hi brian, i just read your article on hell. it's quite good (although, naturally, i have my quibbles, heh)
for a start, the valley of "ben-hinnom", of which "gehenna" is a corruption, via "gehinnom" is still very much visible. in modern-day jerusalem it is a delightful little place just outside the walls of the old city and the "dung gate", nowadays known as "sultan's pool". not without irony, it is a top venue for outdoor rock concerts. it is also known as the valley of "tophet" and its use as a rubbish dump in late antiquity was considered an apt deconsecration of the idolatrous rites once practised on this site, by both the original jebusites and the israelites of the first Temple period. in fact, this is considered to have been a site for molech worship, may its memory be blotted out.
Although baptism, especially with water, was a relatively common ritual in many belief systems, it was not and still is not practised by mainstream Jews.
ahem - although it's not done in the same way, ritual immersion, or "tevilah" is an extremely important part of judaism. this can be done either in a river or open body of water or in a specially constructed pool known as a "mikveh". see this link for details:
http://www.jewfaq.org/cgi-bin/search.cgi?Keywords=mikveh
as water has a ritually "consecrative" effect, the relevant immersion confers a change of status, whether from gentile to jewish,
tamei to
tahor or unavailable to available, whether involving sex or kitchen utensils. it is mentioned in the Torah on many occasions (mostly in leviticus) and mikva'ot constructed according to talmudic standards have been found, among other places, on masada and excavated in the city of london. "john the baptist", in immersing people in rivers, could arguably be said to have been administering chasidic-style tevilah!
b'shalom
bananabrain
