Tag Archives: kosher

Food Offered to Idols

Posted on by
Reply
What is most frequently offered in religious rituals? Food! Religious food practices shape communities–what people do or do not offer to the gods and do or do not eat together identifies who we are as societies. What the Hebrews and the Egyptians ate before the Exodus helped distinguish the two communities. Read about food in ancient Egypt here.


So, concerning food that is offered to idols. We know that in the world an idol is nothing and there is no God but one…. But food will not put us in the presence of God. We are not inferior if we do not eat nor are we superior if we do eat. (1 Cor. 8:4, 8)

The parish in Corinth was torn apart by several disputes, one of which involved what was or was not legitimate to eat. It was meat that had been sacrificed to idols was the problem. The obvious question is, “Then why not just go buy meat from the kosher butcher?” No problem with idols then. Problem solved.

There was a large Jewish community in Corinth with plenty of kosher butchers. I could spend 20 minutes–or several hundred words–talking or writing about how the animosity between the Jewish and the Christian communities was ready to boil over at the least provocation. Christian patronage of kosher butchers was simply not possible. Tensions between the two communities were just too high.

The Christian neighbors that needed to experience God’s peace and harmony in Corinth were more than just two theological factions or two groups that wouldn’t eat together or speak to each other at coffee hour. The labels of “weak” and “strong” throughout the epistles are code words for ethnic identity and social status. The weak were the Jewish believers, the socially disadvantaged, those on the periphery of the culture, the people who could be expelled from town because the powers-that-be don’t want to be bothered with them—just as the Jews had been expelled from Rome several times already. (Many of the Jews in Corinth being, in fact, refugees who had settled there after the most recent expulsion from the great capital, only a few years before St. Paul came preaching there.)

The strong were the Gentile believers, the socially powerful and important, the people who would probably think that it might actually be a good idea to expel the “weak” from town if they got too troublesome or demanding.

St. Paul declared that he would give up meat forever—that he would fast as the Prophet Daniel had fasted in Babylon because there was no kosher meat available—to maintain the harmony of the Christian community. St. Paul said that anyone who joined him in that fast, joined him in maintaining that harmony would also be maintaining the harmony not only of the community but the harmony of their personal relationship with God. The fast established and maintained the love and reconciliation between members of the congregation. The fast—like the holy kiss—was an expression of love for both God and neighbor.

“We Have Knowledge!”

Posted on by
Reply
Traditional Easter baskets are full of eggs, meat, cheese, and holiday Easter bread. People bring their baskets to church to be blessed and share the food with their families, friends, and neighbors. Community identity is forged by what people do or do not eat together.


Concerning food that has been offered to idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs us up but love builds us up. If anyone thinks that he or she knows something, that one does not yet know as he or she ought to know. (1 Cor. 8:1-2)

Having spent all of chapter 7 talking about various aspects of marriage, St. Paul turns to the subject of food. He discusses various aspects of food for the next three chapters of this epistle. Food was important to the Christians of Corinth. Food is still important to Christians today.

The Corinthian parish had evidently written to St. Paul and asked him several questions about food. What to eat? Who to eat with? How to maintain their Christian identity in connection with food?

St. Paul begins by pointing out that although all the Corinthians claim to have knowledge, there is both “false knowledge” and “true knowledge.” The difference is that true knowledge goes together with love. False knowledge puffs up people, making them proud and arrogant. True knowledge, united with love, brings people into fellowship with each other. “We have knowledge!” was apparently the slogan or motto of the faction of the parish that was proud and arrogant. St. Paul warns these people that too often the people who claim to know more or know better are–in fact–the ones who know the least about the truth.

“Whatever knowledge we may have, it is still imperfect,” said St. John Chrysostom when he was preaching about this passage. “Where God is concerned, we cannot even say just how wrong our perception of him is.” He warns them, “More than anyone else, the arrogant injure themselves.”

Jezebel and the Nicolaitans

Posted on by
Reply
Israel’s most accursed queen carefully fixes a pink rose in her red locks in John Byam Liston Shaw’s “Jezebel” from 1896. Jezebel’s reputation as the most dangerous seductress in the Bible stems from her final appearance: her husband King Ahab is dead; her son has been murdered by Jehu. As Jehu’s chariot races toward the palace to kill Jezebel, she “painted her eyes with kohl and dressed her hair, and she looked out of the window” (2 Kings 9:30). Image: Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, Bournemouth, UK/Bridgeman Art Library.

“Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet.” (Apocalypse 2:20)

There is a woman in Thyatira who is a rival of St. John the Apostle. She teaches a group known as the Nicolaitans. She–and her followers–reject the authority of the St. John and disobey his teaching. He compares her to the Old Testament queen, Jezebel.

Jezebel appears in the Old Testament (2 Kings). She is the archenemy of the prophet Elijah. She teaches the people to commit adultery and practice sorcery. Tyconius–the first Biblical scholar to write a commentary on the Apocalypse–says that the figure of Jezebel in the Apocalypse “stands for the whole fallen order.” She is everything that stands in opposition to God. Always and everywhere, whatever opposes God is “Jezebel.” Tyconius also says that her followers, her “children,” can be seen as Goliath, who refused to admit the truth: that Israel’s God is the true God and that David was the one chosen by God to protect the people. Jezebel’s followers refuse to admit the truth: that the Apostle John is the authentic teacher chosen by God and serves as the protector of the Christian communities, as David was in the Old Testament.)

The woman in Thyatira that St. John was concerned was an “antinomian.” (That’s a fancy word that means “against the rules.” Antinomian groups always object to having to follow any rules.) She taught her followers that it didn’t matter what they ate or who they slept with or if they denied Christ when arrested by the Romans and were facing execution. (There was an antinomian faction among the Christians in Corinth, as well–people thought it didn’t matter what they ate or who they slept with.)

“Jezebel” in Thyatira told her followers to just blend in with mainstream society. St. John did not want the Christians to assimilate at all with the society in which they lived. “How much assimilation is acceptable?” was a difficult question that different Christian teachers answered in different ways in different places at different times.