Bathing Bath
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament [1]
BATH, BATHING. —The immersing or washing of the whole person may be a matter of cleanliness, or of luxury, or of religious observance, or of health.
(1) Cleanliness per se may be set aside. It is possible to be cleanly with less elaborate apparatus; and the majority in OT (or even NT) times would have ‘neither privacy nor inclination’ for bathing. (2) Luxury in the classical world (diffused even among the people, under Roman influence, at least subsequently to NT times) included plunge-baths and much besides. When Greek culture tried to invade Judaea under Antiochus Epiphanes ( circa (about) 168 b.c.), it doubtless brought Greek bathing establishments with it. And when Western culture came in resistlessly under Herod (b.c. 40–4), it must have introduced the practice in many places; cf. an anecdote of Gamaliel ii. in Schürer, HJ P [Note: JP History of the Jewish People.] ii. i. 18, 53. (3) Religious observance, under OT law, according to Professor Kennedy (art. ‘Bath, Bathing’ in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible i. 257b), required a partial washing, or a washing with water rather than bathing. ‘The Heb. of the OT does not distinguish’ between bathing and a partial washing. ‘Both are expressed by רָחַץ.’ However, Schürer insists that Talmudic usage codifies the custom which had long been in vogue; and Kennedy grants that ‘the bath became,’ even ‘for the laity … an all-important factor in the religious life.’ Nay, proselyte baptism must be earlier than the NT, and it requires a bath, tĕbîlâh ( tâbal is used in one unambiguous OT passage, the miracle of Naaman’s cleansing, 2 Kings 5:14). We hear also of daily bathing among the Essenes (Josephus BJ ii. viii. 5). And, finally, John’s baptism was by immersion (as was that also of the early Christian Church, Acts 8:38, Romans 6:3-4). (4) The use of mineral baths for health’s sake is always popular. There are remains of such baths near Tiberias; those at Gadara and at Callirrhoë were very celebrated in ancient times. John 5:2-7 gives us an example of such bathing, though Christ’s miracle dispensed with the waters of Bethesda. In another passage ( John 9:7) we have a partial washing (at the Pool of Siloam) as a stage towards completion of a miracle.
Thus bathing was well enough known in NT times. Our Lord’s language in John 13:10 turns on the distinction between bathing (the whole person) and washing (the feet). Quite conceivably a Christian sacrament might have grown out of this incident. Nothing is more impressive at Oberammergan than the threefold journey of the Christus round the company—so it is represented—ministering to the disciples (1) the feet-washing, (2) the bread, (3) the cup. See, further, artt. Bason, Purification.
Robert Mackintosh.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible [2]
BATH, Bathing . The latter term is most frequently used in our EV [Note: English Version.] in connexion with purification from ceremonial defilement contact with holy things, with the dead, etc. (see article Clean and Unclean) and in this sense denotes the washing of the body with water, not necessarily the total immersion of the body in water. Hence RV [Note: Revised Version.] has rightly introduced ‘wash’ in many cases for ‘bathe.’ Bathing in the modern and non-religious sense is rarely mentioned ( Exodus 2:5 Pharaoh’s daughter, 2 Samuel 11:2 [RV [Note: Revised Version.] ] Bathsheba, and the curious case 1 Kings 22:38 ). Public baths are first met with in the Greek period they were included in the ‘place of exercise’ ( 1M Malachi 1:14 ) and remains of such buildings from the Roman period are fairly numerous. Recently a remarkable series of bath-chambers have been discovered at Gezer in connexion with a building, which is supposed to be the palace built by Simon Maccabæus (illust. in PEFSt [Note: Quarterly Statement of the same.] , 1905, 294 f.).
The Hebrews were well acquainted with the use of mineral and vegetable alkalis for increasing the cleansing properties of water ( Jeremiah 2:22 , RV [Note: Revised Version.] ‘soap,’ ‘lye’). In the History of Susanna Jeremiah 2:17 is a curious reference to ‘washing-balls.’
A. R. S. Kennedy.
