Robert, I love your question. And you can stop wondering. Of course there is a relationship, but you need to take the discussion beyond the middle ages to at least the first century and earlier. I've been reading up on this recently for an article of mine.

Christian practice/sacrament of Baptism is a 100% cultural appropriation from ritual bathing practices of the 100% Jewish messianic prophet John the Baptist, and his followers, as observed by the 100% Jewish historian Josephus. John of course instituted a variation of already well established Jewish Second Temple ritual bathing practices. For all observant Jews back then, a total immersion dip in a mikveh (plural mikva'ot) was essential before entering the Temple, getting married, after menstruating or having sex for example. If you coud not afford a private mikveh in your own home, you had to use a friend's or a public one at either a synagogue, or other public facility, say in a hostel or inn.

The first 100% Christian Baptism, reported in Acts 2:41 on the day of Pentecost in Jerusalem (then a 100% Jewish Feast), had to have been performed in 100% Jewish mikva'ot - where else in the city of Jerusalem could you accommodate the total immersion baptism in a single day of some 3,000 souls?

Murray's article is a bit misleading. It leaves the false impression synagogues and rabbinical Judaism only arose after the destruction of the Second temple. There were synagogues and teachers outside of Jerusalem all over the place before then, wherever observant Jews lived. Though reliable numbers are hard to come by, there were anywhere from four to seven million Diaspora Jews living outside Jerusalem all over the Roman Empire well before 70 CE. Alexandria alone had hundreds of thousands of Jews, though they were Hellenized and spoke Greek.

Some interesting reading:

Drews: Diaspora: Jews Amidst Greeks and Romans: https://my.vanderbilt.edu/robertdrews/files/2014/01/Chapter-Seven.-The-Remarkable-Story-of-Hellenistic-Judaism.pdf
Gurevich: The Water Pools and the Pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the Late Second Temple Period: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00310328.2017.1310563?scroll=top&needAccess=true
Legault: https://www.academia.edu/37236044/Pentecost_Tongues_of_Fire_and_Caustic_Images

Keep the cross-cultural questions coming.

Cheers,

Richard J Legault.

On Wed, Feb 13, 2019 at 1:14 AM Kraft, Robert A <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

I wonder whether the presence of water in many/most ancient Jewish synagogues has any relationship to Christian practices? For a quick overview see Dana Murray, "The Ancient Synagogue in Israel & the Diaspora." Ancient History Encyclopedia. Last modified December 08, 2015. https://www.ancient.eu/article/828/ -- Here is her assessment:

"Aside from the presence of the Torah, there was one other feature that was widely spread in both Israel and Diaspora synagogues: purity concerns. Just as they - alongside sacrifice - dominated Temple Judaism, purity concerns persisted and were reflected in synagogue architecture. Whether they were incorporated into the design in the form of a fountain or basin, or the synagogue was merely located near a body of water, the necessity for water facilities was widely established in both Israel and the Diaspora. Despite the limited remains of miqva’ot near Diaspora synagogues, they were occasionally present in ancient Israel, perhaps as a lingering Temple tradition. Fountains, cisterns, or basins, on the other hand, were often located in the courtyard or entranceway of the Diaspora synagogue, suggesting a similar function to the miqva’ot, complementing the Mishnah and Tohorot, a post-70 CE construction expressing laws of purity, cleanliness, and uncleanliness. The existence of such concerns suggests that the synagogue represented more than a community center, while the inclusion of additional rooms and supportive inscriptional evidence indicates that the synagogue was more than a religious institution. The fact that this evidence is spread throughout the ancient Judean world, both within Israel and the Diaspora, demonstrates the expansive and diverse expressions of Judean identity in response to local influences and traditions."

Bob Kraft, UPenn Emeritus

.

On 2/12/2019 12:57 PM, Genevra Kornbluth wrote:

medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
I don't know whether it has any healing properties, but a church in Ravenna has a wonderful flooded crypt (with fish-- you can see one at the back near the wall):
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_di_San_Francesco_(Ravenna)#/media/File:Ravenna,_s._francesco,_int.,_cripta_del_IX-X_sec._02.JPG
Genevra

********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: subscribe medieval-religion YOUR NAME to: [log in to unmask] To send a message to the list, address it to: [log in to unmask] To leave the list, send the message: unsubscribe medieval-religion to: [log in to unmask] In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: [log in to unmask] For further information, visit our web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/medieval-religion

********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: subscribe medieval-religion YOUR NAME to: [log in to unmask] To send a message to the list, address it to: [log in to unmask] To leave the list, send the message: unsubscribe medieval-religion to: [log in to unmask] In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: [log in to unmask] For further information, visit our web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/medieval-religion