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A 2,000-year-old mikvah (ritual bath) was recently uncovered in the Lower Galilee. Most people probably would never have heard about the discovery if not for the dramatic photos of the entire structure being carried by truck to a nearby kibbutz for preservation. The remarkable sight of a truck-borne mikvah, however, also makes one pause and reflect on the remarkable implications of the archeological find. It means that 2,000 years ago, the residents of the Lower Galilee were practicing the exact same religious rituals that Orthodox Jews throughout the world practice today. Those Galileans, in other words, were Jews. They weren't...

Three Cowboys players were baptized at the team's practice facility Tuesday.On a Tuesday afternoon, the Dallas Cowboys training room pool frequently used to rehabilitate injuries instead served as the venue for lives being transformed. Three Cowboys players – safety Kavon Frazier, linebacker Anthony Hitchens, and linebacker Justin March-Lillard – were baptized at the Cowboys practice facility by the team’s chaplain, Jonathan Evans, who posted the video to his Facebook page. As of Thursday afternoon, the two-minute clip had been viewed more than two million times. “It’s good it’s blowing up,” Frazier said. “It’s getting His name out to a lot...

The Knesset passed a controversial bill that allows local Orthodox rabbinates to bar non-Orthodox Jewish conversion ceremonies in publicly funded mikvahs. The bill, which was introduced by the haredi Orthodox United Torah Judaism party and opposed by many North American Jewish leaders, was passed Monday night in a 41-35 vote, The Jerusalem Post reported. The new law will be implemented in nine months. Under the law, the municipal rabbinates can determine who may use the mikvahs, or Jewish ritual baths, in their purview. Immersion in the mikvah is part of most conversion ceremonies. The measure aims to override an Israeli...

The eviction of Israeli families from Migron on Sunday brought back painful memories for many of the 9,000 citizens expelled from Gush Katif in 2005. Now Katif expellees are asking the government for just one thing: leave the synagogue standing. “We, who seven years ago felt on our flesh the Israeli government’s decision to uproot our lives and our towns in Gush Katif, are pained and shocked today at the fact that the Israeli government is repeating the terrible mistake, and crime, of demolishing settlement and uprooting homes in Migron,” wrote Eliezer Orbach of the Gush Katif Residents’ Committee, in...

The caves in which the purification baths were found were 'caves of refuge,' where Jews who lived in the area sought shelter under Roman rule. A fifth mikveh has been found in the caves on the Galilee's Cliffs of Arbel, indicating that the people who lived there under Roman rule were most likely kohanim, Jews of the priestly class, said Yinon Shivtiel, one of the researchers who found the ritual bath... The caves in which the purification baths were found were "caves of refuge," where Jews who lived in the area sought shelter under Roman rule, particularly during the Jewish...

AP: Group Discovers John the Baptist Cave KIBBUTZ TZUBA, Israel (AP) KARIN LAUB Archaeologists said Monday they have found a cave where they believe John the Baptist anointed many of his disciples - a huge cistern with 28 steps leading to an underground pool of water. During an exclusive tour of the cave by The Associated Press, archaeologists presented wall carvings they said tell the story of the fiery New Testament preacher, as well as a stone they believe was used for ceremonial foot washing. They also pulled about 250,000 pottery shards from the cave, the apparent remnants of small...

Archaeologists in Israel are "astonished and surprised" after finding artifacts dating back to Jesus' time at a local orphanage and military complex in Jerusalem. The Israel Antiquities Authority said this week that it has found numerous rare and important artifacts, some dating back to the Second Temple period, buried deep beneath the Schneller compound in Jerusalem, which had previously served as a orphanage and later an Israeli army base. The Schneller compound first served as an orphanage in the 1800's, and then as an occupation area for German soldiers during World Wars I and II. It later became a base...

A Jerusalem family ripping up its living room floor found a staircase lost for 2,000 years, leading to a large ritual bath carved out of bedrock. It took the family some years to call in the authorities and show them the discovery beneath their house, in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Ein Kerem. Throughout the interim, the family blocked off the entrance to the mikveh with wooden doors, and simply continued to live over it. When they did call in the Israel Antiquities Authority, beneath the doors, the archaeologists found the carved stone staircase leaving to a big mikveh, 3.5 meters...

Israeli archaeologists say they are trying to decode ancient inscriptions written in Hebrew script discovered at a dig in Jerusalem. The writing was found on the walls of a room containing the remains of a Jewish ritual bath, or mikveh, believed to be about 2,000 years old. Experts are now trying to decipher words and symbols including a boat and palm trees. They say the markings may be graffiti or have some religious significance. One of the symbols could be a menorah - the seven-branched candelabrum which stood in the two Biblical Jewish Temples in Jerusalem - and some of...

Inscriptions on the walls of the ritual bath. Credit: Shai Halevy, the Israel Antiquities Authority ======================================================================================================================================== A team of researchers has descended down into what archaeologists are calling an ancient Jewish ritual bath with mysterious writing on the walls—dating back perhaps 2000 years. The bath was found by antiquity officials checking out a site designated for a new nursery building. The bath was found when a hole was discovered in a construction site and a rock fell down into it and disappeared. Investigation revealed an underground room, with a stone staircase. What was most surprising was the writing on the...

Workers repairing a sewage pipe in the Old City of Jerusalem have discovered the biblical Pool of Siloam, a freshwater reservoir that was a major gathering place [a mikvah, where Jews do a ritual cleansing] for ancient Jews making religious pilgrimages to the city and the reputed site where Jesus cured a man blind from birth, according to the Gospel of John. "Scholars have said that there wasn't a Pool of Siloam and that John was using a religious conceit" to illustrate a point, said New Testament scholar James H. Charlesworth of the Princeton Theological Seminary. "Now we have found...