Bathing and Immersing in Machaerus: the Herodian Royal Bathhouse and the Four Ritual Purification Baths (Miqva’oth)

Josephus tells us that John the Baptist was imprisoned and killed in Machaerus at the Trans-Dead-Sea Perea of Judea. John’s imprisonment is attested by all the Gospels, and their accounts are consistent with and complement that of Josephus. According to the archaeological evidences, at least three mikva’oth were in use in Machaerus during the imprisonment of the Baptist: two in the fortified royal palace of Tetrarch Herod Antipas (but outside the magnificent Herodian bathhouse), and at least one in the domestic quarter of the Herodian lower city. In the light of the surviving archaeological remains, we can understand better the Machaerus imprisonment of the Baptist, when we listen to the 1st century words of Josephus about him: “for that the washing [with water] would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not in order to the putting away [or the remission] of some sins [only], but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness. […] Accordingly he was sent a prisoner, out of Herod’s suspicious temper, to Machaerus, the castle I before mentioned, and was there put to death” (Antiquitates Judaicae XVIII.5.2).