Food and The Bible

Let’s take a quick look at biblical diet issues. First off, one of the most common arguments against Christianity is that it doesn’t follow its own rules, and one of those examples is the set of rules put down regarding the diet of those that follow God. The basic problem is that it appears that the basic rules were rescinded:

Mark 7:18 And  [Jesus] said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, 19 since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?”  Thus he declared all foods clean.

Because of this and other verses in the New Testament, Christians have argued that they do not operate under the same limits as those in Judaism when it comes to which foods they can and cannot eat. This means that Christians can eat a wider variety of foods than Orthodox Jews can enjoy, and that deals with the whole why Christians can eat foods that were previous forbidden, and why the argument is a bit spurious. It does explain why Christians can have crab cake feats as fund raisers, as well as why pork is an acceptable food for them.

Past that, however, there were some good reasons for the biblical prohibitions. The seas surrounding Ancient Israel, for example, had to deal with the occasional red tide, where the sea would be turned red due to the presence of a harmful algae bloom. This bloom would not only make the oceans dangerous, but would also make the animals that lived in it dangerous to eat as well. These diseases would virtually soak into the bottom-feeders, such as crabs and mollusks, making them dangerous for humans to eat. Thus a proscription against shellfish makes sense, especially as they were usually eaten raw.

Of course, not eating scavengers in the first place is a pretty good idea. Scavengers have a number of systems to deal with the diseases they may pick up, but we do not. Also, anything that the animal they deal with had eaten will show up in the system of the scavenger, but in concentrated form as they likely ate more than one animal with the same problem, such as contaminants. These would of course get passed onto the person who ate them. Not a pleasant thought, right?

Pork is a pretty good one. On one hand pork needs to be cooked thoroughly in order to deal with any diseases, such as trichinosis. Another issue is from an ecological standpoint: Pigs and humans share the same ecological niche. When it comes to a desert-dwelling people, an animal that requires the same foods as humans to grow is an extravagance, and therefore something that should probably not be part of the diet.

Even keeping meat and cheese separate makes a certain degree of sense, especially given what we know about cross-contamination now. Cheese is dependent on the molds inside it for a number of its advantages, but outside of its medium they can cause disease. Meat easily absorbs any disease in the area, as well as rotting quickly in the right environment. As such, it would have made an ideal environment for diseases to quickly grow to virulent numbers. Keep in mind that cooking areas were not kept to today’s standards, it would have been easy for a mold to get into the meat and become a dangerous disease if they were not kept separate.

This should cover most of the more interesting food mysteries of the Bible. Let’s just hope it leads to greater understanding between faiths…