I became interested in this subject after reading Jesus' comment: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you traverse sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourself.”
Since nowadays we would hardly characterize Judaism as an actively evangelizing religion, Jesus' comments sounded a little strange to me. I was well aware of the indications in the Old Testament of specific gentiles being welcomed into the Israelite community (Ruth is one prominent example), but that could hardly be attributed to a concerted evangelistic campaign on the part of the Jews. However, I had little conception of the attitude toward attracting others to Judaism during the Hellenistic period. The comments below from various scholars helped to enlighten me on this subject.
I will start with a simple note found in the Jerusalem Bible: “Jewish propaganda was extremely active in the Greco-Roman world.” Others ably elaborate on this statement. But first, Blomberg adds a qualification to Jesus' words: “This probably does not refer to large numbers of new converts but to the earnestness with which 'God-fearers' among the Gentiles were encouraged to become full-fledged Jews, accepting the yoke of the Law, including circumcision.”
Becker adds a similar note of explanation when he says, “An intensive missionary movement began in the Hellenistic Jewish Diaspora. On the one hand, it was very effective because of the concept of the transcendent God who is invisible and incapable of representation by an image. On the other hand, it was limited by circumcision as an act of complete adherence because of fear of anti-Semitism...In Matt. 23:15 among the woes pronounced against the Pharisees, Jesus is not here attacking the missionary zeal of the Pharisees as such, but the fact that they convert their followers to their own legalistic understanding of the law and thus make them 'children of hell.'”
“Josephus, Ant., xx.2.4 illustrates the lengths to which this excessive zeal would go in attempting to convert those who had already become adherents of the Jewish faith under the more liberal propaganda of Hellenistic Judaism.” (Hill)
Ellison points out, “Both Roman emperors and later a triumphant Church were to punish Jewish proselytizing by death, but the activity was widespread at the time [i.e. early years A.D.]...The readiness of many of them [i.e. God-fearers] to listen to Paul shows that the teaching they had received was very often for good. To become a full proselyte (gersedeq) involved adopting all the legal minutiae of the Pharisees. It is noteworthy that only one, possibly two, of the latter class are expressly mentioned as becoming Christian, viz. Nicholas of Antioch (Ac. 6:5) and perhaps the Ethiopian eunuch (Ac. 8:27). This principle holds also for the person more concerned to win a convert for a denomination than for Christ.”
Hendricksen: “The years during which the incarnation and the earthly ministry of Christ took place were pre-eminently marked by missionary activity carried on by the Jews. This is not strange. In fact, the Jewish religion, in contrast with all kinds of pagan cults, had never been exclusivistic.” He quotes fourteen OT passages to make his point.
And Helyer remarks that the apocryphal book of Judith produced in the time between the two testaments “assumes a Judaism that is open to proselyting – a stance reflected in NT literature (cf. Mt 23:15; Acts 2:10; 6:5; 13:43).”
R.A. Stewart goes into even more detail: “There is a remarkable spirit of charity in Lv. xix.34 and parallels, a willingness to receive foreigners into fellowship on the condition of circumcision (Ex. xii.48, or even without this (Nu. xv.14-16)...Political and geographical circumstances may have kept the number of converts relatively small in Old Testament times...In the period of the Graeco-Roman Dispersion, proselytes became numerous...Many Rabbis, however, had very different views. The Babylonia Talmud insists in one context that the proselyte has a strong predisposition to sin because of his evil background...the same Talmud elsewhere likens them to a sore on the skin of Israel...By New Testament times there must have been a steady stream of proselytes into the Jewish fold, as the book of Acts confirms (ii. 10, vi. 5, xiii.43)...Judaism was considerably more hospitable to the proselyte and honest inquirer than was the more narrow, legalistic, and traditional cult of Palestine and Babylonia...There has been much controversy as to why Jesus should have used the words of Mt. xxiii.15 when the scribes and Pharisees were so notoriously indifferent to proselytization. The 'one' might refer to their meager returns, or the verse could point to a particular historical incident, when four leading Rabbis attempted to secure a distinguished Roman convert.”
Lastly, here are a few extended quotes from Shaye Cohen's valuable study of Jewish history in the time between the Old and New Testaments titled From the Maccabees to the Mishnah:
“The latter part of the second temple period, that is, the period from the rise of the Maccabees (160s B.C.E.) to the destruction of the temple (70 C.E.) was another rich and significant chapter in Jewish history...the 'golden age' of diaspora Judaism, especially in Egypt, which produced a rich literature in Greek seeking to package Jewish ideas in Hellenistic wrapping; and of Judaism's intense interaction with its host culture, producing in some quarters a hatred of Judaism, but in others an attraction to it (resulting in 'converts' and 'God-fearers').”
“It was the age of philo-Judaism as well as anti-Judaism, of conversion to Judaism as well as hatred of Judaism. Although the Jews sought to keep themselves separate and distinct, they also were eager to accept and retain gentile converts. Indeed, some of the anti-Jewish literature of this period is motivated...by a desire to discourage conversion to Judaism. The literature that evinces a dislike of Judaism paradoxically confirms Judaism's powerful attraction.”
“Conversion to Judaism entails three elements: belief in God (and denial of pagan gods), circumcision (and immersion/baptism), and integration into the Jewish community. Many gentiles, both men and women, converted to Judaism during the last centuries B.C.E. and the first two centuries C.E. Even more numerous, however, were those gentiles who accepted certain aspects of Judaism but did not convert to it...In Rome, many gentiles observed the Sabbath, the fasts, and the food laws; in Alexandria many gentiles observed the Jewish holidays; in Asia Minor many gentiles attended synagogue on the Sabbath. Although these gentiles observed any number of Jewish practices and venerated in one form or another the God of the Jews, they did not see themselves as Jews and were not seen by others as Jews. One Jewish practice they studiously avoided was circumcision...The book of Acts calls these people 'those who fear'...”
“Some Jews even engaged in 'missionary' work...Josephus narrates that in the middle of the first century C.E. the royal house of the kingdom of Adiabene became Jewish under the tutelage of itinerant Jewish merchants. Several writers from the city of Rome refer to the eagerness of the Jews to win gentiles to their side. There is no evidence for an organized Jewish mission to the gentiles, but individuals seem to have engaged in this activity on their own. Some scholars have suggested that much of the Jewish literature written in Greek had as its goal the propagation of Judaism among the gentiles, since the literature often emphasizes those elements of Judaism which would make it attractive to outsiders.”
This situation changed drastically after the destruction of the temple in 70 AD so that “the Jews, or at least the rabbis, were no longer eager to sell their spiritual wares to the gentiles. The motives of the mission to the gentiles are obscure, but whatever they may have been – whether to hasten the messianic deliverance, whether to save souls, whether to garner political support – the rabbis were not interested. They were not active messianists...Outside of rabbinic circles perhaps some Jews still actively attempted to interest gentiles, especially Christians, in Judaism, but the evidence for such activity is minimal.”
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