Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE MISSION OF JESUS §14.8
It is this significance of the meal table which explains why table-fellowship was
such a sensitive issue at the time of Jesus and thereafter. To eat with another was
a mark of acceptance of that other. To eat regularly with another was to forge and
express a special bond of fellowship. By the same token, to refuse tablefellowship
was to deny the acceptability of the other. Table-fellowship functioned
as a social boundary, indicating both who was inside the boundary and
who was outside. 268 This significance is particularly clear in the cases of two of
the principal sects/brotherhoods at the time of Jesus — the Pharisees and
Essenes.
The importance of table-fellowship for the Pharisees is one of the issues
between Neusner and Sanders referred to in §9.3a above. Neusner observed early
on how many of the pre-70 rabbinic traditions attributed to the houses of Hillel
and Shammai deal directly or indirectly with the purity of food, its preparation
and preservation. 269 Sanders protested at what he regards as a complete overstatement.
270 But the supporting evidence is too strong for Neusner's claim to be
discounted entirely. We have already noted the consensus that the Pharisees were
a purity sect (§9.3a), and purity concerns came to focus no more sharply than at
the meal table. 271 And we also noted above how many of the criticisms of Jesus
attributed to Pharisees in the Jesus tradition relate to common meals. There is a
question which we may never be able to resolve completely as to whether such
concerns were shared only by a sub-group within the larger body of Pharisees —
the haberim ('associates'). But it is very difficult to distinguish Pharisees and
haberim, 212 and it may be that the latter term indicates simply the characteristic
praxis of Pharisees. 273
and further J. Bolyki, Jesu Tischgemeinschaften (WUNT 2.96; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998)
177-204.
268. Cf. especially Saldarini, Pharisees, particularly 212-16. Jews today would be
among the first to observe that it is precisely at the meal table that the current different forms of
Judaism come to clearest expression. The rules one follows in regard to the meal table show
what kind of Jew one is.
269. Neusner, Politics 86, referring to his more detailed study Rabbinic Traditions.
270. Sanders, Jewish Law 166-236; here Hengel and Deines agree with Sanders's criticism
of Neusner's overstatement, but warn in turn against overreaction ('Sanders' Judaism' 43).
271. It should cause no surprise that the popular literature of the period emphasized the
hero's/heroine's faithfulness in the matter of the meal table (Dan. 1.13-16; 10.3; Tob. 1.10-12;
Jdt. 12.2, 19; Add. Esth. 14.17; Jos. Asen. 7.1; 8.5).
272. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism 187; Jewish Law 154-55, 250. See also Schürer, History
2.398-400; Westerholm 13-15; the careful discussion in Saldarini, Pharisees 216-20; and
Hengel and Deines's critique of Sanders ('Sanders' Judaism' 38-39 n. 96).
273. See further my Partings 109-11; also 'Jesus, Table-Fellowship, and Qumran', in
J. H. Charlesworth, ed., Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Doubleday, 1992) 254-72
(here 257-60).
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