Prior to this ground-breaking book, almost everyone has acknowledged the key role meals played in early Judaism. Nevertheless, only contemporary rabbinical studies, early Christian liturgical scholarship, and a few classicists wrote about this topic, resulting in a very fragmented view of meals and their formative role in early Judaism.
With its keen analysis of the basic influences and the historical form of early Jewish meals, Meals in Early Judaism lays the groundwork for more detailed portraits of specific communal meal celebrations in the early centuries of the Common Era. Capitalizing on their ten-year collaborative research project within the Society of Biblical Literature, scholars Susan Marks, Jonathan Brumberg-Kraus, and Jordan Rosenblum provide and elaborate ten basic theses on these meals.
Their further work offers intense examination of early rabbinic meal practices and the meals of the Jewish Therapeutae community in first century Egypt. In keeping with the book's application of these theses to specific settings, Professor Judith Hauptman assesses this new perspective and foundation for further study of rabbinic meals.
Taussig, McGowan, Klinghardt and Smith contribute further to an exploration of Philo's portrait of the Therapeutae and beyond. Review: Meals in Early Judaism offers a much needed evaluation of the early Jewish meal, a social and religious institution whose importance in late antique Judaism it successfully demonstrates.
The book's contribution lies not only in its thorough investigation of the meal's ritual structures and literary traditions, but also in the unique theoretical framework it develops and the broad methodological approach it applies. - Gil P. Klein, Assistant Professor, Theological Studies, Loyola Marymount University, USA This collection of studies is an important set of investigations into the ways in which Jewish ritual meals resembled and were built on Hellenistic and Roman models, and how they developed their own distinctive characteristics.
No claim is made to giving a complete history, which would not be possible, but rather the contributors examine the many aspects of ritual dining: food, speech, dance, and other practices. This is an impressive contribution to a topic of continuing interest. - Carolyn Osiek, Professor Emerita, Brite Divinity School, USA
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