A later reference account recounts a monk’s journey from a monastery on סיני SINAI to טבריה TEVERIYA in ארץ ישראל EREẒ YISRAʾEL. There he underwent circumcision, adopted יהדות YAHADUT and received the name אברהם AVRAHAM. The account places the conversion around 615 CE. It preserves a movement toward the community of יהודים YEHUDIM, alongside histories of pressure to abandon it. 1

How close is the account to the event?

The reference entry cites Bibliotheca Patrum, Leiden edition, volume 12, page 265, and a later history. Those underlying passages have not been independently collated here. The story reaches this article through a later scholarly summary; its approximate year is not a surviving conversion record. 2

The entry gives no death date and only a broad statement about birth near the end of the sixth century. Neither an exact birthday nor a death anniversary follows from that description. The conversion remains the biographical anchor, with no assigned עברית IVRIT calendar date. 3

Guided reflections

  • How does this conversion account change a history focused only on departures from יהדות YAHADUT?
  • What could the cited earlier witness establish that the later summary cannot?

Footnotes

  1. Ginzberg, Abraham the Monk, Biographical paragraph. ↩
  2. Ginzberg, Abraham the Monk, Bibliography. ↩
  3. Ginzberg, Abraham the Monk, Opening paragraph and complete entry. ↩

Works cited

  1. Ginzberg, Louis. Abraham the Monk. Jewish Encyclopedia, 1:115. Hosted article text checked, not its cited Bibliotheca Patrum witness. https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/527-abraham-the-monk Accessed October 27, 2026.