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They Are Ritual Baths

Immerse yourself in the ongoing Sepphoris mikveh debate

By Ronny Reich

050 Scholars have been arguing for some time about the purpose of several plaster-clad stepped pools in the ancient Galilean settlement of Sepphoris, just 4 miles northwest of Nazareth. Not long ago, BAR published the opposing views of two prominent scholars. Duke University professor Eric Meyers, who has extensively excavated at Sepphoris, insisted that the Sepphoris pools were indeed ritual baths, known as mikva’ot (singular: mikveh)—but Hanan Eshel, of Bar-Ilan University in Israel, contended that the pools were only used for routine bathing.a The debate matters because a mikveh definitely establishes a Jewish presence in a community—and many […]

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Footnotes

1.

See Hanan Eshel and Eric M. Meyers, “The Pools of Sepphoris—Ritual Baths or Bathtubs?” BAR 26:04.

2.

See, for example, Mark Chancey and Eric M. Meyers, “How Jewish Was Sepphoris in Jesus’ Time?” BAR 26:04.

Endnotes

1.

Eric M. Meyers, Carol L. Meyers and Kenneth G. Hoglund, “Sepphoris (Sippori), 1994,” Israel Exploration Journal 45, no. 1 (1995), p. 69. See also Eric M. Meyers, “Sepphoris on the Eve of the Great Revolt (67–68 C.E.): Archaeology and Josephus,” in Galilee Through the Centuries, Confluence and Cultures, ed. Eric M. Meyers (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1999), p. 109–122.

2.

As Meyers points out, estimates of 40 seahs vary from 60 to 250 gallons. The quantity of water in a seah varied from region to region, according to rabbinic literature; a Jerusalem seah was different from a desert seah (Mishnah Terumah 7.1).

3.

According to Eshel, “Living water … must come directly from a river or a spring or from rainwater that flows into the pool.” According to Meyers, “Rainwater … was a major source of living water.” Both Eshel and Meyers incorrectly regard rainwater as “living water.” BAR 26:04.

4.

See, e.g., Torat Kohanim (Sifra), Shemini, 9. Several passages in the Mishnah examine the problem of how much drawn water disqualifies a mikveh that has less than the required 40 seahs of “living water” from a spring or lake. See, e.g., Mishnah Mikva’ot 2.4.

5.

The term otzar (related to otzer) was used in the late Second Temple period for a storehouse (e.g., an otzar of wood, etc.) and was not applied to mikva’ot until the Middle Ages.

6.

See Meyers, Meyers and Hoglund, “Sepphoris (S|ippori), 1996,” Israel Exploration Journal 47, no. 3–4 (1997), p. 267, fig. 2.