Read Online Lesser Beasts: A Snout-to-Tail History of the Humble Pig by Mark Essig - Free Book Online
Authors: Mark Essig
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the scholars who hold these theories tend to disagree on nearly everything, they come together on one point: all reject the view that the pork prohibition had anything to do with trichinosis. This theory found wide support starting in 1859, when scientists first proved the link between Trichinella spiralis and undercooked pork. It’s not certain, however, that this parasite existed in ancient Palestine. And even if humans came down with the disease, they would have had a hard time connecting it with pork, because there’s generally a ten-day delaybetween eating tainted meat and falling ill.Just about any kind of meat could make people sick—sheep can transmit anthrax, for instance—yet Jewish dietary law permitted other, equally dangerous types of flesh and singled out pork for prohibition.
Though the theory that the pork taboo was a public health measure has been thoroughly discredited, people have been reluctant to abandon it. Such beliefs stretch back at least to medieval times, and even then some authorities objected.“God forbid that I should believe that the reasons for forbidden foods are medicinal,” wrote Jewish scribe Isaac Abrabanel. “For were it so, the Book of God’s Law would be in the same class as any of the minor brief medical books.”
This is a good reminder that there doesn’t necessarily have to be a clear explanation for the pork ban. Scripture is, after all, primarily concerned with a people’s relationship with their God, so to explain the Levitical dietary restrictions in terms of medicine or health or economics may miss the point. As Job learned after being stripped of his wealth and afflicted with boils, God wasn’t much for explaining himself. Imposing an arbitrary food ban would not have been his most inscrutable act.
T he pork prohibition, though, was far from arbitrary: it was thoroughly consistent with the sacred logic of the Bible and with God’s command that the Israelites remain pure in order to preserve their relationship with him.
God demanded that the Israelites provide him with a physical home. They first constructed the Tabernacle, a portable structure housing the stone tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments that the Israelites carried with them during their wandering in the desert. The Tabernacle was replaced by the more permanent Temple built by King Solomon in Jerusalemabout 950 bc . The Temple occupied the central place in the religion of the Israelites. It preserved the presence of God among his people and ensured that blessings would continue to flow from him. To fulfill this role, however, the sanctuary had to remain pure, and it was under constant threat of defilement. If the people became polluted, they would pollute the sanctuary, and the relationship between God and his people would be severed.
To remain pure, the Israelites must eat only pure things. The eleventh chapter of Leviticus lays out the taxonomy: there were clean and unclean birds, clean and unclean insects, and clean and unclean fish. And then there were the land animals.The key rule was this: “Whatsoever parteth the hoof, and is clovenfooted, and cheweth the cud, among the beasts, that shall ye eat.” Animals that “goeth upon paws”—dogs, wolves, lions—chewed no cud and divided no hooves and therefore were unclean.The same rule disqualified pigs: “The swine, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you.”
Diet played an important role in scripture even before God handed down the rules of Leviticus. Adam and Eve were vegetarians: in the book of Genesis, God gives them the grains, fruits, and vegetables to eat. Only after God had expelled them from the Garden and later scoured the earth with a flood did people begin to eat flesh. Meat, in other words, is the food of the fallen.God told Noah that he could eat “every moving thing that liveth” but then added a stipulation:“You shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its
Though the theory that the pork taboo was a public health measure has been thoroughly discredited, people have been reluctant to abandon it. Such beliefs stretch back at least to medieval times, and even then some authorities objected.“God forbid that I should believe that the reasons for forbidden foods are medicinal,” wrote Jewish scribe Isaac Abrabanel. “For were it so, the Book of God’s Law would be in the same class as any of the minor brief medical books.”
This is a good reminder that there doesn’t necessarily have to be a clear explanation for the pork ban. Scripture is, after all, primarily concerned with a people’s relationship with their God, so to explain the Levitical dietary restrictions in terms of medicine or health or economics may miss the point. As Job learned after being stripped of his wealth and afflicted with boils, God wasn’t much for explaining himself. Imposing an arbitrary food ban would not have been his most inscrutable act.
T he pork prohibition, though, was far from arbitrary: it was thoroughly consistent with the sacred logic of the Bible and with God’s command that the Israelites remain pure in order to preserve their relationship with him.
God demanded that the Israelites provide him with a physical home. They first constructed the Tabernacle, a portable structure housing the stone tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments that the Israelites carried with them during their wandering in the desert. The Tabernacle was replaced by the more permanent Temple built by King Solomon in Jerusalemabout 950 bc . The Temple occupied the central place in the religion of the Israelites. It preserved the presence of God among his people and ensured that blessings would continue to flow from him. To fulfill this role, however, the sanctuary had to remain pure, and it was under constant threat of defilement. If the people became polluted, they would pollute the sanctuary, and the relationship between God and his people would be severed.
To remain pure, the Israelites must eat only pure things. The eleventh chapter of Leviticus lays out the taxonomy: there were clean and unclean birds, clean and unclean insects, and clean and unclean fish. And then there were the land animals.The key rule was this: “Whatsoever parteth the hoof, and is clovenfooted, and cheweth the cud, among the beasts, that shall ye eat.” Animals that “goeth upon paws”—dogs, wolves, lions—chewed no cud and divided no hooves and therefore were unclean.The same rule disqualified pigs: “The swine, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you.”
Diet played an important role in scripture even before God handed down the rules of Leviticus. Adam and Eve were vegetarians: in the book of Genesis, God gives them the grains, fruits, and vegetables to eat. Only after God had expelled them from the Garden and later scoured the earth with a flood did people begin to eat flesh. Meat, in other words, is the food of the fallen.God told Noah that he could eat “every moving thing that liveth” but then added a stipulation:“You shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its
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