This messenger is John the Baptist, who appeared in the desert of Judaea. Baptism was a Jewish ritual – people were totally immersed in water to symbolise cleansing. John’s baptism was a ...

what we might call personal piety among some Jewish groups. This seems to be what's going on in the Essene group. And it may also be what's reflected in the story of John, who practices baptism.

In Judaism, the infant is baptised before it has a faith of its own to symbolise that it belongs to the Jewish people. In the same way, Christian baptism of an infant occurs before the infant has ...