Meals in the Early Christian World Social

In the past 20 years a new paradigm has emerged around the study of festive dining as a seminal social practice that functioned as the matrix for social formation of a variety of groups in the Greco-Roman world, including earliest Christianity and pre-Rabbinic Judaism. Most recently, an international team of scholars, organized as the Society of Biblical Literature Seminar on Meals in the Greco-Roman World, has developed this paradigm in a series of groundbreaking studies. This book provides a collection of those studies divided into three categories of investigation: 1) The Typology and Context of the Greco-Roman Banquet, 2) Who Was at the Greco-Roman Banquets, 3) The Culture of Reclining. These studies extend the scope of the influence of the meals and begin to detail their effects on a variety of Greco-Roman populations. Together they establish festive meals as an essential lens into social formation in the Greco-Roman world.

Hal Taussig is Visiting Professor of New Testament at Union Theological Seminary in New York and Professor of Early Christianity at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. Among his 11 books are In the Beginning Was the Meal: Social Experimentation and Early Christian Identity.

Dennis E. Smith is LaDonna Kramer Meinders Professor of New Testament at Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and author of From Symposium to Eucharist: The Banquet in the Early Christian World.

Table of ContentsList of ContributorsAbbreviationsIntroduction, by Hal E. Taussig Part One: The Typology of the Greco-Roman BanquetChapter One: A Typology of the Community Meal, by Matthias KlinghardtChapter Two: The Greco-Roman Banquet as a Social Institution, by Dennis E. Smith Part Two: The Archeology of the BanquetChapter Three: What Kinds of Meals Did Julia Felix Have? A Case Study of the Archaeology of the Banquet, by Carolyn Osiek Part Three: Who Was at the Greco-Roman Banquets?Chapter Four: Social and Political Characteristics of Greco-Roman Association Meals, by Richard S. Ascough Chapter Five: Banqueting Values in the Associations: Rhetoric and Reality, by Philip A. Harland Chapter Six: Women in Early Christian Meal Gatherings: Discourse and Reality, by Angela Standhartinger Chapter Seven: Remembering and Remembered Women in Greco-Roman Meals, by Ellen Bradshaw AitkenChapter Eight: Present and Absent: Women at Greco-Roman Wedding Meals, by Susan MarksChapter Nine: Evidence for Slaves at the Table in the Ancient Mediterranean: From Traditional Rural Festivals to Urban Associations, by Nancy A. EvansChapter Ten: The Sex Trade and Slavery at Meals, by Carly Daniel-HughesChapter Eleven: The Saturnalia in Greco-Roman Culture, by Angela Standhartinger Chapter Twelve: Early Christian Meals and Slavery, by Lillian I. Larsen Chapter Thirteen: Slaves at Greco-Roman Banquets: A Response, by Jennifer A. GlancyPart Four: The Culture of Reclining: Corporeality, Sexuality, IntimacyChapter Fourteen: Bodies in Motion, Bodies at Rest: Status, Corporeality, and the Negotiation of Power at Ancient Meals, by Carly Daniel-HughesChapter Fifteen: Temptations of the Table: Christians Respond to Reclining Culture, by Jennifer A. GlancyChapter Sixteen: A Valentinian Response to the Culture of Reclining, by Ellen Bradshaw AitkenChapter Seventeen: Monastic Meals: Resisting a Reclining Culture?, by Lillian I. Larsen Chapter Eighteen: Inclined to Decline Reclining? Women, Corporeality, and Dining Posture in Early Rabbinic Literature, Jordan D. Rosenblum Bibliography of Works CitedIndex of Ancient Sources

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Meals in the Early Christian World Social Formation, Experimentation, and Conflict at the Table

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