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Decisive Meals: Table Politics in Biblical Literature
Decisive Meals discusses various aspects of meal traditions and their relevance in terms of boundaries between different groups in the context of first century Judaism and the early Christ-movement.
The contributors discuss different communities at different times and places - under the same focus of common meals: The post-exilic community in Judaea, the Pauline communities in Asia Minor, as well as in the Roman dominated city of Caesarea and the Hellenistic Jewish community and the emerging rabbinical community - each time a community is affected through the sharing of meals, but how exactly? What are similar effects - where are the differences? This sheds light on power dynamics between rich and poor, well fed and hungry, but also between men and women. These questions will clarify how detailed exegesis is influenced by hermeneutical patterns and ideas about food, boundaries and power dynamics.
The contributors discuss different communities at different times and places - under the same focus of common meals: The post-exilic community in Judaea, the Pauline communities in Asia Minor, as well as in the Roman dominated city of Caesarea and the Hellenistic Jewish community and the emerging rabbinical community - each time a community is affected through the sharing of meals, but how exactly? What are similar effects - where are the differences? This sheds light on power dynamics between rich and poor, well fed and hungry, but also between men and women. These questions will clarify how detailed exegesis is influenced by hermeneutical patterns and ideas about food, boundaries and power dynamics.
200 pages, Paperback
First published March 29, 2012
About the author
Nathan MacDonald
13 books2 followersNathan MacDonald is a Scottish biblical scholar who currently serves as reader in Hebrew Bible at Cambridge University and fellow and college lecturer in theology at St John's College, Cambridge. Much of his work has concentrated on the historical conception of monotheism in ancient Israel and the Hebrew Bible.
MacDonald studied theology and Hebrew at Cambridge before going to Durham to complete a doctorate on the book of Deuteronomy. He taught Old Testament at the University of St Andrews from 2001–12. In 2007 he spent 8 months as a Humboldt research fellow at the Ludwig-Maximillians-Universität München. In 2008 he was awarded a Sofja-Kovalevskaja Prize which enabled him to lead a research team on Early Jewish Monotheisms at Georg-August-Universität Göttingen from 2009–14. In 2013 he took up an appointment at the University of Cambridge.
MacDonald studied theology and Hebrew at Cambridge before going to Durham to complete a doctorate on the book of Deuteronomy. He taught Old Testament at the University of St Andrews from 2001–12. In 2007 he spent 8 months as a Humboldt research fellow at the Ludwig-Maximillians-Universität München. In 2008 he was awarded a Sofja-Kovalevskaja Prize which enabled him to lead a research team on Early Jewish Monotheisms at Georg-August-Universität Göttingen from 2009–14. In 2013 he took up an appointment at the University of Cambridge.
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