In the case of Ruth scripture doesn't teach if she went through the likes of a Beit Din. All we know from scripture is scripture still describes Ruth as a Moabite even though she was a widow to a Jewish husband and her mother in law was Jewish. And we know from scripture that in the Torah it says 'put away the gentile wives' in context it means because they corrupted the husbands by idol worship etc but scripture doesn't say to put away those that are believers in the God of Israel, just like the Peter/Cornelius incident.
.
Adoption does make a world of difference on the issue, I think.
This happened often in the cultures surrounding the Hebrews during Jacob's day. With the tribe of Simeon, this seemed to play out since they were absored into the tribe of Judah/adopted at one point---and yet they also got adopted into other tribes as well. To give more thoughts, on what occurred with Simeon's fate, there was a book I read earlier last year (recommended by another Messianic Jew) entitled "Arabs in the Shadow of Israel: The Unfolding of God's Prophetic Plan for Ishmael's Line" by Dr.Tony Maalouf, it was very insightful studying up on the bloodlines that the scriptures note---and showing how many of them blended (such as Ishmael's line and Easu's as well, for example) and why they often did so through the act of adopting members into the tribe....and making them one of the people just as it often occurred in Middle-Eastern/African culture. More on what he said on that can be seen here in #
8 and
here, including discussing where other tribes from the Israelite culture adopted others/blended for the sake of survival (as what occurred with the line of Simeon) - and more elsewhere, as shared on Caleb (from Easu's line and later adopted into Judah), who chose to help him and stand out as
Numbers 32:11-13 notes (more discussed here in #
70 ,
#11 , #23 and#24.#54 #59 ).
Historically and today (because of Adoption), Joseph's sons were considered Hebrew even though they were known to have Egyptian ancestry--and would NOT have been included as being Jewish unless they were adopted by the Hebrews of their day (just as it was with multiple others since then till today). Genesis makes plain that it was only after Jacob adopted them/blessed them as His own that they were considered to have the full rights as others did in the tribes---and this is consistent with the many in scripture who had Jewish blood in them and yet were not considered apart of the people due to not being adopted into the tribes of Israel for many various factors.
In regard to Joseph's sons, m
ore shared here as it concerns the extensive ways Joseph lived in sync with Egyptian culture even though he also honored his Hebrew roots (i.e. shaving his beard, dressing Egyptian, taking on an Egyptian name, marrying an Egyptian wife, etc). In light of how Ephraim/Manasseah were adopted by Jacob into the 12 tribes (despite their being Egyptian via their mother/how they grew up)--and with Ephraim and Manasseh, though physically half-Israelites, Gentiles in the truest sense:
The subject of the blessing is very significant when it comes to studying the issue of passing on callings/responsibilities to others and (as was common in that culture) ADopting others into a tribe. There was nothing wrong with blessing Gentiles. For example, Jacob blessed the Pharaoh of Egypt, a rank pagan. In Genesis 47:7-10, the text declares, "and Jacob blessed Pharaoh…"
The passing of blessings from the hands of a godly man was for God himself to bless that person, individually. In other words when a righteous person passed a blessing to another person, God honored it without question. Nowhere in the significance of laying hands on another and speaking blessings be seen as clearly as it is seen in Genesis when Jacob blessed Ephraim and Manasseh, the two
half-Egyptian (Gentile) sons of Joseph in
Genesis 48:19-21 /
Genesis 48 .
Genesis 48:3
Jacob said to Joseph, “God Almighty[a] appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan, and there he blessed me 4 and said to me, ‘I am going to make you fruitful and increase your numbers. I will make you a community of peoples, and I will give this land as an everlasting possession to your descendants after you.’
5 “Now then, your two sons born to you in Egypt before I came to you here will be reckoned as mine; Ephraim and Manasseh will be mine, just as Reuben and Simeon are mine. 6 Any children born to you after them will be yours; in the territory they inherit they will be reckoned under the names of their brothers. 7 As I was returning from Paddan,[b] to my sorrow Rachel died in the land of Canaan while we were still on the way, a little distance from Ephrath. So I buried her there beside the road to Ephrath” (that is, Bethlehem).
With Ephraim/Manasseh (
Genesis 41:51-53 ,
Genesis 46:19-21/
Genesis 46,
Genesis 50:22-24 /
Genesis 50,
Numbers 1:9-11 /
Numbers 1,
Deuteronomy 33:16-18 /
Deuteronomy 33,
Joshua 14:3-5/
Joshua 14 ,
Joshua 16 , etc )Just before Jacob died, Joseph brought Ephraim and Manasseh to Jacob, and the two boys knelt before their grandfather. Jacob shocked everyone in the room when he crossed his hands putting his left hand on the head of Manasseh, the eldest son, and his right hand on the head of Ephraim, the younger son. It was the reverse order.
The blessing of Jacob that he gave his grand-children (especially Ephraim) consisted of the five most crucial parts of God's covenant with Israel. First, Jacob asked God to be Lord over Ephraim and Manasseh. Second, Jacob asked God to redeem Ephraim and Manasseh through the messenger of redemption. Third, Jacob gave to Ephraim and Manasseh his own name; that is, he adopted them. Fourth, Jacob gave the name of his forefathers to the boys further indicating their adoption as true sons of Israel. Fifth, Jacob asked God to make Ephraim and Manasseh into a great multitude of people. Clearly, Jacob's blessing of Ephraim and Manasseh by laying his hands upon their heads was the same as the blessings he had bestowed upon his natural born sons earlier.
Jacob's blessing, including the adoption of Ephraim and Manasseh as his own sons, replacing the former Egyptian heritage of these two young men with a new Hebrew heritage. Thus, Ephraim and Manasseh were drafted into Jacob's family. Like Paul noted in Romans 11, they became natural branches, full brothers with the other sons of Israel. This gave Ephraim and Manasseh the same responsibilities and rewards that the natural-born sons already had. The Egyptian identity of Ephraim and Manasseh remained only in the sense of ethnicity/cultural background and origins--but outside of that, they were now considered to be "Hebrews" and they they gained the identity of true Israelites...becoming partakers of the same covenants as the other sons of Israel, and subject to the same commandments and responsibilities as Jacob's natural born sons.
As soon as Jacob's hands touched their heads, and the words of blessings left his mouth, Ephraim and Manasseh became equal partakers of the root and the fatness of the natural olive tree that the apostle Paul wrote about in
Romans 11:16-18 /
Romans 11 :
"If some of the branches be broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them, to partake of the root and fatness of the olive tree."
I'd go with the traditional interpretation that at best Joshua was mixed since the children of Joseph were still considered Hebrews....abeit mixed/biracial Hebrews with dual heritage (i.e. aspects of Gentile culture apart of their background as well as the Hebraic)...
similar to those who are Egyptian Jews. ( as discussed
here and here in #
12 ). Nun was apart of the tribe from Joseph's children (
Exodus 33:10-12,
Numbers 11:27-29 ,
Numbers 13:15-17 ,
Numbers 14:29-31 ,
Numbers 26:64-65 ,
Numbers 27:17-19 ,
Numbers 32:11-13 , etc).
From what other Jewish people have often noted, identifying with other people as apart of their ancestry isn't required in order to identify with Jewishness. Someone who's born with a Sephardic Jewish mother and a Mexican father doesn't say that they have to deny being Mexican in order to accept being Jewish.....although where their Mexican heritage calls them to do things that the Jewish religion would not allow, in order to live out the Jewish heritage, the Mexican side would have to lose.