Food and Feasts in the Hebrew Bible in Its Ancient Near Eastern Context

An overview of food and drink in the Hebrew Bible, examining feasting, fasting, prohibition, and identity in ancient Israel.

Food and drink function as everyday practices and powerful symbols of worship, identity, and power across cultures. This Element surveys their representation in the Hebrew Bible, situating biblical foodways within ancient Israel and its wider cultural contexts, including feasting, fasting, prohibition, sexuality, and worship.Food, drink, and feasting represent both the stuff of everyday life and potent symbols for worship, identity, and power since time immemorial and throughout the globe. However, the ways they exercise influence take shape in accordance with the realities and imaginations of distinct cultural settings. This volume provides an overview of the ways that these elements and motifs appear in the texts of Hebrew Bible in relation to its larger cultural and historical context. After considering food as a broader anthropological object of study, it discusses the features of regular provision in ancient Israel. Specific investigations include feasts, prohibitions, fasting, along with connections with sexuality, worship, and identity in relation to the foodways of the broader region.