T&T Clark Decisive Meals: Table Politics in Biblical Literature: 449 (The Library of New Testament Studies)

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. Review Decisive Meals is definitely a valuable and well written book. It deals with an interesting and important biblical topic ... and it is definitely worth recommending both to the scholars and to the students interested in the issue. -- Marcin Kowalski, Institute of Biblical Studies, Poland ― The Biblical Annals About the Author Nathan MacDonald is Reader in the Interpretation of the Old Testament in the University of Cambridge, UK.Dr. Kathy Ehrensperger is Reader in New Testament Studies, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, UK.Luzia Sutter Rehmann is Professor of New Testament at the University of Basel, Switzerland.