{"id":15752,"date":"2026-11-10T17:22:51","date_gmt":"2026-11-10T22:22:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?p=15752"},"modified":"2026-11-10T17:22:51","modified_gmt":"2026-11-10T22:22:51","slug":"ancient-bath-complex-could-give-details-about-purification-baptism-in-ancient-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/11\/ancient-bath-complex-could-give-details-about-purification-baptism-in-ancient-times.html","title":{"rendered":"Ancient Bath Complex Could Give Details About Purification, Baptism in Ancient Times"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Hebrew University of Jerusalem<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A 2,000 year old ritual bath complex found near the foot of the Jerusalem Temple Mount could give new insight on ritual cleansings as well as baptisms. The discovery was made near what is called the Triple Gate, one of the main entrances to the Temple Mount. Pilgrims may have used the spot for ritual purification before visiting the Second Temple during Jesus\u2019s time. The complex contains 3 ritual baths, also known as mikvehs, with the best-preserved one standing at some 14 feet tall. The find was uncovered by a team led by Uzi Leibner, who called the find<\/a> \u201cmonumental\u201d and the well-preserved bath the \u201ccrown jewel.\u201d Excavations are being led by the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in cooperation with the Armstrong Institute of Biblical Archaeology.<\/p>\n

Leibner believes the complex dates from around 10 AD, after the reign of Herod the Great. The find could offer insight into the celebrations involved in three major festivals during that time: Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot. \u201cDuring the Second Temple period, when pilgrimage to the Temple was a major part of Judaism, this area served thousands of pilgrims who had to come in a state of ritual purity. What we find in this area, outside the main entry point to the Temple Mount, is a huge investment in infrastructure for serving these pilgrims, with walkways, stores, water reservoirs, and dozens of ritual baths,\u201d said Leibner.<\/p>\n

Evidence for mass pilgrimages during the Second Temple Era have supported the biblical texts that described such festivals. Jewish historian Josephus claimed that more than 2.7 million people celebrated Passover in Jerusalem in 66 AD, though Leibner described that number as \u201ca vast exaggeration.\u201d Leibner described a heavy need for ritual baths, particularly at the area of the Ophel where these baths were found. Many pilgrims would have arrived at the Ophel first, meaning they needed somewhere easily accessible to purify themselves for the festivities. Such a need required major infrastructure investments. \u201cWe know the aqueduct reached the Temple Mount in the late Second Temple period, but we haven\u2019t yet identified the full route of the channel that brought the water down to these pools. Most likely, it ran through channels on the wall to reach the baths,\u201d said Leibner. The baths themselves contain drains that feed into huge tunnels that carred the water to the Kidron Valley at the bottom of the adjacent ravine. \u201cThis is an amazing drainage system that is extremely rare,\u201d said Leibner of drains, noting the baths could still drain even today.<\/p>\n

The baths could also give insight into the popularity of John the Baptist and baptisms done during Jesus\u2019s day. Candida Moss, the Edward Cadbury professor of theology at the University of Birmingham, stated the baths could show the connection from Jewish purification ceremonies to baptism. “What it does show is that baptism, a ritual that many people think of as exclusively Christian, emerged out of broader ancient Jewish bathing and purification rituals,\u201d Moss told Fox News Digital<\/em><\/a>. \u201cThat, in turn, can help explain the popularity of John the Baptist and the use of baptism by Jesus’ followers.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A 2,000 year old ritual bath complex found near the foot of the Jerusalem Temple Mount could give new insight on ritual cleansings as well as baptisms. The discovery was made near what is called the Triple Gate, one of the main entrances to the Temple Mount. Pilgrims may have used the spot for ritual…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":15755,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nAncient Bath Complex Could Give Details About Purification, Baptism in Ancient Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Ancient ritual baths discovered near Jerusalem's Temple Mount offer new clues about Jewish pilgrimages and baptism during Jesus' time.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/11\/ancient-bath-complex-could-give-details-about-purification-baptism-in-ancient-times.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ancient Bath Complex Could Give Details About Purification, Baptism in Ancient Times\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ancient ritual baths discovered near Jerusalem's Temple Mount offer new clues about Jewish pilgrimages and baptism during Jesus' time.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/11\/ancient-bath-complex-could-give-details-about-purification-baptism-in-ancient-times.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Christ News Today\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-11-10T22:22:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2026\/11\/Ancient-Discovery_credit-Hebrew-University-of-Jerusalem.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Cecilia Buchanan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Ancient Bath Complex Could Give Details About Purification, Baptism in Ancient Times","description":"Ancient ritual baths discovered near Jerusalem's Temple Mount offer new clues about Jewish pilgrimages and baptism during Jesus' time.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/11\/ancient-bath-complex-could-give-details-about-purification-baptism-in-ancient-times.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Ancient Bath Complex Could Give Details About Purification, Baptism in Ancient Times","og_description":"Ancient ritual baths discovered near Jerusalem's Temple Mount offer new clues about Jewish pilgrimages and baptism during Jesus' time.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/11\/ancient-bath-complex-could-give-details-about-purification-baptism-in-ancient-times.html","og_site_name":"Christ News Today","article_published_time":"2026-11-10T22:22:51+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":900,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2026\/11\/Ancient-Discovery_credit-Hebrew-University-of-Jerusalem.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Cecilia Buchanan","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/11\/ancient-bath-complex-could-give-details-about-purification-baptism-in-ancient-times.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/11\/ancient-bath-complex-could-give-details-about-purification-baptism-in-ancient-times.html","name":"Ancient Bath Complex Could Give Details About Purification, Baptism in Ancient Times","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/11\/ancient-bath-complex-could-give-details-about-purification-baptism-in-ancient-times.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/11\/ancient-bath-complex-could-give-details-about-purification-baptism-in-ancient-times.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2026\/11\/Ancient-Discovery_credit-Hebrew-University-of-Jerusalem.jpg","datePublished":"2026-11-10T22:22:51+00:00","dateModified":"2026-11-10T22:22:51+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#\/schema\/person\/450625ec20bf3e8a84060b9321455f3d"},"description":"Ancient ritual baths discovered near Jerusalem's Temple Mount offer new clues about Jewish pilgrimages and baptism during Jesus' time.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/11\/ancient-bath-complex-could-give-details-about-purification-baptism-in-ancient-times.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/11\/ancient-bath-complex-could-give-details-about-purification-baptism-in-ancient-times.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/11\/ancient-bath-complex-could-give-details-about-purification-baptism-in-ancient-times.html#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2026\/11\/Ancient-Discovery_credit-Hebrew-University-of-Jerusalem.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2026\/11\/Ancient-Discovery_credit-Hebrew-University-of-Jerusalem.jpg","width":1200,"height":900,"caption":"Hebrew University of Jerusalem"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/11\/ancient-bath-complex-could-give-details-about-purification-baptism-in-ancient-times.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Ancient Bath Complex Could Give Details About Purification, Baptism in Ancient Times"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/","name":"Christ News Today","description":"Christian News From Around the Globe","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#\/schema\/person\/450625ec20bf3e8a84060b9321455f3d","name":"Brandy Grenier","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/author\/bgrenier"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/516"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15752"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15758,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15752\/revisions\/15758"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}