Proselytes and God-Fearers
Beloved are the strangers. It was for their sake that our father Abraham was not circumcised until he was ninety-nine years old. Had he been circumcised at twenty or thirty years of age, only those under the age of thirty could have become proselytes to Judaism. Therefore, God bore with Abraham until he reached ninety-nine years of age, so as not…
In antiquity, some gentiles attached themselves to Judaism by worshiping in synagogues and observing some laws and traditions, even as they retained a non-Jewish identity. Rabbinic texts make a distinction between full converts and God-fearers or heaven-fearers (yir’ei shamayim). This comment on Exodus 22:20 in Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael describes four categories of worshipers of God, including God-fearers and full converts. (See also Philo’s similar interpretation of this verse.)
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