The Ammonites, still numerous in the south of Palestine in the second Christian century according to Justin Martyr ("Dialogus cum Tryphone," ch. cxix.), presented a serious problem to the Pharisaic scribes because many marriages with Ammonite and Moabite wives had taken place in the days of Nehemiah (Neh. xiii. 23). Still later, it is not improbable that when Judas Maccabeus had inflicted a crushing defeat upon the Ammonites, Jewish warriors took Ammonite women as wives, and their sons, sword in hand, claimed recognition as Jews notwithstanding the law (Deut. xxiii. 4) that "an Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord." Such a condition or a similar incident is reflected in the story told in the Talmud (Yeb. 76b, 77a; Ruth R. to ii. 5) that in the days of King Saul, the legitimacy of David's claim to royalty was disputed on account of his descent from Ruth, the Moabite; whereupon Ithra, the Israelite (II Sam. xvii. 25; compare I Chron. ii. 17), girt with his sword, strode like an Ishmaelite into the schoolhouse of Jesse, declaring upon the authority of Samuel, the prophet, and his bet din (court of justice), that the law excluding the Ammonite and Moabite from the Jewish congregation referred only to the men—who alone had sinned in not meeting Israel with bread and water—and not to the women. The story reflects actual conditions in pre-Talmudic times, conditions that led to the fixed rule stated in the Mishnah (Yeb. viii. 3): "Ammonite and Moabite men are excluded from the Jewish community for all time; their women are admissible."