Sacrificed Meat in Corinth and Jesus Worship as a Cult Among Cults

Abstract

In roughly the sixth decade of the first century, Paul sent a letter to people that he knew in Corinth, part of which warns about possible consequences if some of them consume meat that has been sacrificed in local temples. Scholarly treatments of these passages tend to focus on Paul’s larger rhetorical point, and/or understand the problem of sacrificed meat to be one of complete or incomplete conversion. Instead of reading Paul at face value, this article investigates the logic behind 1 Cor 8, and proposes several ways in which interpreters might understand the sacrificed-meat conflict from native Corinthian perspectives. The investigation covers food taboo, concerns over purity and pollution, political and social motivations, and issues of competing or conflicting identities. While it is impossible to know exactly what was happening among Jesus worshippers in Corinth at this time, the article assumes that Greco-Roman thought worlds are more immediately relevant than Jewish ones, and that “Christianity” and “conversion” are anachronistic categories only just beginning their development in this period.

Keywords:

• eidolothuton
• idol meat
• Paul
• 1 Corinthians
• early Christian identity
• early Christian practice