Queerer Meals: Paul and Communal Anti-Norms in Corinth

Abstract

This article employs two strategies to understand Paul’s dissatisfaction with the meal practice of the Corinthian assembly in 1 Corinthians 11:17-31. First, it uses a form of queer reading to interrogate the text for its assumptions about normativity and deviance. Second, it puts the Corinthian meals in conversation with modern queer potlucks and their emergence as sites of alternative community formation. Together, these strategies help create a reading of the text of 1 Corinthians that contextualizes the norms inherent in Greco- Roman dining practices and the ways Paul expected the practice of the “Lord’s Supper” to deviate from those norms and establish new norms.

Keywords

• meals
• paul
• queer theory
• 1 corinthians
• queer potlucks