Corpus-Paul

["Eric Zuesse" <cettel AT shoreham.net>]

Re: Hyam Maccoby's:

> I regard your misunderstanding of
> Exodus 12:48 as an elementary error, which you should certainly eliminate
> from your projected book.  This verse prohibits sharing with the
> uncircumcised in a meal that took place once a year in Temple times:  the
> eating of the Passover sacrifice. After the destruction of the Temple in
70
> CE even this meal ceased to be eaten except in symbolic form. I would also
> point out that the late Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom took part
> regularly in State banquets where he was provided with kosher food.  The
> same practice is followed by his successor Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, and
> if you enquire you will find that Orthodox rabbis in the USA also attend
> State banquets if provided with kosher food.  There is nothing in Exodus
> that prohibits this.
>     As for Peter's withdrawal from the meal at Antioch, this may possibly
> have been because he discovered that the meal was Eucharistic in
character.

Thank you Hyam, for your observations, which are very informative about
post-70-CE Jewish practises-and-interpretations concerning Exodus 12:48.

However, I have some questions:

1) Why are you referring to what current rabbis do, when the issue here
concerns pre-70-CE Jewish practises and the ways in which the Jews of that
time interpreted Exodus 12:48?

2) How does Acts 11:3 fit in with your reading of Exodus 12:48? (This is the
most important question of all.)

3) Why are you referring to the Eucharist, since there is no evidence that
such a ceremony actually was practised anywhere in that early time?

4) Are you, in other words, projecting backwards, to that earlier era,
"facts" about that era that are actually *only* facts about the *later* eras
that you really do have evidence about?

Above all, please be so kind as to respond fully to #2. If it weren't for
Acts 11:3, I would take your comments quite seriously. I still think that
your comments might be relevant, but I would need to see a good answer to #2
in order to believe that to be the case.

Best,
Eric Zuesse
cettel AT shoreham.net