Thursday, April 25, 2024

The Consumption Of Pig

Like the requirement of only eating underwater creatures having both fins and scales in Leviticus 11:9-12 (which excludes animals like octopi, crawfish, sharks, and lobsters), the requirement of only eating land-based creatures that both have cloven (also called split) hooves and chew their cud is put forth in Leviticus 11:2-7.  It is both of these factors that must be present for a creature that walks the land to be morally suitable for eating by Biblical standards.  An animal such as a cow or giraffe would meet both requirements because their hooves are split and they regurgitate food to their mouths to be rechewed.  The pig does not have both characteristics at once.  It only has one of them.

Leviticus 11:7 does use a pig as an example of a prohibited beast that has split hooves but does not chew its cud, but pork is commonly singled out by many people who do not eat the kosher diet, or have Biblical familiarity with it, as at least one thing they might have heard is forbidden (they might not have actually even read the Bible on this matter at all and be thinking only of cultural hearsay).  A pig is listed as a creature that has a cloven hoof but does not chew its cud, yes.  It is not the only animal that does not meet both requirements for land-based animals.  Leviticus 11:4-6 uses camels, hyraxes, and rabbits as examples of forbidden land animals right before mentioning pigs, though they are examples of animals that inversely chew their cud without having split hooves.

Being the only creature specified as not chewing its cud despite the split hooves is noteworthy in one sense.  For pigs to be the only animals that many appear people recognize as non-kosher, at least according to whatever hearsay they have encountered, shows how unfamiliar the masses are with something that Jesus never actually repeals [1].  Many seem to ignore the dietary laws of Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14 as if they are irrelevant to their lives, but the Bible does not ever say that God's nature and his stemming commands changed on the issue of food, and it is really more that they are inconvenienced by something contrary to human traditions.  Altering everyday food habits is more than plenty of Christians seem willing to do.

Still, there is nothing specifically about pig flesh that is representative of the whole of the Torah's dietary laws.  Pork might be referenced as if it is one of the most obvious of the non-kosher food examples, and it is certainly one of the most culturally acknowledged in some circles.  In a country like modern America, it is also far more popular of a food than the likes of jellyfish, camel, dog, and so on, though all of the latter are also non-kosher animals.  In some cases it could be the case that certain people think mostly or only of pork when thinking of the dietary laws because they are reacting to their culture without making assumptions.  In others, it is assumptions about the criteria for kosher food, or disinterest in its ongoing obligatory nature in Christian theology, that is behind this trend.


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