Eating Upon the Mountains: Deviant Consumption and Commensality

This article uses sociological and anthropological approaches to assess cases of deviant consumption in Hebrew Bible texts. Drawing together key concepts such as commensality deviance, the importance eating within bounds culturally constructed norms is emphasised. Food a significant part material culture that assists construction individual group identities. Consequently, deviation from normative food habits has serious ramifications on identity cohesion. For authors texts, way did not render Yahweh jealous was aspect practices were deemed acceptable. These included shared meals between human divine participants, proper sharing Yahweh’s cult. By focusing social reaction certain events, deviantisation processes used by ancient texts are highlighted, rather than asserting existence any inherent “wrong.”