希腊化和罗马时期犹太属性与饮食禁忌的对应关系

Jewishness and Food Prohibitions in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods

饮食习俗尤其肉类禁忌自古以来就能起到区分不同族群和信仰群体的作用。在古代地中海地区,猪肉禁忌逐渐成为确认犹太属性的核心外在特征之一。本文将利用古代犹太文献及外族作者的记述和讨论,并结合现代学者的研究,来梳理这一现象自古代以色列、犹大王国时期开始的形成和发展,重点分析在希腊化和罗马统治时期犹太人的猪肉禁忌与犹太属性逐渐形成的紧密对应关系。本文聚焦两个问题:为何那一时期猪肉禁忌而非其他犹太饮食习俗成为了犹太属性的标志之一;为何犹太人在那一时期成为各禁食猪肉族群的代表。

Dietary laws and practices,in particular abstinence from certain meats,have always served to distinguish one ethnic or religious community from another.In the ancient Mediterranean world,abstinence from pork gradually became a defining characteristic of Jewish identity.The current study aims to trace the origin and development of this phenomenon in ancient Israelite and Jewish history by examining relevant primary sources and secondary scholarship,with a focus on the Hellenistic and Roman periods,when the correspondence between abstinence from pork and Jewish identity became increasingly prominent and well-known.Two key questions are to be investigated:1.Why it was that abstinence from pork rather than other Jewish dietary laws served as an identity marker for Jews in this period and 2.Why Jews among all peoples who abstained from pork became the most widely known representative of this dietary practice.