Festive Meals in Ancient Israel: Deuteronomy's Identity Politics in Their Ancient Near Eastern Context

This study investigates the festive meals in Deuteronomy’s laws in comparison to depictions of meals in other biblical texts, as well as ancient Near Eastern texts and iconography. Its eclectic, interdisciplinary approach includes discussion of the archaeology of meals in the ancient Levant and recent anthropological findings on meals in order to emphasize the centrality of meals for identity formation as well as for political and religious rhetoric in the texts of Deuteronomy.