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The Ancient World Behind the Text: Ideas
The customs, offices and ideas a first reader knew without being told, what each meant then, and the nearest thing you already know.
Meat offered to idols
Most meat in a Greek city had passed through a sacrifice at a temple. Eating it at the temple's table, buying it in the market or meeting it at a friend's dinner raised the question of whether a believer was sharing in the worship of the god.
The barbecue at the festival was free, but everyone knew whose festival it was. In a city like Corinth animals were sacrificed to the gods at their temples. Part of the meat was eaten at feasts in the temple's own dining rooms, the priests took their share, and what was left was sold in the market. So a believer could meet meat from a sacrifice at a temple banquet, at the butcher's or on a friend's table. Jews in big cities avoided it, often with markets of their own. Gentile believers had to decide what eating it meant.
Meat was offered to idols before it was served in temple dining halls, often as part of worship, or used for communal meals. Some of the meat in the market had been offered too. At a temple one knew the source; at a friend's home one could never be sure. Even ordinary banquets opened with a libation to some god, so most Gentile meals were somehow consecrated. Wright says most meat in a city like Corinth had passed through a sacrifice. He writes that "temples functioned effectively as a combination of butcher's shop and restaurant." Corinthians commonly dined in temples, which were centers of civic life. Bailey draws on the second-century traveler Pausanias. He describes Corinth's central market ringed by temples, with the meat market across a narrow street. The priests sold what they could not eat, and "During the numerous feasts there was an inevitable glut in the meat market." Most people could not afford meat and met it mainly when it was handed out at pagan festivals. So the poor tied meat to idols (Keener). Jews in large cities usually had their own markets. There they avoided both sacrificial meat and meat not drained of its blood. Palestinian Jewish teachers would never risk food that might have been offered to an idol. Invitations survive to dine at the table of the lord Serapis. Eating sacrificial meat was thought to join the eater to the god it was offered to. Heiser argues that Paul treats the gods behind the idols as real. So the danger lay in sharing the sacrifice rather than in the meat itself.
An analogy: a company picnic held on a rival firm's grounds, with the rival's logo on every plate. The food is ordinary food, but sitting down at that table says whose guest you are.
Because sacrificial meat reached the temple tables, the market and private dinners, the questions in 1 Corinthians 8:1-13 turn on where the meat is eaten and who is watching. The Jerusalem letter of Acts 15:29 asks Gentile believers to abstain from it, and Revelation 2:14 counts eating it among a church's faults.
Not a question about clean and unclean animals. The picnic picture breaks here: a rival firm is only a business, but a god's table was worship. Jewish food laws asked which animals could be eaten. This question was about worship: the same cut of meat could be ordinary food from the market or a share in a god's sacrifice at his table.
What does Paul allow? The ESV Study Bible reads him as forbidding temple dinners as idolatry while allowing meat bought in the market. Arnold, following Fee, draws the same line, leaving meat eaten at home to the weaker believer's conscience. Keener sees chapters 8 to 10 as a careful compromise between two factions. One was the well-to-do who ate meat often, the other the poor who met it only at festivals. Heiser places the danger in taking part in the sacrifice. Who the weak were is also disputed. Keener takes them as the socially powerless. The cultural backgrounds notes allow either that or simply weaker consciences. Wright's biography, Carson, Moo and Morris, and Arnold take them as former idol-worshipers whose consciences drag them back.
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- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/gods-of-the-bible\/daimonion\/","n":"Daimonion","s":"The New Testament word for demon, borrowed from a Greek word that was morally neutral.","r":"Mark 1:34"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/divine-council-index\/deuteronomy-32-8-9\/","n":"Deuteronomy 32:8-9","s":"The Most High divided the nations, and the number He divided them by is where the whole argument turns.","r":"Deuteronomy 32:8-9"}
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, introduction to 1 Corinthians 8:1-13, and on 1 Corinthians 8:7, 10:19-20, 10:21, 10:24-25 and 10:27-29
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on 1 Corinthians 8:9, 8:10, 10:18, 10:21 and 10:25
- N. T. Wright, Paul: A Biography, ch. 10, Ephesus I
- CSB Study Bible, note on 1 Corinthians 8:1a
- Kenneth E. Bailey, Paul Through Mediterranean Eyes, section 3.1
- ESV Study Bible, study note on 1 Corinthians 8:4-6
- Michael S. Heiser, The Unseen Realm, ch. 38, Choosing Sides
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, article Sacrificed Food
- Clinton E. Arnold, Powers of Darkness, ch. 6, They Are Involved in the World Religions
- D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament, ch. 9, 1 and 2 Corinthians, The Character of Paul's Opponents in 1 and 2 Corinthians
