Decisive Meals discusses various aspects of meal traditions and their relevance in terms of boundaries between different groups in the context of first century Judaism and the early Christ-movement. The contributors discuss different communities at different times and places - under the same focus of common meals: The post-exilic community in Judaea, the Pauline communities in Asia Minor, as well as in the Roman dominated city of Caesarea and the Hellenistic Jewish community and the emerging rabbinical community - each time a community is affected through the sharing of meals, but how exactly? What are similar effects - where are the differences? This sheds light on power dynamics between rich and poor, well fed and hungry, but also between men and women. These questions will clarify how detailed exegesis is influenced by hermeneutical patterns and ideas about food, boundaries and power dynamics.

Part I: Introduction - Kathy Ehrensperger, Nathan MacDonald, Luzia Sutter RehmannPart II: Decisive Boundaries1. Food and Identity in the Post-Exilic Period - Nathan MacDonald2. Decisive Dinners in Esther: a Paradigm for the Jewish People in Masoretic, Greek, and Rabbinic Tradition - Susanne Plietzsch3. To Eat or Not To Eat - Is this the Question ? Table Disputes in Corinth - Kathy Ehrensperger 4. Allies or Enemies? What happened in Caesarea? (Acts 10-11) - Luzia Sutter RehmannPart III: Learning at the Table5. Feasting in Deuteronomy - Peter Altmann6. Is John a Chameleon ? A Pluralistic Reading of John 6 - Esther KobelPart IV: The Dynamics of Power at Meals7. Meals as Acts of Resistance and Experimentation, Hal Taussig8. Gender and Power Dynamics at the Table - Ursula Rapp9. And they all ate and were satisfied': The Feeding Naratives in the Context of Roman and Hellenistic Festival Traditions, Angela Standhartinger10. The Identity Transforming Dimension of Invitations - Soham Al SuadiPart V: Conclusion - Ekkehard W. Stegemann