The Stranger within Your Gates: Converts and Conversion in Rabbinic Literature
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,...
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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 which previous scholars have either ignored or minimized.The Stranger within Your Gates analyzes virtually every reference to converts in the full corpus of rabbinic literature. The intellectual dilemma that converts posed for classical Judaism played itself out in discussions of marriage, religious practice, inheritance of property, and much else. Reviewing the rabbinic literature text by text, Porton exposes the rabbis' frequently ambivalent and ambiguous views.The Stranger within Your Gates is the only examination of conversion in rabbinic literature to draw upon the full scope of contemporary anthropological and sociological studies of conversion. It is also unique in its focus on the opinions of the community into which the convert enters, rather than on the testimony of the convert. By approaching data with new methods, Porton heightens our understanding of conversion and the nature of the People of Israel in rabbinic literature.
PrefaceAbbreviationsTransliterations1Problem and Method12Converts and Conversion in Mishnah163Converts and Conversion in Tosefta324Converts and Conversion in the Early Midrashic Texts515Converts and Conversion in the Palestinian Talmud716Converts and Conversion in the Babylonian Talmud907The Conversion Ritual1328Marriages between Converts and Israelites1559Converts as Newborn Children16610Converts and the Israelite Way of Life17711The Stranger within Your Gates193Notes221Bibliography361Index of Biblical Citations373Index of Rabbinic Literature Citations378Index of Rabbis393Index of Scholars398Index of Topics402
