‘Let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink’: The diet consumed by Daniel and his friends as clarified in the commentary of Abraham Ibn Ezra

HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies

 
 
Field Value
 
Title ‘Let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink’: The diet consumed by Daniel and his friends as clarified in the commentary of Abraham Ibn Ezra
 
Creator Shemesh, Abraham O.
 
Subject — Abraham Ibn Ezra; Diet; Daniel Book; Biblical Commentary; Medieval medicine; Arab cuisine; rice dishes; Islamic culinary; Humoralism; doctrine of the four temperaments
Description According to the biblical story, Daniel, Hananya, Mishael and Azarya refused to eat the food produced by the Babylonian royal kitchen, asking instead to be provided with vegetables (Dn 1:1–21). The current paper examines Abraham Ibn Ezra’s (c. 1090–1164) interpretation of the boys’ diet based on contemporary culinary and nutritional habits. Ibn Ezra’s basic claim is that Daniel and his friends appeared healthy and well-disposed because they ate rice and chickpea dishes that have a high nutritional value. Ibn Ezra rules out R. Saadya Gaon’s approach that it was a supernatural miracle and suggests an interpretation whereby this is a completely natural health outcome. Based on nutritional and medical knowledge, Ibn Ezra claims that the diet consumed by Daniel and his friends was fairly nourishing, and thus it is no surprise that they appeared healthy. Ibn Ezra was strongly influenced by the crops and dishes of Muslim cuisine, as well as by the nutritional-medical outlooks common in the medieval Arab region.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor —
Date 2018-10-23
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — Historical Inquiry; Literary Analysis
Format text/html application/epub+zip application/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/hts.v74i1.5083
 
Source HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies; Vol 74, No 1 (2018); 7 pages 2072-8050 0259-9422
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/5083/11854 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/5083/11853 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/5083/11855 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/5083/11837
 
Coverage — medieval —
Rights Copyright (c) 2018 Abraham O. Shemesh https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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