Dietary Laws in Medieval Christian-Jewish Polemics: A Survey (original) (raw)
Related papers
To Eat or Not to Eat: Studies on the Biblical Dietary Prohibitions
2024
Anna Angelini and Peter Altmann address pivotal issues on the biblical dietary prohibitions and their significance as practices and texts through philological, zooarchaeological, iconographic, and comparative ancient Near Eastern and Greco-Roman lenses. They explore theoretical frameworks adopted in modern interpretation, possible origins in relation to ancient Israelite religion and society, and location in relation to Priestly terminology and Deuteronomic tradition. The authors expand the arc of investigation to the Second Temple reception of the prohibitions in both the Dead Sea Scrolls and Greco-Roman discourses from the first centuries CE. With their foundational studies, they provide an approach to the dietary prohibitions, opening the way for reconstructing their path of development into their present-day contexts. Table of contents: Preface 1. The Dietary Laws of Lev 11 and Deut 14: Introducing Their Ancient and Scholarly Contexts (Peter Altmann and Anna Angelini) 1. A Methodological View of the History of Scholarship 2. Human-Animal Relationships in Ancient Israel 3. The Hebrew Bible Context of Food and Drink Restrictions 4. Biblical Treatments of Meat Prohibitions 5. Questions for this Volume 6. Widening Horizons 2. Framing the Questions: Some Theoretical Frameworks for the Biblical Dietary Prohibitions (Peter Altmann) 1. Anthropological Terminology 2. Psychological Explanations 3. Materialist Explanations 4. Douglas and Other Structuralist Approaches to »Dirt« as Structural Anomaly 5. Synthesis 3. Traditions and Texts: The »Origins« of the Dietary Prohibitions of Lev 11 and Deut 14 (Peter Altmann) 1. Composition-Critical Concerns 2. Continuum: From »Sanctuary Ritual« to »Mundane Custom« 3. Mundane Customary Origins? 4. Sanctuary Ritual Origins? 5. The Influence of Household or Local Religion? 6. Ritual Practice and Ritual Text 7. Conclusions and a Possible Reconstruction 4. A Deeper Look at Deut 14:4-20 in the Context of Deuteronomy (Peter Altmann) 1. The Language of Deut 14:1-2, 3, 21 and 4-20 2. Abomination and Impurity in Deut 14 and Elsewhere in Deuteronomy 3. Mourning Rituals in 14:1-2 and their Link to vv. 3, 4-20 4. »You Are Children, Belonging to Yhwh Your God« 5. A Holy People and Treasured Nation: Deut 7:6; 14:2, 21; 26:18 6. The Relationship between Deut 14 and 26:12-15, 16-19 7. The Stipulations of Deut 14:21 in the context of Deut 14 8. Eating in Deut 14:1-21 in the Context of Deuteronomy 13 and 14:22-27 9. Summary 5. The Terms שׁקץ Šeqeṣ and טמא Ṭame' in Lev 11:2-23 and Deut 14:2-20: Overlapping or Separate Categories? (Peter Altmann) 1. The Usage of שׁקץ and טמא in the Rest of the Hebrew Bible and Their Relevance for Lev 11/Deut 14 2. The Usage of טמא 3. The Terms in Deut 14 and Lev 11 4. Conclusion 6. Aquatic Creatures in the Dietary Laws: What the Biblical and Ancient Eastern Contexts Contribute to Understanding Their Categorization (Peter Altmann) 1. Water Creatures from Iconography and Texts of Surrounding Regions 2. Water Creatures in Levantine Zooarchaeology and Evidence of Consumption in Biblical Texts 3. Sea Creatures in the Bible 4. Discussion of the Texts of Lev 11:9-12 and Deut 14:9-10 5. Reasons for the Prohibition? 6. Conclusions 7. A Table for Fortune: Abominable Food and Forbidden Cults in Isaiah 65-66 (Anna Angelini) 1. Introduction: Dietary Laws outside the Pentateuch and Isa 65-66 2. The References to Food in the Structure of Isa 65-66 3. Abominable Cults between Imagery and Practice 4. The Pig: A Marker for Impurity 5. The Greek Text: Sacrificing to Demons 6. Summary and Conclusions 8. Dietary Laws in the Second Temple Period: The Evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls (Anna Angelini) 1. Introduction: Food in Dead Sea Scrolls and Biblical Law 2. Methodological Remarks 3. Main Tendencies in the Dead Sea Scroll Materials Related to Food Laws 4. Animals and the Purity of the Temple 5. Summary and Conclusions: Food Laws between Discourse and Practice 9. Looking from the Outside: The Greco-Roman Discourse on the Jewish Food Prohibitions in the First and Second Centuries CE (Anna Angelini) 1. Introduction: The Origins of the Greek and Roman Traditions about Food Prohibitions 2. The Greek and Latin Witnesses on Jewish Food Prohibitions in the First Century CE 3. The Polemic Use of Jewish Dietary Prohibitions in Juvenal and Tacitus 4. Plutarch and The Philosophical Tradition 5. Conclusions Appendix: Plutarch's Moralia, Table Talk IV, Question 5 (669 e-671c) 10. »Thinking« and »Performing« Dietary Prohibitions: Why Should One Keep Them? One Meaning or Many? (Peter Altmann) 1. Introduction 2. (Envisioned) Practice and Significance and the Myth of the Singular Explanation 3. Knowing How and When vs. Knowing Why
DavarLogos, 2019
Early Christianity attitude to biblical dietary laws is a puzzling issue. On one hand, they considered as binding the dietary laws in Leviticus 17,10-14 and then reissued in the apostolic decree. On the other hand, they considered as non-binding the dietary laws of Leviticus 11. Why did they reject the dietary laws of Leviticus 11? This article contends that the rejection of these laws was driven by the desire to distance Christianity from Judaism and not by theological reasons. This is evident in the study of the reception history of Leviticus 11 dietary laws, along with the reception history of common used text to support the non-validity of Leviticus 11 dietary laws and the role played by the food as an identity marker. When these approaches are taken together, a picture appears: the rejection of Leviticus 11 dietary laws is based on the Jewishness of these laws not the theology behind them.
Diet is a subject of taboo in many religions, and both Judaism and Islam have strict laws about lawful and prohibited foods. In Judaism, what food is lawful, and what food can be eaten with what, and how food is prepared all come under the label of Kosher cuisine, whilst Islamic rules of diet are known as halal cuisine. Christianity, however, has largely dispensed with any limitations on what can be eaten, and how it is cooked, largely because the churches teach that the law of Jesus is through the heart and spirit; the intention rather than following rote legal niceties. This book critically examines the Christian reasons for abandoning God's dietary Law, and calls the God fearing back to not only observing it, but embracing the true religion that God has sent to man down the ages of mankind. The defence that Christians often erect in order to justify their non-observance of the Torah Laws, especially concerning what they eat, is three pronged, centring around, in the Gospels, Matthew Chapter 15 and Mark Chapter 7. They also cite Acts 10 from Luke's scripture, and various passages from Galatians and Romans in which Paul argues the abrogation of Mosaic Law. These evidences I will, God willing, present and examine first. I will then discuss dietary law using Islamic proofs. Finally, I will present evidence that Jesus (Peace be upon him) came not to abrogate, but confirm, the Mosaic Law to the Jews, and examine the claim that Jesus (Peace be upon him) was to allow the people to distance themselves from that which had been added to it by the priesthood, and his mission was, as is written in the Quran: “to attest the Law which was before me, and to make lawful to you part of what was (before) forbidden to you...” [Quran, 6:50] and thus that Christians are obliged, according to their scriptures, and now according to ours, to follow the Monotheistic Laws of God that are enshrined in the Quran, which confirms what is in the Gospel and Torah.
HTR, 2024
Toward the end of the Noahide commandment pericope in the Talmud (b. Sanh. 56-60), we find a sugya (pericope) featuring the prohibition on meat consumption imposed on Adam and its permission to the Noahides. This unique sugya pieces together halakic and haggadic sources that reinterpret the Garden of Eden story and address the complex relationship between humans and animals. This article will examine this sugya, focusing on its closing story, which describes a pietist who merits a gift of heavenly flesh. I will demonstrate that the story has many levels of meaning, grounded in both its immediate and wider contexts, and claim that it conceals a polemic with a similar Christian story (Acts 10), which describes impure meat that descends from the sky, undermining the cultural and halakic divisions between Jews and non-Jews. The comparison between the two stories reveals opposing worldviews with regard to law and lawlessness, utopia and redemption.
Dietary Laws: Is there evidence for modern validity?
The centrality of God's sovereignty over what human beings may or may not eat is emphasized after creation, in the dietary laws of Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14. According to those laws, there are certain animals that we should consider “clean” for consumption, and others “unclean”. During centuries the Israelites kept these laws and for some orthodox Jews and Christian denominations they continue to be obligatory until this day. The question of its validity has not been raised in such a serious manner in Christian context to deserve much attention, however, in recent years a handful of scholars have noticed the necessity of a more detailed study of the matter. In this paper, the general questions to be taken under scrutiny are (1) how are we to “choose” which Old Testament laws are valid for the whole Christian church and (2) do the dietary laws fit into that category; more specifically the issues will be (3) is there arbitrariness in the validity of dietary laws and (4) does the New Testament abrogate the obedience of these laws.
Food Norms in the Conflict of the Early Church
2024
This contribution examines food norms and the practice of sharing meals with Gentiles in the ideological conflict of the early Church narrated in the Letter to the Galatians. It deals with the controversy between the radical Jews present in the community of James the Just, the brother of Jesus (such as Cerinthus according to Epiphanius) and, on the other hand, Paul’s view. For him, the norms of food purity are overcome because it is the Mosaic Law itself that is overcome, while the Letter of James expresses a completely different opinion. So the intent of this speech is to analyze this conflict in the light of the cultural, socio-political and religious context. In the Jewish groups of the time, and then in the Judeo-Christian ones, in fact, the norms of food purity played a significant role (as among the Essenes and in the Dead Sea Scrolls). In some of these groups even more radical food habits were practiced, such as abstention from alcoholic beverages (as for James) and vegetarianism (as for James again, the Nasareans, the Dositheans, Elxai the Ossaean, and the Ebionites, who considered Jesus and John the Baptist themselves as vegetarians). Even with regard to vegetarianism, the position expressed by Paul in the Letter to the Romans appears to be opposite to that of these groups and again to that of James.
Old Testament dietary laws in contemporary African Christian practice
Verbum et Ecclesia
Old Testament dietary laws consist of the rules that God gave to the Israelites pertaining to what may be eaten and what should not be eaten. In the Old Testament, the animals that may be consumed are referred to as ‘clean’, whereas those which should not be consumed are referred to as ‘unclean’. The prohibitions on food were mainly aimed at preserving the identity of the people of Israel. This article analysed the dietary laws recorded in Leviticus chapters 11 and 17. It investigated the observance of the Old Testament dietary laws among contemporary African Christians, with specific reference to Nigerian Christians. The findings of this study revealed that in the contemporary Nigerian Christian practice, some Christians’ compliance or noncompliance to the food laws is faith-based, while for others it is not. Hence, some Christians obey the Old Testament food regulations on the premise of their loyalty to God, while some do not observe the dietary laws because they do not regard no...
Social historians of the Middle Ages can gain a richer understanding of interreligious relations by examining the ways Christians, Muslims, and Jews interacted over food. Legal and non-legal sources from the eleventh through sixteenth centuries shed light on commercial, social, and cultural exchanges across faith communities, both in the market and at meals. These texts convey a broad spectrum of attitudes toward the food and food ways of religious foreigners, ideas whose variation reflects the contested and shifting status of minorities within Catholic Europe.