ABSTRACT
A long prayer uttered in connection with a gentile's conversion to Judaism appears in Joseph and Aseneth, a Hellenistic Jewish romance written in Greek in the first century bce or ce and now often included among the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. The fictional story recounts the conversion of the gentile girl Aseneth to the God of Israel, her marriage to the patriarch Joseph (a marriage mentioned only in passing in Genesis 41:45, 50–2; 46:20), and the conflicts surrounding that conversion and marriage. Having at first arrogantly spurned her father's suggestion that she be given to Joseph in marriage, Aseneth falls madly in love with Joseph immediately upon seeing him, and penitently turns to his God. Secluding herself in her ornate penthouse, she repudiates her idols, renounces all her valuables, and fasts and repents in sackloth and ashes for seven days. Following two soliloquies in which she laments her wretched situation and musters the courage to address the true God, she offers the prayer translated below (Joseph and Aseneth 12–13). An angelic visitor then arrives to authenticate Aseneth's conversion, and the story continues with her marriage to Joseph and the resulting conflicts.
