Proselytes and The Dishonesty of the Israel Only Adherents
Proselytes and The Dishonesty of the Israel Only Adherents
I have commented before on the blatant dishonesty of the advocates of what is known as the Israel Only, crowd. The Israel Only followers claim that God never loved anyone except the descendants of Abraham, and that in AD 70 all “Jews” were saved, meaning that there never was any salvation for anyone but a descendant of Abraham. And that salvation came to an end in AD 70. There is no love of God for anyone today. There is no salvation for anyone today. There is no forgiveness, there is no reward, for anyone today.
In my dealings with IO proponents, I have yet to encounter a single one that I felt was honest. I realize that is a broad statement, but it is sadly true. I know that there must be some folks who have been honestly mistaken and deceived by the IO message, but the “leaders” of this band of commentators are, in my personal opinion and experience, flagrantly, willfully dishonest. To say this is sad is a huge understatement.
Just recently (May-June, 2025) I engaged in a discussion with Ken Atwood, who is an atheist masquerading as a Bible student. This man has openly told me that his only standard of morality is derived from his family, and no where else. But that is another subject. It does, however, give some insight as to how he can justify in his own mind the blatant dishonesty that he constantly exhibits.
Our recent engagement, going back a few months, revolved around the question of whether pagan, non-Israelite, non-Jewish people could convert to Judaism and be incorporated into the blessings of Israel. Mr. Atwood rejects this idea and made the following claims on FaceBook about proselytes and the proselyting of pagans into Judaism:
4-25-25- //Jesus Condemned the Very Act of Pharisaic Proselytizing. This condemnation is not merely about the quality of their converts or how they taught them. Jesus attacks the entire endeavor: their zeal to make proselytes is not praised but condemned, and the result is not salvation but greater condemnation. If the act of Gentile proselytizing were good in principle but simply misused, we would expect Jesus to clarify this—yet he doesn’t. He doesn’t say, “Make proselytes the right way.” He says the very act of doing so produces children of Gehenna. This implies that covenantal proselytism of Gentiles was fundamentally misguided.//
On 4-26-25 – Atwood made this astounding claim- //Proselytes were non-Israelites who fully converted to Judaism, but God-fearers were Israelites still outside covenant life, needing restoration.// Let this statement soak in!! This is a fatal admission by Mr. Atwood! Be sure to read my article on the god fearers in which I address Atwood’s bold- false – claim.
Then, on 5-14-25, – Atwood added to his error and manifested his ignorance (or arrogance) when he said: //There is no such concept as a “proselyte” in the Old Testament. In the new testament (sic) Jesus said proselytes were twice the sons of hell.//
When I presented the evidence, repeatedly, that in the Tanakh, the word proselyte appears in well over 50 passages (actually closer to 70!), Atwood offered this:
6-2-25 – Atwood said: //Now about proselytes—yes, some non-Israelites “converted” but that doesn’t mean they became Israelites. But being a convert doesn’t mean they were suddenly written into the promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Even under Torah, a non-Israelite could worship, offer sacrifices, and observe the feasts—but they never inherited land, weren’t counted in tribal genealogies, and didn’t become sons of the covenant in the legal sense. Jesus’ critique in Matthew 23:15 was laser-focused: proselytes were being made “twice the sons of Gehenna.” That’s not exactly a gold star for covenant inclusion. So no, quoting me on proselytes doesn’t burn IO to the ground—it just shows you missed the distinction between outward conversion and covenant identity.//
6-2-25 – In Matthew 23:15, Jesus sharply rebuked the Pharisees for traveling far and wide to make converts. He didn’t praise them—He said their converts became twice the sons of hell as they were. That’s not support for evangelism; it’s a condemnation.
In response to Atwood’s claims I made the following observation (and I will add more below):
#1– Were there proselytes in the Tanakh? Well, to be honest and blunt, I was literally stunned at Atwood’s arrogance / ignorance when he claimed that there were no proselytes in the Old Testament! According to the LXX (Greek Translation of the Hebrew OT) Concordance, there are 53-55 (again, actually closer to 70!), occurrences of the Greek word proselytes and cognates.
Here is what I posted in response to Atwood’s outrageous and patently false claim:
Mr. Atwood, evidently, you are ignorant of the fact that the word proselytos appears in well over 50 texts in the LXX! And yea, it refers to pagans that joined themselves (you know, they “fully converted) to Israel, lived among them, kept Torah, loved the Lord and offered the sacrifices that were well pleasing to YHVH!
Tell me, since there were no Pharisees at that time to traverse heaven and earth to make a convert, just how were those pagan converts children of Gehenna for joining themselves to Israel??? The language of the LXX in regards to these converts is virtually unanimously POSITIVE. Not once are they called children of the devil!
Let me add a note here. In Ezekiel 14:6-8 we are told of how both the “Jews” as well as the proselytes among them could obey the Lord and be blessed. And in addition, we find this:
Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Repent, turn away from your idols, and turn your faces away from all your abominations. For anyone of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who dwell in Israel, who separates himself from Me and sets up his idols in his heart and puts before him what causes him to stumble into iniquity, then comes to a prophet to inquire of him concerning Me, I the Lord will answer him by Myself. I will set My face against that man and make him a sign and a proverb, and I will cut him off from the midst of My people. Then you shall know that I am the Lord.
A couple of things are to be noted by way of addition.
First, the proselytes would dwell among Israel. (Edit: Of course, this alone does not prove any fellowship with YHVH, but that is not all that was involved with being a proselyte).
Second, those proselytes were joined to the Lord, just as the children of Israel were joined to Him! You cannot separate yourself from someone or something that you are not attached to! The language of Ezekiel 14 is covenantal in nature. It cannot be lightly dismissed with the wave of a hand.
Third, building on that, those proselytes who “separates himself from Me and sets up his idols in his heart and puts before him what causes him to stumble into iniquity.” This is equal guilt before the Lord for both Jew and proselyte.
Fourth, the proselyte would set up the idol in their heart, and in so doing, they separated themselves from YHVH in the same identical manner that the Jews did when they set up the idols in their heart! How could a proselyte separate himself from the Lord if he was not joined to the Lord?
Fifth, when the Jew or the proselyte set up the idol in their heart, and separated their heart from the Lord, YHVH said, //I will set My face against that man and make him a sign and a proverb, and I will cut him off from the midst of My people.//
Sixth, the Lord called on both the Jews and the proselytes who were turning to idols to: “Repent, turn away from your idols, and turn your faces away from all your abominations. For anyone of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who dwell in Israel.” We have the right to ask whether God would call on pagan children of Gehenna to repent, since even if they did repent it would do them no good whatsoever! Why repent if repenting does you no good?
Edit: Later in the day of 6-3-25, Atwood made the fatal blunder of actually admitting that a proselyte might well be saved! You MUST catch the power of this admission! This is a stunning blunder and admission by Mr. Atwood! I mean, if it was possible for a proselyte to be saved, then the entire Israel Only doctrine goes up in the flames– perhaps of Gehenna???
Now, if Atwood was even close to being correct– and he is NOT- to say that proselytes were always the children of Gehenna, ask yourself how the proselyte could separate his heart from God, and how God could set His face against him (as well as the Jew who sinned the same way) and then cut him off “from the midst of the people”? If the proselyte wasn’t one of “the people” he could not be cut off out from among the people” And again, ask yourself why a child of Gehenna (any proselyte, per Atwood) would have any need to repent and to turn back to YHVH? Don’t forget that YHVH said He would cut the proselyte off (literally, out from among) the people.
It will not work to claim, as I can imagine some IO proponent doing, that this simply meant that the proselyte would be removed spatially / geographically from the midst of the people. The language goes far beyond spatial location. If the proselytes were children of Gehenna why were they even allowed to live among the Jews in the first place? It would be a sin for the Jews to allow that! Yet, the proselytes, obedient to Torah, were to be welcomed as fellow citizens and as “native born.”
The language here is strongly reminiscent of Acts 3:19f where Peter warned his audience that refusal to obey Christ would result in being “utterly cut off out from among the people.” This meant that refusal to obey Christ would divorce them from being “the people” i.e. the people of God! It was not a threat of spatial separation, but of loss of covenant standing, a loss of fellowship. And here in Ezekiel 14 (and in many other LXX texts) is speaks of proselytes being cut off about from the congregation due to sin. They sinned in their heart, and God cast them off and out. NONE of this would be remotely possible in the IO paradigm!
So here is what we have from Mr. Atwood and the IO crowd.
On the one hand he tells us that there were no proselytes in the Old Testament. A claim that is so patently, demonstrably false that it is truly amazing.
He tells that all proselytes were children of Gehenna. The entire testimony of the Tanakh falsifies this.
On 6-3-25, Mr. Atwood “responded” on Facebook claiming that just because the Tanakh uses the term proselyte that this does not prove it is being used in the same way as in the NT. This is an argumentum ad desperatum to be sure. In the OT, a proselyte was one that lived among the Jews, obeyed the Torah, offered sacrifices to the Lord, they loved the Lord.
Just how was that different from the NT usage? It wasn’t.
He tells us that proselytes were pagans fully converted to Judaism. Well, Amen and Amen!
But then he tells us that proselytes were not actually true converts, but instead were guilty of only outward conversion! Ezekiel 14 and a host of other OT texts clearly falsify this, since they speak of the proselytes having YHVH and His laws in their heart.
You will seldom encounter anything more confused, confusing or dishonest than this word salad from Mr. Atwood. As of this writing, Mr. Atwood has not addressed these glaring problems. Not a keystroke. All he has done is to change the subject.
#2 – Notice again Mr. Atwood’s claims that there were no proselytes in the Tanakh and his appeal to Matthew 23:15.
First, as I have shown, the Tanakh uses the word proselyte in over 50 (70) texts, to speak of pagan believers and followers of YHVH. On 6-3-2025 Atwood sarcastically responded that I had “discovered a Greek noun” in the Tanakh. But he made no effort of any kind to address the points I made based on the OT use and discussion of proselytes. He did not even have the integrity or courage to admit that he was wrong when he denied that the concept of a proselyte is found in the OT.
Second, there were no Pharisees in the time of Numbers, Deuteronomy, Ezekiel , etc. to do their nefarious conversions. It is thus highly anachronistic for Mr. Atwood to even suggest that what Jesus said about proselytes in Matthew 23 applied in the Tanakh. There is no condemnation of proselytes to be found anywhere in the Tanakh except in the texts like Ezekiel 14 discussed above.
Third, since there were proselytes in the OT and since those proselytes were, as long as they were obedient to Torah and the Lord, spoken of in very positive terms, this falsifies Atwood’s claims that proselytism was intrinsically wrong. He is egregiously wrong, flat dead wrong.
As the reader can see, this proponent of IO has exhibited a manifestly dishonest attitude toward what the Bible says. The ONLY way that the Israel Only crowd can make any points is to literally pervert the Biblical text. But since they have no objective standard of right and wrong to guide them, they have no problem whatsoever in overtly lying, in twisting the Biblical text, and in employing any kind of dishonest, illegitimate and perverted hermeneutic.
Be sure to get a copy of my book, One Root, One Kingdom, All Nations, in which I expose the utter falsity of the Israel Only Doctrine