Should We Encourage God-Fearers?
SHANKS, HERSHEL
PERSPECTIVE Should We Encourage God-Fearers? I have just finished editing the first chapter of a book tentatively tided A Parallel History ofJudaism and Christianity during the First Six Centuries...
...Even if this figure is "wildly inflated," comments Feldman, "it is clear that the increase in Jews could not have been achieved by natural increase alone...
...By the middle of the first century C.E , the world Jewish populadon, he estimates, was about eight million...
...I question whether halachic Judaism can ever be a mass movement...
...Salo Baron, who unul his death in 1989 was the doyen of present-day Jewish historians, estimated that prior to the Babylonian destruction in 586 B.C.E, 150,000Jews at most lived in Eretz Israel...
...These God-fearers are referred to 11 times in the New Testament Book of Acts They seem to have observed the Sabbath and perhaps the Day of Atonement Sometimes they even kept kosher Many nonjews who were apparendy Sabbath observers named their children Sambatthion, perhaps because the children were born on the Sabbath Greek inscriptions from the third century C E list God-fearers as donors to synagogues or other Jewish communal msututions My friend Max Singer, past president of Hudson Institute'and a leading Jewish futurist, foresees in a century or so a relatively prosperous world of about 10 billion people, many of whom will be searching for a religious affiliation to give meaning and purpose to their lives...
...Nor, however happy the people who adopt them, will the strictures (or blessings) of the 613 mitzvot (commandments...
...I believe that the Jewish way of life—all that we require of born Jews—can be broadly appealing...
...Is it time for us to welcome into our community not only formal converts—who must do so much more than born Jews to become one of us—but also those who do not yet, for one reason or another (for example, circumcision), want to convert formally, but who do wish to adopt our traditions and be a part of our community...
...Should the price of admission to our community be so much higher for nonjews than for bom Jews...
...I don't think a formal belief in, or affirmation of, God as Judaism traditionally conceives the deity is likely to grip vast numbers of people...
...he asks (see "A Futurist Looks at the Jewish Future," December 1987...
...Isn't this a meaningful extension of our Jewish community?—H.S...
...It is the way of life of our community—its values, its observances, its ethics, its humanity, all embedded m customs from prayer to fasting, from Sabbath observance in one way or another to seders and Chanukah lights, from love of Israel to joining organizations and giving charity—that will attract people, not the halachic life nor the formal aspects of the Jewish concept of God...
...Why not Judaism...
...The latter may be compelling to some, but not, I think, to large numbers Many more will be attracted to our community of Jews than to our formal laws and beliefs...
...The God-fearers adopted many Jewish practices without actually converung...
...And, who knows, God-fearers may eventually become converts...
...Isn't it better to welcome today's "God-fearers"—who act as Jews—always bemg ready to bring them into full participation through conversion...
...Max thinks many of these people can be attracted to "classic Judaism," as he calls it I have my doubts...
...Feldman describes "the tremendous success of the Jewish proselytizing movement" in the first century C E The historian Josephus and the philosopher Philo both indicate, according to Feldman, that Jews extended a "gracious welcome, to all who wish to adopt their laws " Hillel also displayed a liberal attitude toward the admission of proselytes...
...But this is not all In addition to the proselytes—true converts—there was also a large group of hangers-on, semi-converts, commonly called God-fearers...
...Some will decry the suggestion because it blurs the lines between Jews and non-Jews, because it will encourage interfaith marriage and dilute our identity...
...I ask: Is it time for us to renew the concept of God-fearers...
...But haven't the lines already been blurred...
...I have just finished editing the first chapter of a book tentatively tided A Parallel History ofJudaism and Christianity during the First Six Centuries It will be out in about two years Each chapter is written by a different distinguished scholar...
...The first chapter, by Yeshiva University's Louis Feldman, is a masterful description of Judaism and Jewish life during the first century of the Common Era, the seedbed of both Christianity and rabbinic Judaism...
Vol. 16 • February 1991 • No. 1
