Page 156 - Biblical Backgrounds

was written. They open our eyes to see the meaning of the text of Scripture as the readers would have
likely understood it. One of the most vital things to understand is the honor-shame culture of Israel.

Exile and purity rituals in Jewish culture

The Jewish culture of Jesus' time had survived the Babylonian captivity. Cyrus had sent them back to
Jerusalem. The Greeks had ruled them. At the time of Jesus, the Romans ruled Judea. They were
oppressed by Roman rule. The prophecies said that when the Messiah came, he would establish his
kingdom and rule on the throne of David from Jerusalem. At this time, however, Jerusalem was
occupied, and the Messiah did not rule, so in the Jewish mind the exile had not yet ended. This had led
to an earnest desire to understand what had led to the exile and what would need to happen to bring
them out of it. What they settled on was that they had gone into exile because of their sins. As a result
of their impurity, God had left the temple, and they had been taken captive. The Hebrew scriptures told
them that God had come to reside in the temple when it had been purified and made ready for God to
come. The seemingly obvious conclusion of this was that if God were to return, the people would have
to purify themselves so that God could dwell among them again. Reasoning in this way, they concluded
that to entice the Messiah to come, they needed to purify themselves nationally. This gave rise to some
of the Jewish sects. Qumran was a community that intentionally committed to developing itself in purity
rituals to prepare for the return of the Messiah. It also gave rise to many of the distinct rabbinic schools.

The Qumran, as well as other eschatological groups, and the rabbinic schools were deeply concerned
with ushering in the Messiah through corporate and individual purity. This drove the Pharisees to
develop many laws to ensure that Torah was not violated. It guided the schools to participate in ritual
bathing known as “mikveh”. The purpose of these washings varied. These were daily washings to restore
purity. The Mikveh pictured is from Masada. 202 Some of the washings were initiatory. That means that
they were public demonstrations that the person being baptized was confirming that the rabbi in charge
of the group he belonged to had the correct interpretation of Torah and the correct purity rituals to
bring about the coming of the Messiah and the return from exile. It is important to notice that the
washing was normally not associated with conversion. The Jews did not see the act of switching from
one rabbi to another as a conversion to a
new religion. It was not seen as the ritual
that made you a member of the group. It
was the action by which you demonstrated
that you were a member of the group in
public and were received into the
community. Many pastors are unaware of
this background and mistakenly assume that
the act of baptism is the point of salvation.
In fact, if the purpose of baptism remains
similar, the action of baptism is a
proclamation that you are already a
recipient of the rabbi’s purity and are a
member of the community.

202 Wikipedia Commons. Public Domain Image. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Masada,_mikveh_-
_katsniffen.jpg

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