LEADER 04483oam 22006494a 450 001 9910777389503321 005 20231218160741.0 010 $a0-8047-8040-4 024 7 $a10.1515/9780804780407 035 $a(CKB)1000000000002984 035 $a(dli)HEB04314 035 $a(SSID)ssj0000084178 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)11112745 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000084178 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)10164903 035 $a(PQKB)11283280 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC3037460 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL3037460 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr10042925 035 $a(OCoLC)923699574 035 $a(DE-B1597)582634 035 $a(DE-B1597)9780804780407 035 $a(MiU)MIU01000000000000005809853 035 $a(EXLCZ)991000000000002984 100 $a20010404d2001 uy 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aurmnummmmuuuu 181 $ctxt$2rdacontent 182 $cc$2rdamedia 183 $acr$2rdacarrier 200 10$aFirst converts $erich pagan women and the rhetoric of mission in early Judaism and Christianity /$fShelly Matthews 210 1$aStanford, Calif. :$cStanford University Press,$d2001. 215 $a1 online resource (xiv, 164 pages) 225 1 $aContraversions 300 $aBibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph 311 0 $a0-8047-3592-1 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references (p. 143-160) and index. 327 $tFront matter --$tACKNOWLEDGMENTS --$tCONTENTS --$tABBREVIATIONS OF CLASSICAL WORKS --$tINTRODUCTION --$t1. CRIMES OF PASSION: RELIGION, SEX, AND STATE SUBVERSION IN ANTIQUITIES 18.65-84 --$t2. LADIES' AID: GENTILE NOBLEWOMEN AS SAVIORS AND BENEFACTORS IN THE ANTIQUITIES --$t3. "MORE THAN A FEW GREEK WOMEN OF HIGH STANDING": "GOD-FEARING" NOBLEWOMEN IN ACTS --$t4. FIRST CONVERTS: ACTS 16 AND THE LEGITIMATING FUNCTION OF HIGH-STANDING WOMEN IN MISSIONARY PROPAGANDA --$tCONCLUSION --$tABBREVIATIONS OF WORKS CITED --$tNOTES --$tWORKS CITED --$tINDEX 330 $aIt has often been said that rich pagan women, much more so than men, were attracted both to early Judaism and Christianity. This book provides a new reading of sources from which this truism springs, focusing on two texts from the turn of the first century, Josephus's Antiquities and Luke's Acts. The book studies representation, analyzing the repeated portrayal of rich women as aiding and/or converting to early Judaism in its various forms. It also shows how these sources can be used in reconstructing women's history, thus engaging current feminist debates about the relationship of rhetorical presentation of women in texts to historical reality. Because many of these texts speak of high-standing women's conversion to Judaism and early Christianity, this book also engages in the current debate about whether early Judaism was a missionary religion. The author argues that focusing on these stories of women converts and adherents, which have been largely ignored in previous discussions of the missionary question, sets the missionary question in a new, more adequate framework. The first chapter elucidates a story in Josephus's Antiquities of the mishaps of two Roman matrons devoted to Isis and Jewish cults by considering the common Hellenistic topos linking high-standing women, promiscuity, and religious impropriety. The remaining chapters demonstrate that in spite of this topos, Josephus, Luke, and other religious apologists did tell stories of rich women's associations with their communities for positive rhetorical effect. In so doing, the book challenges the widespread assumption that women's association with "foreign" religious cults was always derided, questions scholarly arguments about public and private roles in antiquity, and invites reflection on issues of mission and conversion within the larger framework of Greco-Roman benefaction. 410 0$aContraversions (Stanford, Calif.) 606 $aProselytizing$xJudaism 606 $aEvangelistic work 606 $aWomen in Judaism$xHistoriography 606 $aWomen in Christianity$xHistoriography 615 0$aProselytizing$xJudaism. 615 0$aEvangelistic work. 615 0$aWomen in Judaism$xHistoriography. 615 0$aWomen in Christianity$xHistoriography. 676 $a296.6/9/09015 700 $aMatthews$b Shelly$0918317 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910777389503321 996 $aFirst converts$92058977 997 $aUNINA