry their brother’s wife if he died leaving her no children). To them this was an unassailable argument—how could there possibly be an afterlife when one would run into conundrums like this? The Pharisees didn’t have an answer for the Sadducees, but instead put off the argument until such a time when the Messiah would come. Their strategy paid off as Jesus actually did clear things up by correcting several fundamental flaws in their thinking (of course this was only helpful to those who believed Jesus was the Messiah). Jesus explains that there is indeed an afterlife and offers proof
Both the Pharisees and the Sadducees believed the Messiah would clear things like this up when he got on the scene. It’s very much like how Christians today will say, “I don’t know but I plan on asking God first thing when I get to Heaven.” They even had a metaphor for it: the Messiah would “patch” things up [Aaron Budjen’s “Cloth and Wine”]. Jesus was most likely referencing this metaphor when he spoke about patches in Mat 11:16 and Mark 2:21. Therefore both the Pharisees and the Sadducees had a belief about the proper life of a Jew, but the Pharisees believed those who lived the proper life were granted eternal life.
But living this lifestyle was extremely difficult (impossible actually), so even though they had differing views about the afterlife, the Pharisees and Sadducees agreed that if a Jew strayed from Law, the way to recommit their lives to the Law was through baptism. See Yebamoth 46-48 in the Mishnah, where the term “ritual ablution” is used synonymously with the term I’m using, “ritual baptism”. The idea is an extension of Gentile conversion: if a Gentile could convert to Judaism by being circumcised, immersed and committing their life to the Law, then a wayward Jew, being already circumcised, could be immersed and recommit their lives to the Law in the same way.
By further extension of Gentile baptism, even Jews who were not excommunicated but who were consumed by guilt could, so to speak, “reset” their standing regarding the Law through baptism. That is to say, even a member of the Jewish community could “wash away” any sins which possibly were not atoned for and start over.
Furthermore, this is where the idea of being “born again” emerged. As exemplified in John 3:1-5, the waters of baptism were symbolic of the way water cleans and purifies, but also the amniotic waters of birth. And just as all babies are born pure, so too baptism purified the individual (This isn’t 100% true as the Pharisees believed that babies born with defects like blindness had somehow sinned in the womb; nevertheless the idea is that most babies are born sinless). Therefore baptism had both rebirth and purification associated with it. Nicodemus’ statement in verse 4 is a form of “reductio ad absurdum”, a Latin term used in debating to disprove a point by reducing the argument to absurd terms. Nevertheless you can see by the exchange between Nicodemus and Jesus that baptism and “born again” were linked before Jesus related them. Although the association with the Spirit was new, Jesus expected a Pharisee on the ruling-council to be able to project his original understanding of baptism and being born again with the new way Jesus was using it.
Therefore John’s baptism of Jewish men and women was preparing their hearts for Jesus’ ministry by people having their prior sins forgiven through rebirth and then recommitting their lives to the Law. Without this process of purification and rebirth, individuals would have no reason to recommit their lives if their prior sins would still cause them to be impure. It may sound contradictory that a person’s recommitment to the Law would prepare them for the New Covenant, but as Paul communicates in verse 9 of the struggle in Romans 7:11-25, “Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died.” Thus the Law, when one attempts to follow it wholeheartedly, shows them just how insufficient they are and puts them in a state of despair, ready to accept and rely on God’s mercy and grace.
This same baptism was used by Jesus’ disciples, and may be the reason Jesus directs John to baptize him “to fulfill all righteousness” (Mat 3:15). Not that Jesus had sinned prior to this or that Jesus needed to recommit himself, but rather because the Pharisees and Sadducees would view and consider Jesus as sinless and from this point on monitor him to see if sinned again (See Aaron Budjen’s podcast on the Baptism Of Jesus).
As discussed in the Part 1 of this series,The First Gospel, the baptism of the Apostles in the years following Jesus’ death and resurrection was more like John’s with the two critically important distinctions: 1) It was Christ’s perfect sacrifice of himself which forgives their sins, and 2) The promised Holy Spirit would enter them and live inside of them. As God moved miraculously through Peter and Paul, the early church learned the true Gospel.
So what role does baptism play in Christianity today? Find answers to this in Part 4, the next installment of this five-part series.
Further study/sources: