Paul and the Pagan God-Fearers: Episode 15

The Apostle Paul is known as a missionary traveling around the eastern Mediterranean spreading the news of Jesus as the promised Messiah. But how did this message spread so successfully? One theory might involve pagans who were already interested in Jewish customs. This episode will examine the pagan “God-fearers” mentioned in the Book of Acts as well as in several inscriptions discovered in and around ancient synagogues.

[kaos]

This is one of my favorite channels in all of YouTube

[curiousworld]

Paula Fredriksen is the author of 'From Jesus to Christ', and historical consultant for PBS's Frontline of the same name. I found it very interesting, and challenged many of my preconceptions. I love history that challenges me to look further into my faith. Thanks for this series. :)

[MrFrog-rczx]

This is a great channel for Christians interested in understanding the Bible better. Thank you.

[richardglady]

Thank you for this story and all the hard work required to make this video.

[matthewpopp]

I could watch an hour long video just on this concept of the God Fearer

[lukepapapetrou]

watched all 15 episodes, loved the series!

[HankFidel]

Are you guys missing a "15" after Episode?

[jedimmj]

Psalms 115 and 135 also mention "God fearers", and Rabbinic commentators explain the terms to be referring to righteous gentiles

[justintime]

Thank you for all the videos you’ve done. I’ve learned so much!

[elfarlaur]

I remember reading Roman sources making fun of aristocrats who would abstain from pork in the manner of the Jews and give donations to the Jerusalem temple. One of them included a joke about them not being dedicated enough to get circumcised.

[ΓΕΩΡΓΙΟΣΔΡΕΤΑΚΗΣ-ωβ]

" GOD FEARING " means
GOD RESPECTING !!!

Not BE SCARED OFF !!!

[danielmalinen]

That's a good video because some scholars, researchers and literati usually say that before Paul only true Jews were allowed to believe in the Elohim of Israel and Paul first and alone came up with this idea that Gentiles, such as Greeks and Romans, could also be invited in and baptized as God-fearing Christians. And I find it odd because I also have understood that the idea of yir’ei HaShem, as Gentiles who is interested in religion og Judaism, is contained in the Second Temple Judaism and the writings of Josephus as this video confirms.

[whycantiremainanonymous]

0:48: But Hebrew frequently uses hendyadis, where two synonyms often appear in sequence for added emphasis.

[MendTheWorld]

There is a notable synagogue in Ostia Antica, considered to be the oldest one outside of Israel.

[jameswoodard]

"Gentile" is probably a more useful term than "Pagan" in several places here. Non-Jewish people who believed in or materially supported worship of the Jewish God may *or* may not have been devotees of pagan religion as well, depending on how one defines the ambiguous term "Pagan." Many Greeks especially and also Romans were monotheists and/or followers of philosophical sects that may have gone along with the rites to polytheistic deities due to civic expectations, but had no belief in the actual pagan gods or myths themselves. Calling such people "Pagans" is less useful than calling them "Gentiles, " which focuses more on the mere fact of their non-Jewishness rather than a more specific set of religious beliefs that they may not have actually held.
Monotheistic Stoics, Atheists, etc. who might have gone along with legally-required civic rites to gods they didn't believe actually existed were obviously non-Jews, which is the important category for this historical discussion, but calling them specifically "Pagan" seems inaccurate. The Ancient Mediterranean world was cleanly divisible between Jew and Gentile. Everyone, by definition, was either one or the other. Even Christianity itself was divisible between these two categories. However, the word "Pagan" is not synonymous with "non-Jew, " and does not represent such a clear dichotomy. The important defining characteristic of the God-fearers was their Gentile-hood, not their Pagan-hood, the latter of which did not likely apply to all members of that group depending on the way in which that word is defined.
"Pagan, " as it is used in the context of historical discussions regarding beliefs and practices of late antiquity, is an ambiguous term that is applied in differing ways depending on person and context. To some who use it, it represents the entire category occupied by those who believed in anything other than Christianity and Judaism. While, to others, it more specifically implies devotion to the traditional polytheistic gods of Greco-Roman myth and civic cult. However, the existence of certain new non-Abrahamic religions and cults that tended to have monotheistic tendencies, as well as monotheistic or functionally Atheistic philosophical traditions, show how these two categories are hardly synonymous. In fact, their existed a category of religio-philosophical traditions that can be properly defined in contra-distinction to what some would label "Paganism, " while others would lump this same category in with the other as all representing non-Abrahamic beliefs. The people of the actual period in question, however, would not have understood the latter distinction. They would likely have understood beliefs of their time as being divisible between the following categories:
Those who believed in the traditional gods of civic and household rites which could eventually attempt to make room for newer religious "innovations" by adding new polytheistic deities,
And,
Those who held views that diverged from the first group by denying the existence of the traditional Gods
Non-Abrahamic people of the time would have placed Jews and Christians as a distinct sub-category of the second group, while Jews and Christians would have considered themselves as a seperate category and resist being lumped among such varied beliefs as Stoicism, Epicureanism, Platonism, Materialistic Atheism, the Mystery Religions, etc.
As I said, Jew/Gentile is a cleaner, more accurate, and more complete distinction than Jew/Pagan to describe the categories out of which the early Church drew its members, and the defining caracteristic of the God-fearer in relation to Jewish religion was his non-Jewish (i.e. Gentile) state rather than a more specific categorization within the range of Gentile belief and practice which is often implied by the word "Pagan."

(I realize this was longer than absolutely necessary, but I also realize that I am making a somewhat fine distinction that requires thoroughness to avoid misunderstanding. I would rather no one read my comment than for many people to read it but mistake my meaning.)

[MyMy-tvfd]

very good, but I think I would begin by setting our expectations by looking a little further back - the Greeks were notoriously syncretistic and absorbed gods from all over. The first book of Plato's Republic begins with the Athenians celebrating with horse-racing in honour of the Thracian goddess Bendis. Spartans were hard-bitten about it, they just shrugged at Alexander the Great's assumption of godhood when he was named a 'child of Zeus' at the shrine in Libya. The book of Acts has Paul himself noting that the Athenians are surrounded by shrines of every type - including famously one to the 'unknown god', just in case one felt left out. He uses this as the peg on which to hang his new message of Jesus. So of course the Greek god-fearers were a thing, the classical Greek and the koine Greek make it obvious that they were. (Even Hebrew missionary outreach is famously promoted in the story of Jonah wiho did his best to not go to Nineveh.) The archeology is highly consonant, it would be odd if there were no confirmation of the texts.

[MDE]

Christianity was so smart in making use of the fact that Judaism is not a religion that has to be spread. Tons of people who were religious but not part of the Jewish people would fall for Christianity in this way.

[JordanAmit]

fascinating. you forgot the episode number in the title. easy fix.

[friedkeenan]

Missing the episode number in the title

[fyqurpz]

So, there's evidence that non-Jewish people stablished relationships with Synagogues outside of Judea, but is there any evidence of non-Jewish people participating in Jewish rituals or ceremonies?