Enemies of Israel: Ruth and the Canaanite Woman

Abstract

This article elaborates on the author’s monograph “Have mercy on me”: The story of the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15.21-28 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002). According to the monograph, Matthew uses the Psalms, the story of Ruth and rabbinic tradition to turn Mark’s story of the Syrophoenician woman (7:24-30) into a conversion formula for entrance into the Jewish community. This article employs an intertextuality approach to enhance the theory of proselytism in Matthew’s gospel. The Canaanite woman passes three-time rejection, one-time acceptance test that the first-century rabbis delineated from the story of Ruth for converting to Judaism.