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COLLECTION OF THE IAA/PHOTO ABRAHAM HAY, THE ISRAEL MUSEUM, JERUSALEM

STONE JARS are traditionally associated with ritual purity, even though there is nothing in the biblical laws to support such interpretation. The notion that stone was insusceptible to defilement does not appear until early rabbinic traditions. This may be reflected in John 2:6, where large stone vessels are said to hold water for purification. They probably looked like these first-century C.E. examples, now in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.