Ezekiel, Daniel, and Christian Diet Culture

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

My main comment is to suggest further discussion of the concepts and implications of this very interesting essay.  Here are some detailed suggestions:

Lines 128 and 130:  It would be good to show and say more about these interpretations.

Line 190: A brief explanation of "secular" is needed to clarify the argument.  If it means something beyond "anachronistic" or "decontextualized," then how does it differ from other forms of biblical exegesis?  Is it because these diets claim to be historically and scientifically accurate? If these diets insist on the historicity of their applications, it would be important to show that. 

Line 240:  Here is where the argument can be much more interesting by considering the history of interpretation and other critical perspectives than claims about context and distortion.  The following discussions of race and gender are useful.  But a bit more engagement with biblical scholarship and history would also deepen the analysis.

Lines 329-330:  This is worth elaborating, particularly the methods of interpretation (rather than the specific advice). The conclusion is rhetorically effective, but it suggests an alternative, perhaps equally free, use of biblical interpretation to ground an alternative to the two diet plans under discussion here.

Author Response

Hello,

Thank you for your comments! I have added a more recent source about the use of the King James Version in evangelical communities. Regarding the use of the word "secular," I am using it in the evangelical sense of non-Christian, so I did not add much there. 

I added a paragraph on history of interpretation of Ezekiel 4 and Daniel 1. While the texts aren't used much, I included some past and present scholarship. I also added a reference to ecological biblical criticism in the conclusion as a hermeneutical method that describes an alternative way of reading biblical texts as opposed to a diet culture interpretation. 

Reviewer 2 Report

This is a fascinating article discussing the use of Ezekiel and Daniel in American Christian evangelical diet culture. While much has been written about the use of the Bible within American evangelical culture generally, its use in diet culture specifically has not (to my knowledge) been extensively studied, making this article a valuable contribution to scholarship. The article shows how the texts are taken out of their historical and literary contexts, and how they contribute to a destructive spiritualising of weight-loss. The findings are empirically verified in contemporary sources, and the examples chosen are pertinent. The analysis is sound.

My suggestions for improvement are relatively minor:

• Not much scholarly literature is cited (most of the citations are empirical examples of the culture being analysed). When biblical scholarship is occasionally cited, it mainly comes from resources like Study Bibles, rather than e.g. journals or monographs. The article could benefit from a bit more of a thorough grounding in the academic field.
• The discussion which opens the section “4.1 So What?” is a bit outdated, drawing on a resource more than 20 years old to analyse contemporary trends. This could be updated, or (at the very least), the limitation should be acknowledged.
• Block quotations are not properly formatted (e.g. ll.115-120, 181-186, 215-219).
• There are a few typos. I note the following: l.87 “chaplarger” should be “chapter’s larger”; l.130 “ntrution” should be “nutritional”; l. 273 “Baack” should be “Back”.

I am grateful to have the opportunity to read this article, and I hope to see it published so that I can use it in my teaching and research.

Author Response

Hello,

Thank you for your helpful comments! Because another reviewer had a similar concern about the history of interpretation, I have added a few much more recent articles about Ezekiel, Daniel, and ecological biblical interpretation. Regarding the lack of more recent sources in section 4, I specifically chose Winner (even though she's 20 years old) for two reasons. First, she did the best (and really the only job) of looking at the movement from a biblical perspective. Second, there aren't that many recent sources, and the ones I found I had used earlier in the article. I have acknowledged the limitation in that paragraph. 

I have fixed my block quotations and corrected my typos. 

Reviewer 3 Report

This is a very interesting and timely study on a topic that certainly deserves much more attention in religious studies, theology and biblical studies.

I think the two examples, Ezekiel Bread and the Daniel Plan, are relevant and well-chosen. However, the analysis and discussion would benefit from a clear reception theoretical framework and an attempt to place Christian Diet Culture in a broader context of Bible-based cookbooks that are not necessarily about loosing weight.

1) Reception history and reception theory

The author uses the term "problematic" (e.g. in line 7, line 18, line 256) to describe the kind of Bible reception that is going on in the two examples. Whereas the stigmatizing tendencies of diet- and fitness-culture are certainly concerning and indeed problematic, it is perhaps less clear, why the Bible reception in itself is problematic.

Is it "the disregard for the entire chapter" (line 106), the fact that Bible passages are being used for different purposes than what they were originally intended for, that is problematic in itself? If I understand the article's author correctly, and this is the objection, then I would recommend that this view is somehow qualified and ideally linked to a broader discourse in reception history and reception theory. I find it unconvincing, that it is simply 'wrong' to use a Bible text for a different purpose than it was written for (can we even be sure that we know what that is?), and I think it is necessary to introduce a more objective way of assessing Bible Reception, so that it is not a matter of close-to-original-intention=Correct etc. Who gets to decide what is a correct and an incorrect way to use the Bible?

Who decides that it is problematic to use biblical texts "in ways that contradict their historical context" (lines 31-32) and why?

In a way, one could argue, that misuse of HB texts (in ways that contradict their historical context) has been happening (at least!) since the time of Paul.

2) Other Bible cookbooks and diet plans

The Ezekiel Bread and the Daniel Plan are two interesting examples among several. There is also the What would Jesus Eat? Cookbook (Colbert, 2000), which has been on several bestseller lists, and the slightly more niche Creationist Diet by Zeolla. See Nathan MacDonald, What did the Ancient Israelites Eat? Diet in Biblical Times, 2008, pp. 94-101, for a few more examples.

See also C.S. Lovett's books. They always have amazing titles: https://www.amazon.com/Help-Lord-Devil-Wants-Fat/dp/0938148338

Or Patricia B. Kreml's Slim for Him: https://awfullibrarybooks.net/dieting-for-god/

Bible-based diets are a 'thing', but it is not always about weight-loss. It is almost always about realizing a certain potential, to live according to God's will, be the best version of yourself as God intended etc., and that means that the risk of spiritual failure is also a risk in the Bible Cookbooks that are not about loosing weight. This is an incredibly interesting perspective. It would be great to see the two examples in this article put in a broader context.

I have an article on Bible reception in Bible Cookbooks forthcoming, I can send you a copy, if you wish to see it. I link Bible Cookbooks to rewritten Bible, fanfiction and celebrity cookbooks. (just write to [email protected] if this sounds relevant).

Minor comments:

Line 26-27: "new" - how new is this phenomenon?

In the conclusion: eating and ethics. Perhaps consult the work of David Grumett: http://www.davidgrumett.com/

There appears to be typos in lines:

87 and 130

Author Response

Hello,

Thank you for your helpful comments! I have modified my use of the term problematic in lines 7 and 260. Thank you for pointing out what I should remember as a rhetorical critic: context changes interpretation. So, I have modified my thesis to make it clearer that the issue is not only that the texts are being used in original ways but that the usage can be harmful. I am going to keep the world "problematic" in line 18 without modification due to context. From the perspective of those working to combat eating disorders, diet culture is often problematic, regardless of intention. 

Regarding the Bible cookbooks, since your article is forthcoming, I don't want to take anything away from it. But I can split the difference a bit by noting that practically every diet plan I've mentioned has recipes attached in some way. Since as you point out, one goal is to live your best life, even the diet plans don't leave the person out there to try to reconfigure their pantry and their cooking habits.  I added this to the beginning of the "So what?" section. 

The word "riskable" is a direct quotation, so I cannot change it. But I have corrected the other typos. 

I am having trouble accessing Grumett's work in the time I have to revise, but I have acknowledged him generally in the conclusion.