(no subject)
I am reading about Jesus and ritual purity. From an article by James Dunn:
[T]he Torah made provision for sins to be dealt with through the sacrificial system. Of course, only God could forgive sin; but a priest was an indispensable intermediary in the offering of the sacrifice.46 But John’s preaching gives no indication that a sacrifice or act of atonement was necessary. In a sense, baptism took the place of the sin offering. That was the really distinctive feature of John’s baptism: not that he rejected the Temple ritual on the grounds that repentance alone was sufficient; rather that he offered his own ritual as an alternative to the Temple ritual.
[T]he Torah made provision for sins to be dealt with through the sacrificial system. Of course, only God could forgive sin; but a priest was an indispensable intermediary in the offering of the sacrifice.46 But John’s preaching gives no indication that a sacrifice or act of atonement was necessary. In a sense, baptism took the place of the sin offering. That was the really distinctive feature of John’s baptism: not that he rejected the Temple ritual on the grounds that repentance alone was sufficient; rather that he offered his own ritual as an alternative to the Temple ritual.