Revisiting the God-Fearers

The widely accepted “god-fearer” thesis rests on weak foundations: the ancient terms are not clear technical labels, the evidence is sparse and often overstretched, and the model relies too heavily on assumptions about synagogue-associated Gentiles supposedly primed for Christian conversion. Early Christianity did not require a large class of literate, well-connected god-fearers to explain its growth, and this thesis has significantly shaped, and likely distorted, modern reconstructions of the movement’s origins, membership, and leadership.

See also Revisiting the God-fearer Thesis in the Development of Early Christianity (T&T Clark, 2025).

By Thomas A. Robinson
Professor Emeritus
History and Religion Department
The University of Lethbridge
April 2026

Getting a picture of the history of the early Christian movement is much like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. A few pieces come together quickly. Sometimes, a handful of pieces seem to belong together but only two or three pieces snap together immediately. Some pieces seem to be missing and some pieces seem not to belong to the puzzle at all. But one is certain that in the end everything will come together and the finished puzzle will look like the picture on the box. The reconstruction of early Christianity is something like that—except that there is no picture on the box. In this short paper, I will try to show how one widely accepted part of the puzzle has been put together and why it fails. That is the story of the god-fearers.

God-fearers in Jewish and Christian History

The term “god-fearer” has come to be used widely for non-Jews (Gentiles) in the Greco-Roman period who were in some measure interested in aspects of Judaism and who maintained some association with the Jewish community. Supposedly, the level of curiosity of a god-fearer could vary from the slightly curious all the way to those who were considering converting fully to Judaism. Male circumcision came to be the widely recognized marker distinguishing the convert (proselyte) from other non-Jews who had some level of curiosity or commitment (god-fearers). How widespread Gentile interest in Judaism is judged to have been has depended on whether scholars viewed the Jewish community as a “missionary movement,” actively interested in attracting non-Jews (Feldman 1993, Goodman 1994, Paget 1996).

                Although the god-fearer phenomenon could have remained largely a subject for scholarship on Judaism, most of the scholarship on god-fearers came to focus on the role god-fearers supposedly played in the establishment and success of the early Christian movement. The widely adopted reconstruction of early Christian history makes the following assumptions. One, large numbers of non-Jews were already associated to some degree with Judaism when the Christian message began to be preached. These are the god-fearers. Two, the god-fearers’ prior familiarity with Judaism and its scriptures would have helped to make the Christian message comprehensible to the god-fearer. Three, large numbers of these god-fearers resisted adopting Judaism fully largely because of the requirement of circumcision. Four, the Christian message (at least as proclaimed by Paul, and attested both by his letters and by Acts) dropped circumcision as a requirement for full membership in the Christian community. Five, this novel and more liberal position was sufficiently attractive to god-fearers that god-fearers turned in considerable numbers to Christianity. Six, such god-fearer converts were generally viewed as socially well placed, economically secure, and literate in both the Jewish and Greco-Roman worlds, thus providing the fledgling Christian movement with competent and connected leaders, giving the young church its dynamism and direction as it made its way in the larger world. Seven, a point sometimes mentioned is that the Christian success with god-fearers robbed Judaism of an important source of sympathetic Gentiles that had helped give Jews respectability and valued contacts in the larger society.

Problem One: Terminology

The term “god-fearer” is routinely used in modern scholarship to denote a non-Jew in the ancient world who had some interest in Judaism. The Greek behind that term is phoboumenos ton theon (φοβούμενος τὸν θεόν). The problem is that the phrase is rare in Christian literature, being used specifically for non-Jews only in two passages in Luke’s writings (Acts 10:2–22; 13:16–26).[1] It is used over fifty times in the Septuagint translations of the Psalms and in Sirach, but there it simply identifies pious Jews, though it has been argued that in three or four of the cases it could identify Gentiles. Josephus uses the phrase once. But in none of these cases does the phrase seem to be used as a technical term—not by Jews, not by Christians, and not by the larger society. No one was recognized as a member of a distinct god-fearer group and no one would have thought of their identity as a “god-fearer.” The phrase simply implies piety of some unspecified sort—a god-fearing person.

                Given that the term “god-fearer” (phoboumenos ton theon) fails as a technical term in the ancient evidence, attention shifted to another word, theosebēs (θεοσεβής), as a more likely ancient technical term for god-fearer. The word does occur in pagan and Jewish literature and inscriptions. Much like the term phoboumenos ton theon, however, it seems simply to suggest piety of some unspecified sort—not a label of a recognized group. More problematic, the term is absent from the broad range of early Christian literature, occurring in only two passages, where it simply specifies piety of some unspecified sort (John 9:31; Mart. Pol. 3.2). In spite of that, the word has come to be widely treated as a technical term and regularly translated as god-fearer in Jewish and Christian scholarship, though in every case it could simply be translated as indicating piety or character of some kind, as it seems to have been used in the larger world.

                That raises the question whether we should be using the term “god-fearer” at all, since the very use of the term seems to concede a concreteness of the god-fearer phenomenon that is really the primary matter for debate. Perhaps, then, if no term was recognized widely by Jews and non-Jews in the ancient world as the label of non-Jews in some specific, recognized relationship to Judaism, then might the term “god-fearer” be better treated as merely a term of modern academic convenience for something much more foggy and formless—if the term is to be used at all (Lake 1933).

Problem Two: Evidence

The problem of finding an ancient term for a god-fearer phenomenon is troubling enough. More serious is the matter of evidence. Even the most diligent efforts to find evidence for god-fearers provide at best a small handful of potentially useful material—somewhat surprising if as some claim there were millions of god-fearers. This dearth of evidence has sometimes led to overstating the value of these few texts and inscriptions. In the 1980s, archaeologist A. Thomas Kraabel challenged the growing consensus regarding god-fearers, pointing to how weak the evidence was (Kraabel 1981, 1982). Although Kraabel’s position generated quick and dismissive response, in more recent years there is wider recognition of how meager and imprecise the evidence is, as in Kraemer’s article “Giving Up the Godfearers” (2014), where she describes the evidence as “deeply suspect.” Other than for the mention of some non-Jews with some connection to a synagogue in Acts, only a dozen or so references in all of ancient Jewish, Christian, and pagan literature and inscriptions play much of a role in the debate. As might be expected, the interpretation of this small body of supposed evidence has become a spirited battleground (Fredriksen 2015). The main effort of all sides in this argument was to show whether a particular word or phrase was being used as a technical term, designating a defined and recognizable group, and thus serving as sufficient evidence for the existence of an ancient God-fearer phenomenon (Levinskaya 1996, Wander 1998). In most recent years, the debate seems to be shifting toward a recognition that terms and texts cannot carry the weight often put on them, though there were earlier warnings of the meagerness of the evidence (Finn 1985, Stanton 2013). Terence Donaldson (2007) offers a cautious and detailed assessment of the evidence used in the debate.

Problem Three: The Septuagint as Evidence

The typical portrait of the god-fearer is of a Gentile who had an informed familiarity with the Septuagint, the popular Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures among diaspora Jews and early Christians. Such non-Jews tutored in Judaism provided a mass of Gentiles who could make sense of the Septuagint-rich Christian message when they encountered that option, becoming the most promising potential group of converts and the primary target of Christian mission. The Jewish synagogue becomes the most likely venue for that encounter. What holds all of this story together is the Septuagint.

                But the common claim that one can detect a god-fearer background of either the author or reader of Septuagint-colored Christian writings faces serious problems. One, it overlooks the simple reality that most Christian writings were written to Christians, many or perhaps most of whom had been Christian for years and some since birth. Such individuals would have gained familiarity with the Septuagint from exposure within the Christian assembly—not from prior association with the synagogue, as is routinely and wrongly asserted by the god-fearer thesis. Granted, Paul’s letters reflect a different context. There the readers may have been under the influences of the Christian community for months rather than years. Although it has been common to assume a rich Septuagintal fiber in Paul’s writings, except for Romans and Galatians the use of the Septuagint is slight and even where it is explicit its meaning is either obvious in and of itself or Paul provides adequate clarifying comment. Two, the requirement of some familiarity with the Septuagint either locks out or disregards the vast majority of the population of the empire—the poor and the marginal—who had no association with the synagogue and no familiarity with the Septuagint, thus supposedly unable to understand any Septuagint-soaked message. Yet early Christian assemblies somehow were able to attract such biblically-ignorant individuals (Robinson 2017). Three, often, the Septuagint-colored character of a Christian document is taken to reflect the background of both the author and the reader. This fails to recognize that the author might be providing the “background” within the writing itself for the reader. Further, for many early Christian writings, the text makes adequate sense without further background or explanation. Four, even where an author displays familiarity with the Septuagint, that should not be taken as proof of the author’s god-fearer background, since much of early Christian writing likely would have been authored by individuals raised in a Christian context, a matter often overlooked.

Problem Four: Christian vs. Jewish

The primary locale of the god-fearer phenomenon is, by definition, the Jewish community and its synagogue, and almost every ancient piece of purported “god-fearer” evidence (rare as it is) is related to the Jewish community—not to Christianity. Yet the primary focus of scholarly energy and output deals with god-fearers as a determinate factor in the foundation and fortunes of the Christian movement.

                Much of the god-fearer thesis relies on the assumption that the Christian movement would have been the option of choice when Judaism came to be challenged by the Christian preaching. Routinely, the claim is made that the Jewish requirement of circumcision for males presented a serious obstacle for god-fearers to submit fully to Judaism. When the Christian option (at least, the circumcision-free Pauline version of the Christian option) presented itself, god-fearers supposedly surged in droves into the Christian community. It is this change of loyalties that is at the heart of explanations of the rapid growth of the early Christian movement. Yet, strangely, little attention is given to whether it is likely that Judaism would have been bested by the Christian option, though there have been exceptions (Lieu 1994, 2002).

                For one thing, it is not clear that god-fearers were restless and dissatisfied in their relationship with Judaism. According to the popular god-fearer theory, god-fearers covered the whole range of association with Judaism, from the somewhat curious to those pondering whether to convert fully to Judaism. That multitudes of god-fearers (if there were ever multitudes) longed to participate fully in Jewish life and religion is not supported by evidence. Nor is it clear that the Christian circumcision-free option of the Christian movement would have been embraced by most god-fearers as an acceptable alternative, for it would not have brought these god-fearers closer to the Jewish community; rather, it would have shut them out (at least, as Acts and Paul tell the story). All too often, scholars have made too much of the appeal that the Christian rejection of circumcision had on god-fearers and too little of the downside that would have come with attachment to the Christian movement, with a loss of friendship with the Jewish community and a suspicion from the larger society of any group whose leader had been executed by the Roman government and rejected by his own people.

Problem Five: How Long Are the God-fearers on the Stage?

The common theory is that god-fearers remained a significant source of converts for the Christian movement for decades, well into the second century at least, providing the church with leadership and resources. But it is more likely that the church’s first leaders were Jews who joined the Christian circle. As the movement grew and matured, leadership duties are likely to have been bestowed on those who were raised in the Christian movement, and who perhaps had parents and grandparents who themselves were Christian. To think that god-fearers were necessary or even the most obvious choice to fill a leadership vacuum is to assume a leadership vacuum that rarely would have been there.

                Some have pointed to Luke-Acts as proof of god-fearer presence in the Christian community around the end of the first century, when Luke’s two-volume work was written, pointing to Luke’s use of the Septuagint and his interest in god-fearers as proof of a god-fearer audience for Luke’s writings. The problem with that argument is that by the time of Luke’s activity the majority of members in most Christian circles would have been born into a Christian family and would have thus been shaped by the Christian use of the Septuagint from childhood. As to Luke’s supposed interest in god-fearers, except for Cornelius, such god-fearers are encountered only in the first few years of Christian preaching and almost always related to Paul’s brief efforts to proclaim the Christian message in the local synagogue. But Luke does not make the synagogue the ongoing venue of Christian mission. Luke presents the synagogue as a quickly and permanently closed venue for Christian preaching. There is no further talk of god-fearers by Luke. While it could be argued that Luke’s presentation of the separation between the synagogue and Christian preachers was too tidy for a process that was more haphazard and informal, that is not Luke’s story, and Luke’s story is the only story we have about god-fearers in Christianity (Robinson 2009).

The Impact of the God-fearer Thesis

Almost every detail of popular and scholarly reconstructions of early Christianity is affected by the god-fearer thesis, from an emphasis on the economic, social, and intellectual resources of its membership and leadership, to its urban (and urbane) character, and its Jewish-tutored background. Such focus on god-fearers as a vital component in the early Christian movement tends to overlook how flimsy the evidence for god-fearers is and how unnecessary the god-fearers are to the developing Christian movement.

                It is easy to see why many claim that the early Christian movement was dominated by a mass of literate, Septuagint-soaked, economically and socially well placed non-Jews, for such god-fearers conveniently answer the question of how early Christianity grew and what it looked like. As Kraemer (2015) put the matter: “the category ‘god-fearing’ seems to survive not because ancient evidence justifies it but at least in part because it seems so useful for particular modern historiographic projects about the development of Christianity.” But convenient answers often cannot carry the weight put on them. As recently as 2020, Berthelot stated that “most of our questions remain unanswered.”

                What, then, can we say? Were some non-Jews attracted to Judaism? Yes. But for almost every other question that could be posed, we can say very little.

References

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