| There was no sacrament of baptism in the Jewish faith before the time of Christ, that is, there was no once-in-a-lifetime rite which was a means of grace by which a person entered the faith. There were various "baptisms," that is, different kinds of ceremonials washings by which people or objects were cleansed of ceremonial uncleanness. Numbers 19 gives an example of such washings. Mark 7:3,4, Hebrews 6:2, and Hebrews 9:13 refer to such "baptisms."
Later Judaism also had a type of baptism for converts, but the date when this began is disputed.
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