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Publication Date: 17 Jun 2005
Format: Paperback
Series: New Studies in Biblical Theology
Publisher: Apollos
Page Count: 216
Author: Craig L Blomberg
ISBN-13: 9781844740833

Contagious holiness

Jesus' Meals With Sinners
By Craig L Blomberg
Paperback
ISBN: 9781844740833
£16.99

Summary of Contagious holiness

One of humanity's most basic and common practices - eating meals - was transformed by Jesus into an occasion of divine encounter. In sharing food and drink with his companions, he invited them to share in the grace of God. His redemptive mission was revealed in his eating with sinners, repentant and unrepentant alike.
Jesus' 'table fellowship' with sinners in the Gospels has been widely agreed to be historically reliable. However, this consensus has recently been challenged, for example, by the claim that the meals in which Jesus participated took the form of Greco-Roman symposia - or that the 'sinners' involved were the most flagrantly wicked within Israel's society, not merely the ritually impure or those who did not satisfy strict Pharisaic standards of holiness.
In this excellent and thorough study, Craig Blomberg engages with the debate and opens up the significance of the topic. He surveys meals in the Old Testament and the intertestamental period, examines all the Gospel texts relevant to Jesus' eating with sinners, and concludes with some contemporary applications.