Meals In Early Judaism

This is the first book about the meals of Early Judaism. As such it breaks important new ground in establishing the basis for understanding the centrality of meals in this pivotal period of Judaism and providing a framework of historical patterns and influences.

Food often defines societies and even civilizations. Through particular commensality restrictions, groups form distinct identities. This identity is enacted daily, turning the biological need to eat into a culturally significant activity. In this book, Jordan D. Rosenblum explores how food regulations and practices helped to construct the identity of early rabbinic Judaism. Bringing together the scholarship of rabbinics with that of food studies, this volume first examines the historical reality of food production and consumption in Roman-era Palestine. It then explores how early rabbinic food regulations created a distinct Jewish, male, and rabbinic identity.

Back cover: How did the Qumran discoveries change New Testament scholarship? What are the main insights to be gained from the Qumran corpus with regard to the Jesus tradition, Paul's language and theology, the dualistic language and worldview of the Fourth Gospel, or the formation of the biblical Canon? The articles of this volume present the fruits of 25 years of scholarship on Qumran and the New Testament.

How do people come to attribute meaning to food? What cultural significance did food hold for early Jews and Christians? How did they use food and dietary laws to address major questions of identity and affiliation? In this classic work of anthropology, Prof. Gillian Feeley-Harnik examines these and other probing questions and shows how the religious symbolism of food provided a sense of community during Biblical times. This book has been praised as ¿At once a searching essay in the anthropology of food and an imaginative inquiry into the nature of religion and group identity . . . . Biblical scholars and serious students alike will finish this book enlightened and impressed.¿

One of the world's experts on classical Jewish history and literature offers an authoritative interpretation of the three major periods of Jewish history from the time of the Bible up to the present. What emerges is a captivating account of the life-forming nature of a dynamic religion in vastly differing historical contexts. Glossary, maps, illustrations, photographs.

How Judaism and food are intertwined Judaism is a religion that is enthusiastic about food. Jewish holidays are inevitably celebrated through eating particular foods, or around fasting and then eating particular foods. Through fasting, feasting, dining, and noshing, food infuses the rich traditions of Judaism into daily life. What do the complicated laws of kosher food mean to Jews? How does food in Jewish bellies shape the hearts and minds of Jews? What does the Jewish relationship with food teach us about Christianity, Islam, and religion itself? Can food shape the future of Judaism? Feasting and Fasting explores questions like these to offer an expansive look at how Judaism and food have been intertwined, both historically and today. It also grapples with the charged ethical debates about how food choices reflect competing Jewish values about community, animals, the natural world and the very meaning of being human. Encompassing historical, ethnographic, and theoretical viewpoints, and including contributions dedicated to the religious dimensions of foods including garlic, Crisco, peanut oil, and wine, the volume advances the state of both Jewish studies and religious studies scholarship on food. Bookended with a foreword by the Jewish historian Hasia Diner and an epilogue by the novelist and food activist Jonathan Safran Foer, Feasting and Fasting provides a resource for anyone who hungers to understand how food and religion intersect.

The Dictionary of Early Judaism is the first reference work devoted exclusively to Second Temple Judaism (fourth century b.c.e. through second century c.e.). The first section of this substantive and incredible work contains thirteen major essays that attempt to synthesize major aspects of Judaism in the period between Alexander and Hadrian. The second — and significantly longer — section offers 520 entries arranged alphabetically. Many of these entries have cross-references and all have select bibliographies. Equal attention is given to literary and nonliterary (i.e. archaeological and epigraphic) evidence and New Testament writings are included as evidence for Judaism in the first century c.e. Several entries also give pertinent information on the Hebrew Bible. The Dictionary of Early Judaism is intended to not only meet the needs of scholars and students — at which it succeeds admirably — but also to provide accessible information for the general reader. It is ecumenical and international in character, bringing together nearly 270 authors from as many as twenty countries and including Jews, Christians, and scholars of no religious affiliation.

Food is not simply a popularly imagined and well-known manifestation of Jewish culture. For Jews, food has been a means of exclusion, persecution, and assimilation by the larger society. Equally important, it has been an instrument of community, reparation, and renewal of identity. Food and Judaism presents a wide range of research on the history and interpretation of Jewish food practices and meanings. This volume covers a comprehensive array of topics, including American regional manifestations of food practices from little-known Jewish communities in cities such as contemporary Brighton Beach and Memphis; a social history of Jewish food in America by the renowned expert on Jewish food Joan Nathan; and an examination of how the American food industry appealed to early twentieth-century Jews. Several discussions of the religious meaning and personal advantages of following a vegetarian lifestyle are considered from biblical and historical perspectives. A rescued cookbook text from the Theresienstadt concentration camp is juxtaposed with an examination of how garlic in Jewish cooking served as an anti-Semitic caricature in early modern Europe. Historical perspectives are also provided on the use of separate dishes for milk and meat, the sanctification of Hasidic foods in Eastern Europe, and “mystical satiation” as found in the medieval Kabbalah.