The Feast in the World to Come: Imagined Future Meals in Jewish Apocalyptic Writings

• Applicant: Dr. Claudia D. Bergmann
• Subject Area: Protestant Theology
• Term: from 2014 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 242882491

What appearance does the world to come have? The authors of the Jewish Apocalyptic movement developed several models for their ideas of the endtimes. One of them, the idea of the world to come as consisting of an abundant and never ending meal, appears to be of special interest to anyone who studies theology and the history of cultures.Connecting traditional exegetical questions with approaches from the study of religions and discourses that originated in the field of ritual studies, the project will provide a detailed analysis of the literary phenomenon of the feast in the world to come. It will also place it within its historical and sociological contexts, uncover its symbolism and discuss its theological implications. The project will be the first to compare and contrast all biblical and extra-biblical sources for the idea of this feast in Jewish apocalypticism and to discuss them within the contexts of the Jewish, the Hellenistic, and the Roman culture of meal rituals. The project will address questions of individual and communal identity, of the human need for order, of the human hope for a physical existence in the endtimes, and of the apocalyptic search for a new relationship with the divine. It will also draw trajectories into theological topics (such as eschatology and biblical and early Jewish expectations of salvation) and hopes to contribute to the discussions in this field.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants