Imagine that you are living in the ancient world. The Greeks, and then the Romans, waged conflicts that spread and strengthened their empire. They built cities that were truly cosmopolitan – people came to them from all over the world and made homes there. People fled war and oppression and famine and found themselves in these great cities – sometimes all alone, without a people. In the city where you have settled, you find out that no one else comes from your hometown; the gods you worshiped in your youth are not remembered here. There is nowhere that you belong.
But then you find a small Jewish community – a synagogue where they teach what they believe. Maybe you find it strange that they believe in one and only one God, but the God that they preach is good and cares for humanity. The gods you had always known could be cruel and immoral – they saddled humanity with fate and left us to deal with the aftermath. But the God of Israel was a God of justice! More than that, this God loved humanity and wanted to teach us what it means to be good people. You had always heard about ethics from philosophers, but including that in your religion? Wow… Here is a community that you can visit, that you can join, that can give you a home.
This scene might sound totally alien to you. Usually, when we talk about Jews under Roman rule, we talk about the persecution that they faced and the difficulty they had in maintaining their place in society. But the other side of that coin is that Jewish communities did have appeal to some Gentiles. Jews numbered, perhaps, in the millions. They were found in just about every city and so were their synagogues. Though they were open to outsiders to different degrees, it was very common for them to have what was called “God-fearers” among them. These were Gentiles who did not fully convert, but adhered in some way to Jewish teaching and practice. Often, they were moved by the moral teachings, but stopped short of things like being circumcised or following the food laws. These hesitations make sense, especially when we consider, for example, that Emperor Hadrian decreed the death penalty to all who were found to be circumcised in 130 CE.
We don’t know how many of these “God-fearers” there were, but we know that they were widespread. They contributed to the Jewish Temple and visited its Court of Gentiles. In the city of Aphrodisias, we even have an inscription from a synagogue that lists its founders or donors. At first, the names are clearly Jewish, like Jacob, Joseph, and Reuben. But then, after a space, it says, “and those who are God-fearers.” Now the names are unmistakably Greco-Roman – Zeno, Antiochos, Europios. Their professions are listed, implying their status in society, and they run the gamut, including: “mason, marble worker, athlete, portrait painter, fuller, tax collector, carpenter.”1 This is quite a diverse and active group!
As Peter and Paul led the charge to find new converts to Christianity, many of these God-fearers were in their audience.
[1] https://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2944 & http://cojs.org/louis-h-feldman-omnipresence-god-fearers-biblical-archaeology-review-12-5-1986/