You're right, I forgot about that. Understandable I'm sure, since Jews do not prostheletyze to convert others to Judaism, so I've never known a male to go to a Mikva, since the only Jewish men who go to the Mikva would be a cleansed leper... and I've never met a leper.
I'm amused though that, given the knowledge that most modern Christians are gentile converts, to deny that many of the rituals, celebrations, and iconography identified as Christian are borrowed from their previous belief systems is folly.
"I'm amused though that, given the knowledge that most modern Christians are gentile converts, to deny that many of the rituals, celebrations, and iconography identified as Christian are borrowed from their previous belief systems is folly." Ah, but you forget what is the silent elephant standing in this whole thread, that the gentile understanding of Jesus was mediated by Jews, who were the first christians. In addition, A study of the NT turns up the phenomenon of the "god-fearing gentiles," those who had abandoned paganism, recognizing that the Jews were on to something good. Yet, as non-Jews, their position in the synagogue was precarious. It is among these folk that Paul (and others) found very fertile ground for the message of the Gospel.
So "the church" was founded on a group of Jews, upon this foundation was laid the largely "judaized" gentiles and synagogue wannabees. These are the people who shaped the intellectual constrcts of early christianity, not some baccanalian band of bull-worshippers.
It's interesting to note that Paul, the self-described "Apostle to the Gentiles," spent most of his time hanging around in the synagogues of the diaspora. Why because that's where he found gentiles that were already pre-disposed to Jewish ways of thinking.