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Shelly Matthews. First Converts: Rich Pagan Women and the Rhetoric of Mission in Early Judaism and Christianity. Contraversions: Jews and Other Differences. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001. x, 164 pp.

In this very balanced and thought-provoking book, Shelly Matthews studies a series of Greek and Roman texts concerning Gentile women of high standing who were attracted to Judaism and Christianity. These texts, in particular Josephus' novelistic conversion and expulsion story in Antiquities 18.65–84, are well known and often discussed, but they have rarely been set into a wider framework. Matthews argues that Josephus, Luke, “and other religious apologists,” in recounting episodes of upper-class women's associations with their communities, followed a rhetorical strategy. These authors were anxious to depict their respective communities as compatible with Greco-Roman culture. The existence of pagan upper-class women supporting the Jewish cause could demonstrate such a compatibility. Matthews is well aware of the numerous derogatory statements by such authors as Tacitus and Plutarch, who criticize women's involvement in politics and religion. Jewish and Christian use of the sympathetic Gentile woman as an apologetic figure, one might think, could have a boomerang effect. Matthews tries to solve this problem by pointing out that women in Greco-Roman antiquity often played an active role in religious performances and that this role was often accepted. The narratives of Josephus and Luke thus reflect a historical phenomenon.