610
. From Craig S. Keener, “Interethnic Marriages in the New Testament (Matt
1
:
3–6
; Acts
7
:
29
;
16
:
1–3
;
1
Cor
7
:
14
),” Criswell Theological Review n.s.
6
(
2
, Spring
2009
):
25–43
. Reprinted by permission from Criswell Theological Review.
. E.g., Gen
41
:
45
; Exod
2
:
21
; Num
12
:
1
; Esth
2
:
17
.
. See Bennett, Mayflower,
37
; Roediger, Wages,
156
; Keener, “Interracial Marriage,”
14–16
.
. I addressed this issue more fully in Usry and Keener, Religion,
77–82
; see the sources there.
. See e.g., Davies, Gospel and Land, 269–70; Bruce, Commentary,
141
; Pate et al., Story,
199–201
; Kistemaker, Acts,
244
.
. Joseph probably ultimately had more than two sons (Gen
48
:
6
), but Genesis emphasizes just the first two, who would become tribes in Israel (
48
:
5
)
. See Keener, “Notes,”
42
; cf. Keener, John,
753
.
. Stephen explicitly applies Moses’s status as a rejected deliverer to his prefiguring of Jesus in Acts
7
:
35–37
, by means of the prophecy in Deut
18
:
15
,
18
.
. Stephen draws other implicit connections, for example: Moses’s Egyptian wisdom (
7
:
22
), perhaps contrasted with Pharaoh’s “trickery” (see
7
:
19
), parallels the wisdom of Joseph, another diaspora Israelite, in
7
:
10
.
. I noted many of these parallels in Keener, “Interracial Marriage,”
8
.
. With e.g., D. Williams, Acts,
275
.
. Some earlier assimilationists had thus sought to conceal their circumcision (
1
Macc
1
:
15
; Josephus Ant.
12
.
241
).
. E.g., Plutarch Cic.
7
.
5
; cf. Pesiq. Rab Kah.
3
:
6
.
. Jos. Asen. passim; m. Qid.
3
:
5
; b. Yeb.
92
b; B.M.
16
b; McKnight, “Proselytism,”
844
; cf. the tradition that Job married Jacob’s daughter Dinah (L.A.B.
8
:
8
; T. Job
1
:
4–6
; Gen. Rab.
76
:
9
; b. B. Bat.
15
b).
. Levick, Roman Colonies,
191
n
1
.
. So Werman, “Jubilees
30
” (surveying different approaches).
. Thus exceptions could be made for Joseph in Josephus Ant.
2
.
91–92
; Herod in
17
.
20; Antipater in War
1
.
181
. Still, even Josephus, who writes with a view to gentile readers, condemns a Jewish man marrying an idolater (Ant.
18
.
344–45
,
349
; that she had been married to an oppressor made the matter still more heinous—
18
.
340–43
). Though intermarriage is not condemned in Gen
41
:
45
; Exod
2
:
21
; Ruth
4
:
13
, it does appear negatively in Gen
26
:
34–35
;
27
:
46
,
28
:
1
(Bar, “Intermarriage,”
103–4
; Keener, “Interracial Marriage,”
4–11
).
. Much earlier, cf.
1
Kgs
7
:
14
; Josephus Ant.
8
.
76
.
. A minority view in y. Sanh.
2
:
6
, §
2
.
. Bruce, Commentary,
322
. On some matters even later Palestinian rabbis allowed more leeway to those living in the Diaspora (cf. e.g., t. Sabb.
8
:
5
), though circumcision of children would not have been one of them. Some diaspora Jews were lax on circumcising converts (Josephus Ant.
20
.
30–42
), but many were not (Ant.
20
.
43–45
).
. Cf. e.g., assimilation in Trebilco, Communities,
86–88
,
93
.
. Trebilco, Communities,
17–18
.
. Bar, “Intermarriage,”
100–102
; Keener, “Interracial Marriage,”
12–13
. Islam later warned against mixing believers and nonbelievers (Qur’an
60
.
10
).
. E.g., Jub.
20
:
4
;
22
:
20
; Philo Spec.
3
.
29
; T. Levi
9
:
10
; McKnight, “Proselytism,”
839–40
.
. E.g.,
1
Esd
8
:
68–96
;
9
:
7–9
; Tob
4
:
12
;
2
Bar.
42
:
4
.
. See Tacitus Hist.
5
.
5
. Inconsistently, Tacitus honors Germans for not intermarrying (Germ.
4
)!
. Jub.
30
:
7
(on Jub.
30
but also other sources, cf. Werman, “Jubilees
30
”; Le Cornu, Acts,
860
). Religious intermarriage is equivalent to giving one’s children to Molech (Jub. 30
:
10
). The Lord opposes such behavior (
30
:
11
); a biblical foundation for this in
30
:
12
is the deceitful claim of Dinah’s brothers in Gen
34
:
14
.
. Josephus Ant.
20
.
145–46
.
. In a later tradition, Judah converted the gentile before marrying her (Tg. Ps.-Jon. on Gen
38
:
2
).
. T. Jud.
11
:
3–5
.
. Regarding Esau, Gen. Rab.
65
:
2
; regarding the women, Pesiq. Rab Kah.
17
:
6
.
. Sharp, “Zeal” (on
4
QMMT C.
4–8
,
31–32
); but cf. Himmelfarb, “Levi”; mainly
4
QMMT opposes forms of intermarriage prohibited in Scripture. The concern involved profaning Israel’s seed, not impurity (Hayes, “Intermarriage”). Against intermarriage, see also
4
Q
396
f
1–2
.
4
.
9
;
4
Q
397
f
6–13
.
15
;
4
Q
513
f
2
.
2
,
5
. Some also find this polemic implicit in
1
En.
6
—
7
(Morisi, “Origine”).
. DesCamp, “Women.” Cf. e.g., L.A.B.
9
:
5
.
. Kalimi, “Esther.” Later rabbis were troubled about her bearing a mixed child (Esth. Rab.
8
:
3
).
. Le Cornu, Acts,
861
; see also m. Yeb.
7
:
5
. Still, even a mamzer (illegitimate child) learned in Torah was better than the highest-status person who was not (m. Hor.
3
:
8
).
. So T. Jud.
11
:
3–5
(but cf. the exception in
13
:
3
).
. E.g., Polybius
1
.
78
.
8–9
; Quintus Curtius
8
.
4
.
25
; Arrian Alex.
7
.
4
.
8
.
. Cf. Dionysius of Halicarnassus Ant. rom.
6
.
1
.
2
; Arrian Alex.
7
.
12
.
2
.
. Baugh, “Marriage,”
105. Greeks might ridicule fellow-Greeks with mixed ancestries (e.g., Aeschines Fals. leg.
78
; Ctes.
172
; Lucian Parl. G.
4
)
. Rhodes, “Epigamia.”
. Schiemann, “Conubium,”
758
; Gardner, Women,
32
; Stambaugh, City,
93
. Naturally this left many children even in Roman households (esp. those born to slaves or concubines) “illegitimate” (Gardner, Women,
143
). For laws governing marriage to non-Romans, see Gaius Inst.
1
.
66–92
; for analogous Jewish laws, see Cohen, Law,
133–36
.
. Suetonius Aug.
40
.
3
.
. See Sivan, “Rabbinics.” For the difficulties of Christian women married to pagan husbands, see MacDonald, “Married to Unbelievers.”
. M. Qid.
3
:
12
; Yeb.
7
:
5
; t. Qid.
4
:
16
.
. E.g., Strack and Billerbeck, Kommentar,
2
:
741
; Boismard and Lamouille, Actes,
2
:
287
. See e.g., even R. Jacob Emden,
1697–1776
(Falk, Jesus,
18
).
. Cf. Cohen, “Matrilineal Principle,”
5–13
; Hadas-Lebel, “Les mariages,”
397–404
. For proposed reasons for the rabbis formulating it, see e.g., Cohen, “Origins,”
19–53
; Slater, “Emergence,”
15–29
.
. Cf. Cohen, “Was Timothy Jewish?”
. Levinskaya, Diaspora Setting,
12–17
, especially
16
; cf. Johnson, Acts,
284
; Talbert, Acts,
137
.
. Lystra was a Roman colony (Levick, Roman Colonies,
195–97
), but not all its residents were citizens of the colony. Only a minority of inscriptions are Latin (and not always good Latin at that), and most people in the countryside had Greek or local names (Levick, Roman Colonies,
154
).
. Ulpian Rules
5
.
8
(third century CE); Buckland, Roman Law,
99
; Dixon, Roman Mother,
18
; Jeffers, “Families,”
133–34
.
. Cf. similarly Bruce, Acts
¹
,
308
.
. Cf. e.g., Hort, Judaistic Christianity,
84–85
; Witherington, Acts,
474
.
. For the prominence of the gentile mission in Acts, see e.g., Wilson, Gentile Mission.
. See further Keener, “Invitations.”
. See more fully Keener, Marries Another,
58–61
; more concisely, Keener,
1–2
Corinthians,
65
. The closest analogy would be some philosophers insisting on virtuous partners (Deming, Celibacy,
144
), but the analogy is limited.
. As with Judaism; see Josephus War
2
.
560–61
; Ant.
20
.
34
,
35
,
195
; Leon, Jews of Rome,
256
; Riesner, Early Period,
351
; similarly, Levinskaya, Diaspora Setting,
25
.
. For Roman law, see Pomeroy, Goddesses,
158
,
169
.
. Gardner, Women,
32
.
. Ulpian Rules
5
.
8–9
(third-century CE Rome). More thoroughly, see Weaver, “Status.”
. Weaver, “Status,”
149–51
; cf. Josephus Ant.
4
.
244–45; Tacitus Ann.
12
.
53
; Llewelyn, Documents,
6
, §
1
,
17
. Plutarch Educ.
2
, Mor.
1
AB, apparently views it as a moral issue. Possibly more conflict arose over mixed marriages in the late empire (Grubbs, “Marriage”).
. Lewis, Life,
41–43
.
. E.g., O’Rourke, “Law,”
180
; in an earlier era, patricians could not even marry plebeians (Dionysius of Halicarnassus Ant. rom.
11
.
28
.
4
; Livy
4
.
4
.
9
).
. T. Sanh.
4
:
7
.
. Y. Ket.
1
:
5
, §
2
(Neusner
22
:
41
). See especially y. Yeb.
6
:
1–9
:
8
.
. Y. Qid.
1
:
1
, §
8
.
. Y. Git.
1
:
4
, §
2
. Purely gentile offspring were sometimes thought to be neither damned nor resurrected to life (t. Sanh.
13
:
2
; ‘Ab. R. Nat.
36
A).
. B. Sanh.
58
a; De Ridder, Discipling,
98
,
107
. Cf. also debates if the father had completed only part of the conversion ceremony (y. Qid.
3
:
12
, §
8
).
. See Esth. Rab.
8
:
3
; Bonsirven, Judaism,
56
; Bruce, Corinthians,
70
.
. See the warnings in White, Initiation,
213
n
2
, and p.
362
; Nock, Paul,
151
.
. Pace Richardson, Theology,
359
.
. If the unbelieving partner left, believers had no recourse to preserve the marriage under Greek or Roman law; see discussion in Keener, Marries Another, 51–52
,
61–62
.