DCHindley wrote:That would be a modern Jewish POV of a Rabbi. Josephus says that after the Idumeans accepted circumcision and observance of Jewish law, "they were hereafter considered to be Jews." I do not see Josephus questioning their commitment. In fact, they became allied with the Zealot party during the 1st century rebellion against Rome, suggesting their faith was in some ways was "zealous" or why would the Zealots invite them into the city. The plan was discovered before they arrived and the High Priests closed the city gates, fearing their fanaticism more than any impurity in their Jewish credentials. See Jewish War book 4.beowulf wrote:Were the Idumeans forcibly converted? This short video presents the Jewish view.
Rabbi Berel Wein, 5000 years of Jewish history, one video clip at a time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsPZGdQG ... 7766E8EC2E
This, BTW, is the setting in which the chief priest Jesus, next in rank to Ananus, gave his speech on the temple wall to try and dissuade the Idumeans from pushing the conflict beyond the point where the Jewish people could sue for peace terms with the Romans. This rebuff of their offer to help their brothers pursue the revolution pretty much pissed them off. The Zealots made a sortie and managed to open the gates, and the Zealots and Idumeans rounded up and killed all the members of the high priestly aristocracy they could find, including Ananus and Jesus, flinging their dead bodies over the city wall into the valley of Gehenna and forbade anyone to try to bury them. FWIW, the execution of Ananus and ignoble treatment of his dead body is the event that Josephus said was the cause of the eventual destruction of the city, something which Origen somehow twisted around to mean he meant James the brother of Jesus in Ant 20:200.
There were some Jews, though, such as the Hasmonean prince Antigonus, who considered Herod a "half-Jew" (ἡμιιουδαίῳ, Ant 14:403) and thus unfit to be king of the Judeans. Naturally, Antigonus felt the kingship should rightfully be his on account of him being "out of the [Judean] kind," (ἐκ τοῦ γένους).
But then there was Agrippa I. Per Schürer, "at the Feast of Tabernacles in a.d. 41, according to the old custom, he read the Book of Deuteronomy, and in the passage, "Thou mayest not set a stranger over thee that is not thy brother" (Deut. xvii. 15), he burst forth in tears, because be felt himself referred to in it. Then cried out the people to him, "Be not grieved, Agrippa! Thou art our brother! Thou art our brother!" (1890, First Div, Book II, pg 157). The source given is Mishna, Sota vii. 8. Neusner's translation has:
So I guess a lot of the negative connotation in the term Idumean is due to polemics, not a matter of Jewish law, in which converst are to be treated as full Jews.Agrippa the King stood up and received it [the scroll of the Law] and read it standing up [instead of sitting down to read it as was usual], and sages praised him on that account. And when he came to the verse, You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother (Dt. 17:15), his tears ran down from his eyes. They said to him, “Do not be afraid, Agrippa, you are our brother, you are our brother, you are our brother!”
DCH
Agrippa burst into tears when he came to the word “foreigner” because
“Talmud - Mas. Kiddushin 70b
At this stage his opponent said to Rab Judah, ‘You call me a slave, — I who am descended from the royal house of the Hasmoneans!’ — ‘Thus said Samuel,’ he retorted: ‘Whoever says: "I am descended from the house of the Hasmoneans is a slave.’2
(2) Because the dynasty was wiped out by Herod, who, in spite of ascending the throne, was always regarded by the
Jew's as an Idumean slave. He, to exalt his children, called them Hasmoneans, v. B.B. 3b.”
King Agrippa was comforted during an important state ceremony by a diplomatic officer: don’t be afraid...