Page | 1 Ten Theses concerning Meals and Early Judaism By Jonathan Brumberg-Kraus, Susan Marks, and Jordan D. Rosenblum The three of us began to study meals because we understood that we could not address our questions concerning Early Judaism without such a perspective. This hunch occurred on an intuitive level because the study of Jewish meals as subdiscipline of Biblical Studies, Jewish Studies, or the emergent field of Food Studies barely existed. That is not to say scholarly attention to ancient Jewish meals was lacking. 1 Rather it tended to be “silo-ed” in the disciplinary focuses of Biblical, Early Christianity, and Judaic Studies scholars interested in the origins of the Eucharist, the Last Supper, or the Passover seder in a much less interdisciplinary age. The question of whether these iconic meals were more “Jewish” or “Greek” or an innovation of Jesus often dominated the discussion. We learned much from this scholarship, but also felt its limits, wishing to employ more theory, and to engage in a more interdisciplinary conversation. Thus the opportunity of creating these Ten Theses allowed us to look back at what research we had depended upon in our studies, what we had discovered that had not been there when we started, and to look forward towards new possibilities. The Theses describe our reading strategies, the perspectives of three different scholars who have been involved with this dialog – one from very early (JBK), one a little more recently (SM), and one more 1 Brumberg-Kraus, Jonathan. “Meals as Midrash: A Survey of Ancient Meals in Jewish Studies Scholarship.” In Food and Judaism, 15:317. Studies in Jewish Civilization. Omaha, NE; Lincoln, NE: Creighton University Press; Distributed by the University of Nebraska Press, 2005, originally presented as paper for the SBL Seminar on Meals in the Greco-Roam World” in 2002.