"Fearers of Heaven": A Qumranic Contribution

It has long been assumed that a sizable class of ancient non-Jewish “Judeophiles” loosely aligned themselves with the Jewish faith during the first few centuries before the Common Era and maintained this alliance throughout the Greco-Roman period of late antiquity. Such individuals (often referred to as "Fearers of Heaven" or “God-fearers”) abandoned paganism, embraced ethical monotheism, and honored the Israelite deity. They were thought to have been specifically referenced by numerous ancient sources, but in recent decades their very existence has been called into question. It is alleged that these “God-fearers” never existed as a recognized group, largely due to a lack of textual and archaeological evidence (there being virtually no extant inscriptions alluding to them).

It may be countered, however, that textual evidence from the period, taken in concert, attests in no uncertain terms, not only to the existence of these “Fearers of Heaven,” but to the extent of their influence across the ancient world. Specifically, it has been suggested that a Hebrew term appearing prominently in the Dead Sea Scrolls refers to a cadre of gentile sympathizers, who represented a small but significant segment of the sectarian community. This piece of evidence may be seen as a relatively new contribution to the larger argument regarding the presence of “God-fearers” in late antiquity, and underscores an important principle when it comes to the dialectic process of serious scholarship: archaeology notwithstanding, texts matter.