Friday, July 7, 2017

Rosenblum on Jewish Dietary Laws

Jordan D. Rosenblum, University of Wisconsin–Madison has published The Jewish Dietary Laws in the Ancient World with Cambridge University Press. From the publisher:
The Jewish Dietary Laws in the Ancient WorldIn 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.
TOC after the jump.
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.