Talk:God-fearer

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Also known as Theosebians. Archeological evidence confirms that Zeus Hypsistos was worshipped at Dion, Greek Mecedonia around two centuries bce. It looks unlikely that the cult was therefore influenced by Judaism and should be seen as a development within Hellenism. Monotheistic influence can be traced from the Greek philosophers without reference to any external influence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.221.10.38 (talk) 21:11, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks especially to User:Timothygough for fleshing out this topic so interestingly. 82.6.114.172 10:58, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've added some information here. I don't feel it's necessary to cite any new sources, as Tucker's article handles this topic nicely. This is a fairly generally accepted summary of this group.

D.Lacasse (talk) 07:11, 11 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why is the Bible template included on this page? This article is not about or related to the Bible. If no one disagrees I will delete it.

--Editor2020 (talk) 00:11, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Bible template should remain as this group is mentioned in Acts and provides some insight to the message of the Pauline community reflected in the Epistles, as well as the antinomian controversy reflected in Acts and Luke. I have however removed the link to the Mithraic mysteries- the supposed link between Christianity and Mithraism is very tenuous and certainly has nothing to do with the Godfearers. Mithraism was by and large popular with the Roman military, an institution which had no real relationship to Jewish religion.

D.Lacasse (talk) 02:10, 12 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I blanked the portion of the article which was copied from a webpage. While I generally assume good faith, when it comes to matters of copyvio, we must side on respecting the owner of the content. Anyone can come along and make a username to claim to be an online blogger, and there is no way for us to verify that fact. We have the OTRS system in place to deal with such matters. If users want the full text, or portions restored, they must have verification that the copyright holder has released the content under the GFDL (adding a GFDL licensing on the blog can be substituted in lieu of OTRS). That said, I feel the content is problematic for a number of reasons. It is filled with one person's original conclusions, and thus violates WP:NOR. While there are some references to scholars here and there, it is almost a hopeless task for us to try to track down in-line citations for all the content. On top of that, the tone and overall prose needs much refining for it to be encyclopedic. -Andrew c ^[talk] 21:58, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is "Godfearers" a Christian or Jewish term, or both?

"Godfearers" appears in the Christian New Testament and is primarly a Christian term. It is not primarly a Jewish term, but it is a topic of Jewish discussion, such as in the

Many words appear in the New Testament that are not Christian terms. The word refers to a Jewish concept, for which there is no Christian equivalent. Why would it be a Christian term? DJ Clayworth (talk) 19:47, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There appear to be only two references cited by this article. The Journal of Biblical Studies and F. F. Bruce. Those are both Christian sources. Obviously, this is primarily a Christian term. 75.15.199.116 (talk) 19:51, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. Is it possible that the Jews have another name for it? DJ Clayworth (talk) 19:53, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It simply is not a common Jewish term. There may be a discussion of the Greek term in the

There is an article called Jewish Encyclopedia: Fear of God. The Jewish term for that is "mora shamayim". 75.15.199.116 (talk) 19:58, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That would be useful information to add to the article. Then the article becomes more than just about Christian usage. DJ Clayworth (talk) 20:08, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

'Fear of God' and 'Godfearers / Fearers of God' are not the same thing- one is a general religious attitude while the other refers to a specific historical group of Jewish-sympathizing gentiles in the Second Temple period. The article mentioned above has no real relevance to this issue. The term theophobeis is a Christian term for the group, as the group is really only of importance to the Christian tradition (and our ancient sources on them are all Christian). The Jewish tradition was probably aware of their existence but was by and large uninterested in the religious observances of non-Jews, which the Godfearers technically were. The only reason we have record of them is because of their importance to the early Christian movement; you won't find much in the way of contemporary Jewish texts regarding the phenomenon.

D.Lacasse (talk) 02:17, 12 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There wasn't even a mention of the fact that their existence is completely contested by scholars such as A. Thomas Kraabel, who believe them to be a fictional invention of the Acts of the Apostles.^[1] That is not admissible. I only happened to stumble over it at Hypsistarians, which is itself just a stub. This theory needs to be addressed, its arguments and merit presented through RS. Arminden (talk) 20:28, 26 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]