The Stranger within Your Gates: Converts and Conversion in Rabbinic Literature (Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism)

Gary G. Porton

ISBN 10: 0226675866 / ISBN 13: 9780226675862

Published by University of Chicago Press, 1994

About this Item

Cloth hardcover, xiii + 410 pages, NOT ex-library. Interior is clean and bright throughout, untanned, with unmarked text, free of inscriptions and stamps, firmly bound. Age-spotting on the upper outer page edges. Clean, untorn dust jacket shows minor wear. -- This scholarly study examines how rabbinic literature from the first to the seventh centuries CE understood and regulated converts and the process of conversion. Gary G. Porton analyses key texts from the Mishnah, Tosefta, and both Talmuds to trace the development of the rabbinic category of the proselyte (ger tzedek). The book explores the complex legal, social, and theological status of the convert within the Jewish community, including questions of identity, ritual requirements, marriage, inheritance, and acceptance. Porton demonstrates that rabbinic attitudes toward converts were far from uniform, revealing a range of opinions that reflect ongoing debates about the boundaries of Jewish identity in the post-Temple era. By systematically comparing different rabbinic sources, the work provides a nuanced picture of how the rabbis balanced ethnic particularity with the possibility of religious inclusion. -- Gary G. Porton is a Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies and History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, specialising in the history of Judaism in late antiquity and the development of rabbinic midrash.

Seller Inventory # 013184

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Stranger within Your Gates: Converts and Conversion in Rabbinic Literature (Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism)
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication Date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226675866
• ISBN 13: 9780226675862
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine

About this title

Synopsis

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.

About the Author

Gary G. Porton is director of the Program for the Study of Religion and professor of religious studies, history, and comparative literature at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of three previous studies: Goyim: Gentiles and Israelites in Mishnah-Tosefta; The Traditions of Rabbi Ishmael, in four volumes; and Understanding Rabbinic Midrash.