The stranger within your gates : converts and conversion in rabbinic literature
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The stranger within your gates : converts and conversion in rabbinic literature
（Chicago studies in the history of Judaism）
University of Chicago Press, 1994
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 361-371) and indexes
Description and Table of Contents
Description
If the people of Israel understood themselves to share a common ancestry as well as a common religion, how could a convert to their faith who did not share their ethnicity fit into the ancient Israelite community? While it is comparatively simple to declare religious beliefs, it is much more difficult to enter a group whose membership is defined in ethnic terms. In showing how the rabbis struggled continually with the dual nature of the Israelite community and the dilemma posed by converts, Gary G. Porton explains aspects of their debates. This text analyzes references to converts in the full corpus of rabbinic literature. The intellectual dilemma in discussions of marriage, religious practice, inheritance of property and much else are explored here. Reviewing the rabbinic literature text by text, Porton exposes the rabbis' frequently ambivalent and ambiguous views. The text focuses upon the opinions of the community into which the convert enters, rather than on the testimony of the convert. By approaching data with various methods, Porton aims to increase the reader's understanding of conversion and the nature of the people of Israel in rabbinic literature.
Table of Contents
Preface Abbreviations Transliterations 1: Problem and Method 2: Converts and Conversion in Mishnah 3: Converts and Conversion in Tosefta 4: Converts and Conversion in the Early Midrashic Texts 5: Converts and Conversion in the Palestinian Talmud 6: Converts and Conversion in the Babylonian Talmud 7: The Conversion Ritual 8: Marriages between Converts and Israelites 9: Converts as Newborn Children 10: Converts and the Israelite Way of Life 11: The Stranger within Your Gates Notes Bibliography Index of Biblical Citations Index of Rabbinic Literature Citations Index of Rabbis Index of Scholars Index of Topics
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