(October 30, 2017 at 11:23 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Anyway, the Jewish concept of ritual bathing was meant to mainly cleanse the body ( not the soul ) of impurities. Unlike xtian baptism which was only done once.... much as the other mystery cults employed it...the Jews were expected to cleanse themselves everytime they came into contact with something unclean.
It's a real stretch to try to make that the forerunner of xtian baptism while the other cults were already there.
Ok...fair enough. However, I would expect the same type of precision to be required in other comparisons you would make in your case as well (if you ever get to that).
It does seem curious, because the common theme, I keep running into, when researching the mystery religions, is that we don’t know much about their practices (didn’t write down the secrets), that they may have changed over time, and that there was quite a bit of difference between them. I would think to make the statement as a group, that they only had one baptism would seem that you have access to the secrets, that others do not.
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If I am shown my error, I will be the first to throw my books into the fire. - Martin Luther
