Lonely Planet™ · Thorn Tree Forum · 2020

John the Baptist

Interest forums / Speaking in Tongues

What was the religion of John the Baptist, if you had to categorise it?

And what does this have to do with "mikveh"?

I thought John was a Jew.
A mikveh is a ritual bath for cleansing. I conjecture that the water baptism at the River Jordan was a ritualistic water cleansing.
The principal departure is that Jewish men did the ritual once a year and women after every menstruation. In Christianity, it is accepted that one needed to be baptised only once in your life.

1

Catholic?

2

I'd suggest stating with reading History of Baptism in Wikipedia.

3

The possibility that #2 isn't joking makes my stomach hurt.

John, like his cousin Jesus, was a Jew.

4

Is Jew a religion? I thought OP was asking for his religion....

5

#5, I don't know where to file a question like that. While it's obviously true that not all Jews are religious, those who are religiously observant are of the Jewish religion. What a surprise.

6

#5, I don't know where to file a question like that.

File it under "Egregious Ignorance."

"Jew" is not a religion--it is a proper noun--but Judaism is a religion. Apparently #5 thinks the history of turmoil in the Middle East is about nothing more than the proper way to cook falafel.

7

Without checking the wikipedia entry, I will add that the cleansing ritual of the mikveh requires flowing water. Mikvehs are often built at natural springs for this reason, and the ritual can be performed in a river, or spring-fed lake, as well.

8

. . . and John was baptizing in the Jordan, and there are still Christians who baptize in rivers only. The Sabaeans, who claim ideological descent from John, are also very big on flowing water.

(So one answer to OP's question is that the Sabaeans would tell you he was a Sabaean. And I think the Muslims would tell you he was a Muslim, that is, that he accepted the one God, like all true prophets.)

9

"Jew" is not a religion

then why didn't you answer the question (in #4):

What was the religion of John the Baptist, if you had to categorise it?

10

Read the rest of zashibis's sentence in #7, orangutan.

11

did. It still does not change the fact that the questions in OP was not answered in #4. Oh well....

12

Orang, you are not going to get out of this looking good. Better give up, and maybe reread the answers you've been given, as well as perhaps the Wikipedia pages on Judaism, the history of baptism, and mikveh.

13

Poor Orangutan.

I'll spell it out for you. "Jew" is a noun referring to people of the Jewish faith. The Jewish faith is more usually called "Judaism." Jesus and all his early followers were observant Palestinian Jews.

Furthermore, the reason I laughed at your notion that John the Baptist could be a "Catholic" (a name that wasn't applied to a church until the Middle Ages) is that John was born before Christ and died before Christ died. There were no "Christians" until after Christ's death and (alleged) resurrection.

(And, yes, this post is condescending as hell. But let this be a lesson to you not to post on subjects it's crystal-clear you know much less about than your average 4-year-old. Really. )

14

Seriously, #2 was meant to be a joke....

Bedankt, shilgia.

15

"Seriously, #2 was meant to be a joke."

Okay, but given your track record, how was anyone to know that?

16

Yeah, newbie. I should have included a smiley....;p

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