God-fearer

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For the religious concept, see Fear of God.
Roman civic life
.

God-fearers (

Greco-Roman world,[2][3][4][5] which observed certain Jewish religious rites and traditions without becoming full converts to Judaism.[1][2][3][5][6][7][8] The concept has precedents in the proselytes of the Hebrew Bible
.

Many of these Greco-Roman sympathizers to Hellenistic Judaism, which had a monotheistic or henotheistic Pagan background, were worshippers of Caelus (the Roman name/equivalent to Yahweh).[9] Some modern scholars of Judaic studies, such as A. Thomas Kraabel, believe the God-fearers named in the New Testament (such as Cornelius the Centurion) to be a fictional invention of the Acts of the Apostles.[2] More generally, God-fearing has come to mean someone who is honestly religious.

Overview

Origin, history, status and diffusion

See also: History of the Jews in the Roman Empire and Second Temple Judaism

Since the mid-1980s, a growing number of scholars of Judaic studies and history of Judaism became interested in the subject of God-fearers and their relationship with Hellenistic Judaism and early Christianity.[1][10] According to the popular opinion,[11] Jews that lived in the Greco-Roman world during the Hellenistic and Roman period were not involved in active missionary efforts of mass conversion among Pagans,[12][13] although many historians disagree.[11][14][15][16]

As Jews emigrated and settled in the Roman provinces of the Empire, Judaism became an appealing religion to a number of Pagans, for many reasons;[6][7][15] God-fearers and proselytes that underwent full conversion were Greeks or Romans, and came from all social classes: they were mostly women[14] and freedmen[14] (liberti), but there were also artisans, soldiers and few people of high status, like patricians and senators.[14] Despite their allegiance to Judaism, the God-fearers were exempted from paying the "Jewish tax" (fiscus Judaicus).[8]

Martin Goodman stated that Jews converted non-Jews by passively living by example. Non-Jews were given a choice on how to respond. But he notes that some Jews, like the Pharisees, were mostly interested in converting other Jews.[17]

The class of God-fearers existed between the 1st

Palestine,[14] Rome,[2] and Asia Minor).[6][7][14]

In the Ancient Greek theatre of Miletus, some sitting places seem to have been reserved for the God fearer.[20]

Sources

Hebrew Bible

In the

Psalm 115:11).[21][22] This was developed by later rabbinic literature into the concept of Noahides, i. e. Gentiles that follow the Seven Laws of Noah, which rabbinic writings assigned to the Noahic Covenant.[8][23]

In inscriptions, texts and papyri

The

Panticapaeum, Tralles, Sardis, Venosa, Lorium (in Rome), Rhodes, Deliler (Philadelphia) and Miletus.[6][7]

Judging from the distinctions in the Acts of the Apostles, it is thought that they did not become

gerim tzedekim,[26] which required circumcision,[3][27] although the evidence across the centuries varies widely and the meaning of the term may have included all kinds of sympathetic Gentiles, proselytes or not.[28] There are also around 300 text references (4th century BCE to 3rd century CE) to a sect of Hypsistarians, some of whom practiced Sabbath and which many scholars see as sympathizers with Judaism related to God-fearers.[29]

In early Christian writings

See also:
Origins of Christianity

In the New Testament and

Apostolic Age of the 1st century
.

So Paul stood up, and motioning with his hand said: "Men of Israel, and you that fear God (οἱ φοβούμενοι τὸν θεόν), listen".

— Acts 13:16 (RSV)

Brethren, sons of the family of Abraham, and those among you that fear God (ἐν ὑμῖν φοβούμενοι τὸν θεόν), to us has been sent the message of this salvation.

— Acts 13:26 (RSV)

Role in 1st-century Christianity

See also: Christianity in the 1st century, Pauline Christianity, and Paul the Apostle and Jewish Christianity

circumcision, Shabbat observance, etc.) that were generally unattractive to would-be Gentile (largely Greek) converts.[6][8] The rite of circumcision was especially unappealing and execrable in Classical civilization[33][34][35] because it was the custom to spend an hour a day or so exercising nude in the gymnasium and in Roman baths, therefore Jewish men did not want to be seen in public deprived of their foreskins.[34][35] Hellenistic and Roman culture both found circumcision to be cruel and repulsive.[34][35]

The

Justification by faith, Pauline passages supporting antinomianism, Abrogation of Old Covenant laws). Lydia of Thyatira, who became Paul's first convert to Christianity in Europe, is described in the New Testament as "a worshipper of God" (Acts 16:14); the Roman soldier Cornelius and the Ethiopian eunuch are also considered by modern scholars as God-fearers who converted to Christianity.[32][41][42]

In Paul's message of salvation through faith in Christ as opposed to submission under the Mosaic Law,

distinction between Judaism and Christianity as two separate religions
.

See also

Notes and references

  1. ^
    ISBN 978-0-56763-766-6
    .
  2. ^
    OCLC 50557232
    .
  3. ^
    ISBN 0-567-08525-2
    .
  4. ^
    JSTOR 4465081. We know from Pagan, Christian, and Jewish sources that during the Hellenistic and early Roman periods some Gentiles were so strongly attracted to Judaism that they became converts and undertook to observe Jewish laws and customs in the same manner as did the Jews themselves. [...] It is also commonly assumed that there were some Gentiles who did not go so far as to become converts but indicated their belief in monotheism and gave up the worship of Pagan gods
    . How far they went in openly dissociating themselves from Paganism and in associating themselves with Judaism we do not know. These Gentile sympathizers are commonly thought to be referred by the terms sebomenoi or phoboumenoi ton theon and metuentes in Greek and Latin sources, and yir᾿ê shamayim "fearers of Heaven" (i.e. God-fearers) in some early Rabbinic passages.
  5. ^
    Noachian commandments but was not considered a convert to Judaism because he did not agree to circumcision. [...] some scholars have made the mistake of calling the ger toshab a "proselyte" or "semiproselyte." But the ger toshab was really a resident alien in Israel. Some scholars have claimed that the term "those who fear God" (yir᾿ei Elohim/Shamayim) was used in rabbinic literature to denote Gentiles who were on the fringe of the synagogue. They were not converts to Judaism, although they were attracted to the Jewish religion and observed part of the law
    .
  6. ^
    ISBN 88-8057-120-6
    .
  7. ^
    ISBN 978-0-521-77248-8
    .
  8. ^
    S2CID 161369763
    .
  9. ^ Florus, Epitome 1.40 (3.5.30): "The Jews tried to defend Jerusalem; but he [Pompeius Magnus] entered this city also and saw that grand Holy of Holies of an impious people exposed, Caelum under a golden vine" (Hierosolymam defendere temptavere Iudaei; verum haec quoque et intravit et vidit illud grande inpiae gentis arcanum patens, sub aurea vite Caelum). Finbarr Barry Flood, The Great Mosque of Damascus: Studies on the Makings of an Umayyad Visual Culture (Brill, 2001), pp. 81 and 83 (note 118). The Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982, 1985 reprinting), p. 252, entry on caelum, cites Juvenal, Petronius, and Florus as examples of Caelus or Caelum "with reference to Jehovah; also, to some symbolization of Jehovah."
  10. ISBN 9789004334496
    . ... in 1975, a large stele had actually been found in Carian Aphrodisias that does, in fact, use theosebeis as some sort of technical category, at least on one face, if not on both. After the formal publication of the inscription in 1987, the already considerable bibliography on 'Godfearers' proliferated, and many studies of the Roman period now seem regularly to presume the presence of such persons throughout the ancient Mediterranean, over a period of at least half a millennium.
  11. ^
    victory of Christianity in the fourth century, the momentum of conversion was stopped in the Christian world, and there was a steep drop in the number of Jews. Presumably many of the Jews who appeared around the Mediterranean became Christians. But then Judaism started to permeate other regions – pagan regions, for example, such as Yemen and North Africa
    . Had Judaism not continued to advance at that stage and had it not continued to convert people in the pagan world, we would have remained a completely marginal religion, if we survived at all.
  12. JSTOR 3267745
    . Galatians 2:14: "how is it that you compel the Gentiles to judaize?" "To judaize" was a quite familiar expression, in the sense "to live like a Jew", "to adopt a distinctively Jewish way of life"–with reference to Gentiles taking up Jewish customs like observance of the sabbath. [...] Judaism at that time was notably uninterested in evangelism, though open and accepting of Gentile God-fearers and proselytes.
  13. ISBN 978-3-16-150889-9
    .
  14. ^
    Louis H. Feldman, "The Omnipresence of the God-Fearers", Biblical Archaeology Review
    12, 5 (1986), Center for Online Judaic Studies.
  15. ^
    ISBN 978-0-664-25017-1
    .
  16. ISBN 978-15-55406-96-7
    . "As pious gentiles, the God-fearers stood somewhere between Greco-Roman piety and Jewish piety in the synagogue. In his classic but now somewhat outdated study titled Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era, Harvard scholar George Foot Moore argued that the existence of the God-fearers provides evidence for the synagogue's own missionary work outside of Palestine during the first century C.E. The God-fearers were the result of this Jewish missionary movement."
  17. ISBN 978-90-47-41061-4
    .
  18. ^ Robert F. Tannenbaum, "Jews and God-Fearers in the Holy City of Aphrodite", Biblical Archaeology Review 12, 5 (1986), Center for Online Judaic Studies.
  19. ^
    ISBN 0-8143-2361-8
    .
  20. ^ "Jewish Inscription at Miletus Theater". Leon's Message Board. 2010-04-23. Retrieved 2022-11-22.
  21. ^ Islam and Global Dialogue: Religious Pluralism and the Pursuit of Peace. ed. Roger Boase, Hassan Bin (FRW) Talal . Ashgate. 2010 Page 203 "Nevertheless, by late biblical times Israelites realised that there were other people in the world who worshipped the one, unseen God. Such people form the category of yir'ei Hashem (God-fearers, cf. Psalm 115:11); perhaps it is to ..."
  22. ^ Jeffrey M. Cohen 500 questions and answers on Chanukah 2006 "Hence the references to them in Jewish sources such as Sebomenoi or Yir'ei Hashem (God-fearers). Many of them accepted monotheism, though held back from many other basic ritual precepts."
  23. Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin
    56a, 56b.
  24. ^ Pieter W. van der Horst, God-fearers (theosebeis) (2015), Oxford Classical Dictionary.
  25. ISBN 978-08-01-02707-9
    .
  26. rabbinical literature is "ḳabbel" (to accept), or "ḳareb taḥat kanfe ha-Shekinah" (to bring one near, or under the wings of, the Shekinah). This phrase plainly presupposes an active propaganda for winning converts (comp. Cant. R. v. 16, where God is referred to as making propagandic efforts). In fact, that proselytes are welcome in Israel
    and are beloved of God is the theme of many a rabbinical homily (Ruth R. iii.; Tan., Wayiḳra [ed. Buber, 3]; see also Mek., Mishpaṭim, 18; Tosef., Demai, ii. 10; Bek. 32a).
  27. ISBN 978-15-92-44073-3
    .
  28. ^ Todd C. Penner, In praise of Christian origins: Stephen and the Hellenists, p. 226, 2004: "The category of Theosebes is notoriously difficult to delineate. It is debatable whether or not the term was ever a widely recognized technical designation of a Gentile "hanger-on," and much of the evidence is difficult to date".
  29. ^ James D. Arvila, p. 29.
  30. ISSN 0966-7393
    .
  31. ^ Journal of Biblical Studies: Godfearer, by J. Brian Tucker Archived 2010-11-25 at the Wayback Machine: "The traditional understanding of God-fearers, i. e. F. F. Bruce, “God-fearers were Gentiles who attached themselves in varying degrees to the Jewish worship and way of life without as yet becoming full proselytes.”"
  32. ^
    ISBN 978-0-8028-3932-9
    .
  33. ^
    ISBN 978-0-19-063664-7
    . Retrieved 11 April 2020.
  34. ^
    PMID 6994325
    . Retrieved 11 April 2020.
  35. ^
    S2CID 29580193
    . Retrieved 11 April 2020.
  36. ^
    JSTOR 3267745
    .
  37. ^
    JSTOR 24735868
    .
  38. ^
    ISBN 978-3-16-149518-2
    . Retrieved 11 April 2020.
  39. ^
    ISBN 978-0-19-027175-6
    . Retrieved 11 April 2020.
  40. ^ a b c Acts 15:1–2, 15:6–10; Galatians 5:2–3, 5:6–12, 6:12–15; Philippians 3:2–3; 1 Corinthians 7:17–21; Romans 2:17–29, 3:9–28, 5:1–11; Titus 1:10–16.
  41. ISBN 978-0-8028-2861-3
    .
  42. ISBN 978-0-300-19051-9
    .

External links
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