Herrenmahl und Gruppenidentität : General information
The project Herrenmahl und Gruppenidentiät. Konditionen gemeinsamen Essens als Indikatoren für eine gesellschaftliche Option sponsored by the DFG intends to reopen the discourse on Eating Together, which seems to stagnate at present, and tries to continue with it in a constructive manner. The oldest sources and a specifically religious-sociological perspective function as the basis on this approach. The project is not mainly about a systematically theological reflection on the meaning of the meal's substances, but first of all about the strategies connected with it meal in order to stabilize the group identity.
One task of the project will be to find out in which way the early Christian groups with their different meal customs assert themselves with the Jewish mother religion, to pagan groupings in the Hellenistic towns and to their own brother communities, or even tried to have an impact on them. Thus, the focus will be on the following questions: How does the group celebrating constitute in terms of its social structure as well as in terms of its proportional mixture of gender ? What kind of criteria exist concerning admission? Do fixed rites or seating arrangements tell us anything about the inner structure of the group? Which function do ritual acts have?
The perspective for evaluation will be to perceive both the inherent energy for the development of group identity and the social relevance of the meal conception. Thereby, the project aims at a shift of the scholarly paradigms: The controversy on theologumena is substituted by focussing on their function for the group and their identity. As a consequence, the discourse on the topic is renewed by the question of how the highly significant theological concept of the Herrenmahl can also provide answers with regard to an extended social and cultural context.
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The Database
The current state of research will be documented in a database and will be made accessible via the Internet. Essays and monographs about the Herrenmahl, which could only be cursorily introduced in the project application and have been treated only fragmentarily in the research reviews hitherto existing, will now be categorized according to the related text passages, key subjects and possible methods of resolution (search function) and will be presented in a short summary (abstract).
In order to collect the data relevant for the project it will be particularly necessary to refer to the studies on antique meal conventions provided in the fields of ancient history, classical archaeology and classical philology. Especially the coverage of this general antique background through databases that are mainly used by theologians mainly will have a major impact of future theological research.
Topical category groups
a. research in the field of theology
b. research in the field of religious history
c. research in the field of sociology
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Prof. Dr. Martin Ebner (projectleader)
Dr. Andreas Leinhäupl-Wilke (research assistant)
Julia Mathias; Stephan Müffler (back staff)
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