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The Jewish Dietary Laws in the Ancient World

Jordan D Rosenblum author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Cambridge University Press

Published:21st Mar '19

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The Jewish Dietary Laws in the Ancient World cover

What did ancient Jews, Christians, Greeks, and Romans think about how and why Jews ate the way they did? Jordan D. Rosenblum examines this question.

Jordan D. Rosenblum explores how cultures critique and defend their religious food practices, focussing on how ancient Jews defended the kosher laws and how ancient Greeks, Romans, and early Christians critiqued these practices. Rooted in ancient biblical interpretation, this study explores the content, context, and rhetoric of ancient debates about food ethics.In The Jewish Dietary Laws in the Ancient World Jordan D. Rosenblum explores how cultures critique and defend their religious food practices. In particular he focuses on how ancient Jews defended the kosher laws, or kashrut, and how ancient Greeks, Romans, and early Christians critiqued these practices. As the kosher laws are first encountered in the Hebrew Bible, this study is rooted in ancient biblical interpretation. It explores how commentators in antiquity understood, applied, altered, innovated upon, and contemporized biblical dietary regulations. He shows that these differing interpretations do not exist within a vacuum; rather, they are informed by a variety of motives, including theological, moral, political, social, and financial considerations. In analyzing these ancient conversations about culture and cuisine, he dissects three rhetorical strategies deployed when justifying various interpretations of ancient Jewish dietary regulations: reason, revelation, and allegory. Finally, Rosenblum reflects upon wider, contemporary debates about food ethics.

'I would not hesitate to recommend [this book] for introductory courses in Jewish studies. It would probably also prove valuable in the education of lay Jewish audiences, whose hunger for knowledge about Jewish food culture often seems insatiable.' Joshua Garroway, H-Net Reviews

ISBN: 9781107462281

Dimensions: 230mm x 153mm x 14mm

Weight: 360g

207 pages