Invention of a Bathing Tradition in Hasmonean Palestine

Abstract

AbstractWhile scholars have known about the earliest ritual immersion pool in the Buried Palace at Jericho for more than thirty years, they have yet to produce a clear understanding of why the Hasmoneans began building ritual immersion pools when they did. Further, scholars have also failed to acknowledge the innovative nature of these spaces. I argue that we can best resolve these shortcomings by understanding the construction of the earliest known purpose-built ritual immersion pool (PBRIP) by John Hyrcanus I as an innovation driven by the political and social disruptions of the late second century BCE, and that once he had pioneered the idea of a PBRIP that it rapidly gained popularity. This article contextualizes the PRBIPs within the framework of Hellenistic palatial architecture and Second Temple literature rather than rabbinic literature.