Published in: Journal of Jewish Studies 69 (2018), pp.

1-21
For the full article, please visit: https://www.jjs-online.net/archives/article/3348
or contact the author at: yonatanadler@gmail.com

The Hellenistic origins of

Jewish ritual immersion

yonata n a dler
a r i e l u n i v e r s i t y, i s r a e l

a b s t r ac t The present study explores the origins of Jewish ritual immersion – inquiring
when immersion first appeared as a rite of purification and what the reasons may have been
for this development specifically at this time. Textual and archaeological evidence suggest that
immersion emerged at some point during – or perhaps slightly prior to – the first half of the
first century b c e . It is suggested here that the practice grew out of contemporary bathing
practices involving the Hellenistic hip bath. Through a process of ritualization, full-body
immersion emerged as a method of purificatory washing clearly differentiated from profane
bathing. By way of a subsequent process of ‘hyper-ritualization’, some ventured further to
distinguish purificatory ablutions from profane bathing by restricting use of ‘drawn water’
for purification and by assigning impurity to anyone who bathed in such water. Before us is
an enlightening example of one of the many ways wherein Jewish religious practices evolved
and adapted in response to Hellenistic cultural innovations.

F o r ov e r two millennia Jews have been practising ritual immersion

in water for the purpose of removing ritual impurity. While at some
point the practice became limited mostly to married women immersing after
the conclusion of menstruation and following childbirth, in earlier times
immersion was practised routinely by both men and women for purification
of a variety of commonplace ritual impurities.1
The present study aims to explore the origins of this practice, asking when
immersion first appeared as a Jewish rite of purification and what the reasons

I thank Professor Ronny Reich for reading and critically commenting on an earlier draft of this
paper.
1. For a study on the development of the miqweh into a gendered institution, see T. Ilan, ‘Since
When Do Women Go to Miqveh? Archaeological and Rabbinic Evidence’, in M.J. Geller (ed.), The
Archaeology and Material Culture of the Babylonian Talmud (Leiden: Brill, 2015), pp. 83–96. Note Ilan’s
problematic assumption that the biblical ࡻϙࡩϙࡾ is equivalent to ‘full-body immersion’ (see below).

j ou r n a l o f j e w i s h s t u d i e s | vo l . l x1x n o. 1 | s p r i n g 2 018 | pp. 0 – 0 0 |

i s s n 0 0 2 2 -2 0 9 7 | d o i 10.18 6 47/330 0 /j j s -2 018