Corpus-Paul

["Liz Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jeff Peterson [mailto:peterson AT mail.ics.edu]
> Sent: Sunday, May 23, 1999 4:37 PM
> To: Corpus-paul
> Subject: RE: Galatians 2:16; 19-20
>
>
> At 2:52 PM -0400 5/21/99, Liz Fried wrote:
> >Btw, the issue of table fellowship with uncircumcised Christians
> is not the
> >issue of fellowship, with which there is no problem, but the
> issue of eating
> >non-kosher food.
>
> It's a bit overstated to say that eating with Gentiles would never cause
> observant Jews any problem, isn't it? E.g., Exod 12:43-49 bars foreigners
> and the uncircumised from the Passover, and while among Jews that may have
> been just one more way in which that night differed from all other nights
> of the year, the adherents of Jesus may have felt similarly about their
> more frequent sacral meal, especially as it seems to have been kept with
> Passover overtones (cf. 1 Cor 5:7-8).

If the table fellowship which Paul speaks of refers not to ordinary meals,
but to sharing the Eucharist, then perhaps you are right.  More generally, I
think the problem may be the chance that the Jew might either partake or
give the impression to others he is partaking of non-kosher food.

I merely wanted to point out that the problem is the food. Some people think
that Jews weren't allowed to associate with gentiles at all, which isn't the
case.

>
> There's a good consideration of this question by E. P. Sanders in the _The
> Conversation Continues_ (FS J. Louis Martyn), concluding that while there
> was no formal legal prohibition of table fellowship with gentiles, there
> were customs of segregation for meals.

Liz

>
> Jeff
>
> ------------------------------------
> Jeffrey Peterson
> Institute for Christian Studies
> Austin, Texas, USA
> ------------------------------------
>
>
>


Lisbeth S. Fried
Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies
New York University
51 Washington Sq. S.
New York, NY 10012
lqf9256 AT is3.nyu.edu
lizfried AT umich.edu