GOODMAN MARTIN
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198263876
- eISBN:
- 9780191682674
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198263876.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion in the Ancient World, Judaism
This chapter considers the implications of the tolerance for Jewish attitudes towards potential proselytes. Since the work of Schürer and Juster at the beginning of this century, many scholars agreed ...
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This chapter considers the implications of the tolerance for Jewish attitudes towards potential proselytes. Since the work of Schürer and Juster at the beginning of this century, many scholars agreed that Jewish proselytizing in antiquity reached a peak of intensity in the first century of the Christian era at the time of the emergence of Christianity. Despite this, the chapter aims to show the flimsiness of the hypothesis on which the mainstream consensus is based. It first lays out the evidence which has been used in the past to support the view that Jews in the first century sought proselytes. The second section of the chapter attempts to expose the weakness of the evidence. It then offers some general reasons to doubt that Jews of any variety apart from Christianity saw value before 100 CE in a mission to convert outsiders to the faith.Less
This chapter considers the implications of the tolerance for Jewish attitudes towards potential proselytes. Since the work of Schürer and Juster at the beginning of this century, many scholars agreed that Jewish proselytizing in antiquity reached a peak of intensity in the first century of the Christian era at the time of the emergence of Christianity. Despite this, the chapter aims to show the flimsiness of the hypothesis on which the mainstream consensus is based. It first lays out the evidence which has been used in the past to support the view that Jews in the first century sought proselytes. The second section of the chapter attempts to expose the weakness of the evidence. It then offers some general reasons to doubt that Jews of any variety apart from Christianity saw value before 100 CE in a mission to convert outsiders to the faith.
