Proselyte Proselyte The biblical term "proselyte" is an anglicization of the Koine Greek term προσήλυτος ("proselytos"), as used in the Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) for "stranger", i.e. a "newcomer to Israel"; a "sojourner in the land", and in the Greek New Testament for a first-century convert to Judaism, generally from Ancient Greek religion. It is a translation of the Biblical Hebrew phrase גר תושב ("ger toshav"). "Proselyte" also has the more general meaning in English of a new convert to any particular religion or doctrine. The Law of Moses made specific regulations regarding the admission into Israel's community of such as
What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? general, but rather how religion deals with slavery, specifically in America. He is outraged by the lack of responsibility many sects have taken around the nation. He says that, if anything, many churches actually stand behind slavery and support it. Douglass equates this to being worse than many other things that are banned, in particular, books and plays that are banned for infidelity. They convert the very name of religion into an engine of tyranny and barbarous cruelty, and serve to confirm more infidels, in this age, than all the infidel writings of Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and Bolingbroke put together