Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§14.8 The Character of Discipleship
Whatever the precise details, it would appear that Jesus' practice of tablefellowship
was a bone of contention between Jesus and his chief critics. The issue
highlights what was evidently a marked difference in attitude on the point.
Many Pharisees saw their practice of table-fellowship as characterizing Israel set
apart to Yahweh, 274 as therefore requiring separation from anything which would
threaten that holiness, and as therefore requiring separation from the impure, the
non-observant, the sinner, precisely at and by means of the meal table. 275 Jesus in
contrast enacted an open table-fellowship: 276 he himself was open to invitations
from a wide range of people; he was notorious for eating with tax-collectors and
sinners. Holiness for Jesus, we might say, was not a negative, excluding force,
but a positive, including force. 277 According to Mark 2.17 in context, Jesus likened
his practice of eating with sinners to the doctor's activity in healing the sick.
And in so acting out this conviction he inducted his disciples into the practice as
part of their discipleship.
Our evidence indicates that the Qumran Essenes were even more strict in
their maintenance of the purity of the meal table. The daily meal required purification
beforehand; it began and ended with prayer and was eaten in reverential
silence; the garments worn at the meal were like 'holy vestments'; only after a
rigorous novitiate was the would-be covenanter permitted to touch 'the common
food' . 278 In striking parallel with the Jesus tradition reviewed above, the Qumran
covenanters evidently saw their daily meal to be a foretaste of the eschatological
banquet in the presence of the royal Messiah. 279
In striking contrast with Jesus, however, the Qumran community, even
more rigorously than the Pharisaic haberim, saw it to be imperative that all who
274. See above, §9.3a.
275. Ps. 1.1 itself would be sufficient warrant for such a policy.
276. Table-fellowship is putting into practice the openness of which the parables speak'
(Becker, Jesus 150).
277. Borg, Conflict 134-36, but more widely applicable in his thesis (particularly 82-
99); independently K. Berger, 'Jesus als Pharisäer und frühe Christen als Pharisäer', NovT 30
(1988) 231-62, suggested that 'the concept of offensive holiness/purity is an essential building
block for understanding the conflict of Jesus with the Pharisees' (246-47); Chilton in turn
speaks of Jesus' 'contagious purity/holiness' (Jesus'Baptism 58-71); similarly S. McKnight, 'A
Parting within the Way: Jesus and James on Israel and Purity', in B. Chilton and C. A. Evans,
James the Just and Christian Origins (Leiden: Brill, 1999) 83-129 (here 94-98).
278. Josephus, War 2.129-33, 138-39; now confirmed by the Rule of the Community
(1QS 6). Josephus also notes that even the expelled member of the community was still bound
by his oath; he was 'not at liberty to partake of other men's food', and so often died of starvation
(War 2.143).
279. This is indicated by the parallels between the rules for the daily meal (1QS 6) and
the description of the eschatological meal in which the Messiah of Israel was expected to participate
(lQ28a [lQSa] 2).
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