Decisive Meals

An examination of power dynamics in the context of community meals with specific reference to the formation of identity in the early Christ-Movement.

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 postexilic 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.