Speaker
Description
I examine how Jewish dietary laws (kashrut) became a focal point of religious and cultural crisis during the formative centuries of Christianity. Between the 1st and 4th centuries, controversies over food purity, shared meals, and commensality reflected a deeper theological tension between Jewish followers of Jesus and Gentile converts. The observance or rejection of Mosaic dietary rules was not merely a question of ritual discipline but a decisive element in shaping identity, belonging, and continuity with the covenantal tradition of Israel.
This research draws on key textual sources such as the Didache (6:3), Ignatius of Antioch (Magn. 8), the Epistle of Barnabas (10), and rabbinic discussions in the Mishnah (Avodah Zarah 2:3; Hullin 1:1). These texts reveal how food and purity regulations became a theological battleground during one of the earliest crises of Christian self-definition — what may be called the “crisis of kashrut.”
By applying a historical-comparative and philological approach, I aim to demonstrate how dietary boundaries functioned as both symbols and instruments of religious transformation. Food served as a material language through which early Christians articulated difference, negotiated their relationship to Jewish law, and gradually developed a new sense of sacred identity. This study situates the crisis of kashrut within the broader dynamics of cultural exchange and religious differentiation in Late Antiquity, offering insight into how acts as ordinary as eating could become central to the construction of new theological worlds.
| Keywords | Kashrut, Early Christianity, identity crisis, purity, Judeo-Christian relations, religious boundaries |
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| rodionke@gmail.com |