Rosenblum on Jewish Dietary Laws
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.
Introduction.
Reasonable creature
1. Hebrew Bible
2. Greek and Roman
sources
3. The Hellenistic
period: Jewish sources
4. The Hellenistic
period: the New Testament
5. The Tannaitic
period: Jewish sources
6. The
Rabbinic/Patristic period: Amoraic sources
7. The
Rabbinic/Patristic period: Christian sources
Conclusion. Food ethic
You can listen to a "New
Books in Jewish Studies" podcast about the book here.
Further information about
the book is available here.
