Usually for Religious Reasons
Two of the most important pieces of academic work related to a biblical theology of fasting focus on the New Testament. One is a rather comprehensive dissertation by Marion Michael Fink, and the other a competent monograph by Joseph F. Wimmer, without reference to one another.2 Fink presents fasting in the NT against the backdrop of Greco-Roman culture, generally following the lead of Rudolf Arbesmann.3 He gives extensive citations of both primary and secondary sources in Graeco-Roman literature. But while the broader historical milieu of the NT era certainly plays a role in shaping contemporary attitudes toward fasting, one wonders if Fink has overstated the importance of non-Jewish sources on the NT.
For instance, he convincingly argues that fasting did not play that great a role in the overall Graeco-Roman culture, yet he suggests that Christian fasting grew away from biblical descriptions: “Through the innocently applied examples of fasting in the New Testament, the early ascetics gained control of the import of the teachings in the New Testament; and fasting succumbed to the syncretistic influences.”4 This seems to result in a lack of balance in the work, with relatively little discussion of the OT precedents as compared to voluminous references to Greek and Latin literature. Such literature is more appropriately used to set a context for the later reception of Christianity in the broader Graeco-Roman world, especially when one considers the thoroughly Jewish character of Jesus, his Galilean disciples and the other protagonists of the NT.
Wimmer’s work exemplifies some of the best of modern Catholic biblical scholarship. The writing is lucid and thorough, and the work is probably the best overall biblical study of fasting to date. While he engages in technical (and sometimes rather theoretical) reconstructive textual work, he keeps an eye on the hermeneutical, theological, and practical implications of his study for the life of the church. His conclusions, as seen below, place fasting in the context of a Catholic commitment to virtue theology (he says that fasting can “foster union with Christ,”
while Protestants might wish to emphasize that the gospel establishes that union). In summarizing the relevance of his study, he writes:
2 Marion Michael Fink, Jr., “The Responses in the New Testament to the Practice of Fasting” (Ph.D. diss, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1974); Joseph F. Wimmer, Fasting in the New Testament: A Study in Biblical Theology, ed. Lawrence Boadt,
Theological Inquiries: Studies in Contemporary Biblical and Theological Problems (New York: Paulist, 1982).
3 Rudolf Arbesmann, “Das Fasten bei den Greichen und Römern,”
Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche und Vorarbeiten 21, no. 1 (1929): 1-131; and “Fasting and Prophecy in Pagan and Christian Antiquity,” Traditio 7 (1949-51): 1-72.
4 Fink, 288.
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We may conclude, then, that the eschatological acceptance of the kingdom, the kerygmatic union with Christ and the transcendental norms of faith, hope, and charity which flow from it are always valid, and that the perennial validity of certain precepts of the New Testament’s categorical morality is to be determined by the degree of their fidelity to the fundamental kerygma. The validity of fasting is judged ultimately by the same criteria, by the degree of its relationship to the fundamental aspects of Christian doctrine, by its ability to foster union with Christ in faith, hope, and love, and by its capacity to prepare us for eternal life.5
While these brief conclusions are appreciated, Wimmer leaves room for an expansion of key theological concepts, which he only touches on as he grounds his work textually. Both Fink and Wimmer provide commendable background studies for fasting in the NT. So it will only be necessary to briefly summarize some of the key features of this discussion here before moving on to the biblical and theological material.
The NT Greek terms relating directly to fasting are forms of the adjective nh'sti", the noun nhsteiva, and the verb nhsteuvw. Behm says that the basic word nh'sti" “means generally ‘one who has not eaten, who is empty,’” and when referring to abstention from food on religious grounds, it becomes the term for the one who fasts.6 The noun form, nhsteiva, can denote general hunger, but most often refers to fasting as a religious rite, whether public or private.7 The verb nhsteuvw
“can also mean generally ‘to be hungry, without food,’ … But it usually means ‘to fast’ in a religious and ritual sense.”8
Louw and Nida discuss the basic terms under the domain of “physiological processes and states,” and the subdomain of “eat, drink,” with these comments:
the state of being very hungry, presumably for a considerable period of time and as the result of necessity rather than choice (compare
5 Wimmer, 123-24.
6 TDNT 4:924-25. BDAG, 672, defines nh'sti" as “not eating, hungry,” and the only biblical texts cited are Dan 6:19 (LXX, which certainly could be interepreted as “fasting”
where the king Darius “spent the night fasting and weeping for Daniel,” kaiV hujlivsqh nh'sti" kaiV h\n lupouvmeno" periV tou' Danihl), Matt 15:32 (where Jesus refers to the crowd following and, and “does not want to send them away hungry,” ajpolu'sai aujtouV"
nhvstei" ouj qevlw), and Mark 8:3 (which is parallel). LSJ, 1175, lists the definitions as “not eating, fasting,” or as a substantival “famine,” “hunger,” “the one fasting,” “causing hunger, starving.”
7 BDAG, 671-71, cites only two NT verses for nhsteiva as hunger or going without food by necessity, 2 Cor 6:5 and 11:27 (where Paul refers to himself as “in fastings often,”
ejn nhsteivai" pollavki"), but these could refer to intentional fasts as well (see discussion of these texts below). LSJ, 1175, only uses the definition “fast.”
8 TDNT 4: 925. BDAG, 672, only defines nhsteuvw as “to fast,” then cites a variety of examples (as a devotional rite, as a sign of grief, with lamentation and prayer, and some miscellaneous references) without any distinct definitions. LSJ, 1175, defines nhsteuvw as
“fast,” and also as “abstain from kakovthto",” citing only the single example of Empedocles 144, where it is used metaphorically.
nhsteivaa ‘fasting,’ 53.65)—’to be quite hungry, considerable hunger, lack of food.’9
Referring to the domain of “religious activities,” “fasting” is given its own subdomain, and defined as “to go without food for a set time as a religious duty—
’to fast, fasting.’”10 The Day of Atonement is also recognized as a festival known simply as “the fast.”11
Fink emphasizes the “tendency toward non-religious meanings” in the terms:
“They were so fundamentally bound up in the physical state of not eating or of lacking food that they represented a spectrum of meanings from ‘hungry’ to
‘hunger’ to ‘famished’ to ‘famine,’ and they were even used to describe the state of unfed animals.”12 This supports his idea that Judaism and Christianity progressively influenced the Graeco-Roman culture to view fasting as being linked to religious observance, while that was not necessarily the case earlier.
According to Wimmer, “With the exception of oracular shrines, fasting played only a small part in the worship of ancient Greece.”13 The only common fast known was a fast on the second day of the three-day Thesmophoria festival, in honor of Demeter. Wimmer notes that fasting and food observance later became common through Oriental influence, as evidenced by initiation rites of mystery religions like Kybele and the Eleusinians. Those who gave oracles, as well as Pythagoreans, sometimes engaged in fasting or partial abstinence behaviors, perhaps having to do with symbolic or magical purification to allow for clarity in their mantic activities.
It was “thought that the soul could reach its greatest power when it was independent of the digestive activity of the body and of the evil spirits that inhabit certain foods, so that it could then enter into free communion with the divine world and learn its mysteries through oracles and dreams.”14 The Cynics and Stoics practiced lives of self-control, which included dietary restrictions, to seek peace through simplicity.
As already seen, the Hebrew terms related to <Wx certainly did have a specifically religious connotation. The LXX almost always employed nhsteuvw for the Hebrew verb <Wx and nhsteiva for the noun <ox, with Behm calling them “the fixed equivalent.”15 With reference to the NT, then, the religious usage for
9 L&N, 253 (23.31).
10 Ibid., 541 (53.65).
11 Ibid., 530 (51.11).
12 Fink, 60-61, citing Onasander, The General, xii; Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 1616ff.;
Prometheus Bound, 569ff., 599ff.; Agamemnon, 1014ff.; Homer, The Iliad, xix 155ff., 205ff.; Aristotle, Parts of Animals, III. xiv (675b-676a); Aeschylus, The Libation Bearers, 246ff.; and Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, vii. 307d-f, which is an extended quotation that Fink includes in his text, describing numerous (usually derogatory) comparisons to people who engage in fasting to mullet fish. Mullets were described as fasters because they did not retain food in their stomachs.
13 Wimmer, 23.
14 Ibid., 24-25.
15 TDNT 4:925. The minor exceptions inlcude Esth 4:16, in which <Wx appears twice and is translated the second time, perhaps only as a stylistic difference, by ajsitevw (a slightly broader word which might normally mean “to hunger,” but could include fasting), and Esth 4:3 and 9:1 do not translate the word at all. The LXX also used forms of nhstevuw
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nhstevuw words will be primary, but the broader, more general usage of the terms in Greek heritage may also occasionally be present.