God-fearer

A God-fearer or Godfearer was a member of a class of non-Jewish (gentile) sympathizers to Second Temple Judaism mentioned in the Christian New Testament and other contemporary sources such as synagogue inscriptions in diaspora Hellenistic Judaism. The concept has precedents in the proselytes of the Hebrew Bible.

In the Hebrew Bible, there is some recognition of non-Jewish monotheistic worship as being directed toward the same God. This forms the category of yirei Hashem ("יראי השם" meaning "Fearers of the Name", "the Name" being a Jewish euphemism for the Tetragrammaton, cf. Psalm 115:11). This was developed by later rabbinic literature into the concept of Noahides, Gentiles following the seven Noahide laws, which rabbinic writings assigned to the Noahic covenant.

The terms are found in synagogue inscriptions in Aphrodisias. Judging from the distinctions in the Book of Acts it is thought that they did not become ger tzedeks, which required circumcision, although the evidence across the centuries varies widely and the meaning of the term may have included all kinds of sympathetic Gentiles, proselytes or not. There are also around 300 text references (4th century BCE to 3rd century CE) to a sect of Hypsistarians, some of whom practiced Sabbath and which many scholars see as sympathizers with Judaism related to God fearers.

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