This book provides three categories of investigation: 1) The Typology and Context of the Greco-Roman Banquet, 2) Who Was at the Greco-Roman Banquets, and 3) The Culture of Reclining. Together these studies establish festive meals as an essential lens into social formation in the Greco-Roman world.

In the past 20 years, a new paradigm has emerged around the study of festive dining as a seminal social practice that functioned as the matrix for the social formation of a variety of groups in the Greco-Roman world, including earliest Christianity and pre-Rabbinic Judaism. Most recently, an international team of scholars, organized as the Society of Biblical Literature Seminar on Meals in the Greco-Roman World, has developed this paradigm in a series of groundbreaking studies. This volume provides a collection of those studies in four areas of focus: The Typology of the Greco-Roman Banquet; The Archeology of the Banquet; Who Was at the Greco-Roman Banquets?; and The Culture of Reclining. Together they establish festive meals as an essential lens into social formation in the Greco-Roman world.

The Acts of the Apostles is not history. Acts was long thought to be a first-century document, and its author Luke to be a disciple of Paul-thus an eyewitness or acquaintance of eyewitnesses to nascent Christianity. Acts was considered history, pure and simple. But the Acts Seminar, a decade-long collaborative project by scholars affiliated with the Westar Institute, concluded that dates from the second century. That conclusion directly challenges the view of Acts as history and raises a host of new questions, addressed in this final report. The Acts Seminar began deliberations in 2001, with the task of going through the canonical Acts of the Apostles from beginning to end and evaluating it for historical accuracy. Contributors include: Ruben Dupertuis, Associate Professor of Religion, Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas; Perry V. Kea, Associate Professor of Biblical Studies, University of Indianapolis, Indiana; Nina E. Livesey, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, University of Oklahoma at Norman; Dennis R. MacDonald, Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins, Claremont School of Theology, California; Shelly Matthews, Associate Professor of New Testament, Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth; Milton Moreland, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Rhodes College, Memphis, Tennessee; Richard I. Pervo, retired, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Thomas E. Phillips, Dean of Library and Information Services, Claremont School of Theology, Claremont, California; Christine R. Shea, Professor of Classics, Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana; William O. Walker, Jr., Jennie Farris Railey King Professor Emeritus of Religion, Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas.

From Plato to the New Testament, banquets held an important place in creating community, sharing values, and connecting with the divine.