Talk:Ancient Israelite cuisine

Forbidden plants?

The text in the last section asserts no plants were forbidden, but that's only sort of true. New grain was forbidden each year until the Omer offering; a fruit tree's first three years' yield was off limits; and various restrictions applied to priestly tithes, just to name a few. it's not a major point, but if the same level of detail has been devoted to the earlier section regarding sacrificial meat, these other restrictions might bear mentioning. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.124.34.77 (talk) 11:44, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Squash?

The current text refers to the Ancient Israelites eating squash. Isn't that a New World foodstuff which would have been unavailable before 1492? The entry for squash refers to them being native to the Americas. 66.31.203.212 (talk) 00:35, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

The term "squash" is probably being used more broadly here than the four species of the plant genus Cucurbita native to Americas to which the Squash article refers. There are many species and varieties of the genus Cucurbita L., commonly known as gourds and squashes, and the squash refered to in the article are one of those, which of course, as you correctly note, would not be native to the Americas, but to a variety from the Old World. Chefallen (talk) 01:59, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I've changed it to "gourds". The word "squash" is only ever used of the new world species. -- 76.15.128.196 (talk) 02:51, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Hospitality and the "Afterlife"

Greetings! A fine article, but I notice under the section on Hospitality the claim that it (hospitality) was motivated in part "... by the desire to win divine pleasure and reward in an after-life." Divine pleasure seems a clear enough implication from many parts of the Tanakh, but I wonder what source may provide evidence in favor of the claim that the ancient Israelites had a belief in an afterlife, or that their attitude toward hospitality was motivated by the hopes or expectations of reward in such an afterlife? I do not have access to the Stallman 1999 text cited at the end of this passage; can the person who made the citation clarify this point? The idea of an afterlife in Judaism seems never to have been very prominent, and was apparently still a matter of debate even into the 2nd century CE (i.e., between the Saduccees and Pharisees). Since the earlier stratum of writings (i.e., the Torah, before Neviim and Ketuvim, much less Talmud) make no mention of an afterlife, it would seem that such a claim as is made in this passage minimally requires a clarification regarding a period after which such a belief clearly became widespread (and therefore also the use of it as a motivator for hospitality — that is a new source of motivation, many of the reported acts of hospitality supposedly having taken place in the earlier period, i.e., all those in the Torah). If it is the case that the only clear sources of a connection between hospitality and an expectation of reward in an afterlife are from the Roman Period and later (though I am aware of none even then — please advise!), then that part of this passage should probably be removed. Thanks! Lyrelyre (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:08, 18 May 2013 (UTC)