Did you know that the Christian concept of baptism evolved from the Jewish temple purification rites? That is correct. In order for a Jew to feel pure before god, he immersed himself in water. They did this many times. Jews were fanatical about their state of purification. John the Baptist was the one who actually took the significance of full immersion to the next level tying it to atonement.
But christians are baptized once. As a symbol of putting away the old, or dead and being born anew under their god's name... a new creature. Prior to Christianity (and this is my point), baptism was occuring en masse, repetively to the same person. Jews would immerse themselves all the time in sacred pools. The temple even had purification pools leading up to the sacrificial altars. The wealthiest of Jews had special purification pools installed in thier houses so that they could ritually be more closer to god as possible.
The baptism that John the Baptist offered, and even supposedly gave Jesus, was one of many repetitious rites an individual could enter. Christians took the concept from Jewry and formed their own interpretation of it. I am currently studying the mechanics behind how this happened.
more to come
