Introduction: Should Christians Follow the Dietary Laws? [Part 1]

Introduction

I was going to continue this blog with a discussion of what Messianic Judaism is all about and how or whether God's law as given in the Torah (first 5 books of the Bible, also known as the books of Moses) applies to Christians today. However, in the last week or so, I have been engaged (albeit briefly) in conversation about the food laws and so this might be an opportune moment to address that issue.

The Garden of Eden

The first mention of ‘food’ in the Bible is in Genesis 1v29:

“Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.” (NIV)

The King James version says:

“And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.”

And this is where some people begin to get confused – the word ‘meat’ in Elizabethan English (KJV English) refers not just to chicken, beef and the like, but means ‘food of any kind’, so vegetables could be called ‘meat’. It wasn’t until the nineteenth century that ‘meat’ was exclusively applied to animal flesh. NOTE: to avoid confusion, when I refer to ‘meat’ I mean animal flesh.

So the first mention of food in the Bible is about fruit and vegetables, which God gave as food for Adam and Eve.

The second mention is in the next chapter, where God is adding details to the creation account. This time, He adds a prohibition: you may eat of every tree in the garden except...

“God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food... And the Lord God commanded the man, You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” (Genesis 2v9, 16-17 NIV)

So the first negative command in the Bible (‘thou shalt not’) is a food law and occurs at the second mention of food in the Bible. And it was serious enough to have carried the penalty of death.

Noah

Meat, as in animal flesh, is not mentioned as food until after the flood, in Genesis 9v3a, where God gives Noah and his family ‘every moving thing’:

“Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything." (NIV)

Did God really give Noah permission to eat ‘everything/every creeping thing’? Or are there conditions? In the second part of the verse, it says ‘Just as I gave you the green plants’. Did God give mankind every green plant? No, He did not. Firstly, there was the specific prohibition that they were not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Secondly, if we look at the verses in Genesis again, we will see that the plants that were given for food consisted only of “every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed”. So it becomes clear that God did not give ‘everything'; He put some restrictions on what could be eaten even among the plants.

To summarise so far: God gave vegetables and fruit to Adam and Eve as food. However, there were restrictions placed on that:

a. The plants had to have seeds in them;
b. There was one tree in particular (the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) that Adam and Eve were not to eat, on penalty of death

So did He also give restrictions about eating meat? Yes, He did:

“as I have given you the green herb, so I have given everything to you” (Genesis 3v3b)

To paraphrase, God is saying ‘In the same way that I gave you the fruit and vegetables as food, so I am giving you animal flesh as food’. We have seen that there were restrictions applied to the plant food; in the same way, there are restrictions applied to the animal food. 

The first of these is a direct prohibition (like the forbidding of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil):

              "But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it" (Genesis 9v4)

   

Were there also general restrictions, such as only plants bearing seeds? And what about pigs, camels, horses, prawns (shrimp) – the things God later describes as ‘unclean’? If He is the God who never changes, did He mean Noah could eat these or not? Or are they also prohibited? It is clear from the account of the flood that Noah was aware of which animals were clean and which unclean – he took one pair of the unclean animals and seven pairs of the clean animals onto the ark:

            "Then God said...'Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animals, a male and its mate,             and one pair of every kind of unclean animals, a male and its mate, to keep their various kinds                alive throughout the earth" (Genesis 7v1-3)

Since it appears they did not eat meat up to this point, it is safe to assume that the differentiation was for sacrificial purposes. We know they made sacrifices, because the first thing Noah did after he came out of the ark was to offer sacrifices. But could humans consume what had already been designated ‘unclean’? 

Probably not, actually. 

If there was only one pair of each of the unclean animals, then eating one would mean instant extinction for that animal – and the whole purpose of the ark was to save things alive, not cause their extinction. 

Secondly, there were only eight people in existence at that time and one of the first things Noah did after leaving the ark was to offer sacrifices to God. If you are killing an animal for sacrificial purposes - and sacrificial meat was often eaten after the animal was slaughtered -  would it not make sense to eat that animal rather than killing another? Why would you need two animals for only eight people?

Moses

It wasn’t until the time of Moses where the distinction between clean and unclean animals for the purpose of consumption was laid out and explained. That doesn’t necessarily mean those rules did not exist previously; it just means that God brought those rules to the attention of the people who had been rescued from slavery in Egypt before they set up the newly created nation in the Promised Land. So can we say that this is an example of scripture interpreting scripture – ie the rules were known but not spelled out in this way until the time of Moses? Or do we assume that people from Noah to Moses enjoyed barbecued ribs? It is impossible to know for certain, though it is more likely that as God doesn't change, the rules were already known and followed by God's people. They were simply spelled out and written down at the time of Moses. However, what we do know is that from the time of Moses onwards, certain animals were deemed ‘unclean’ or even ‘detestable/abominable’ and that God’s people were not to eat them. As we are living beyond the time of Moses and all scripture is for our learning, the question of whether Christians should follow the food laws is still a valid one. Is there anything in the rest of the Bible that will clarify and/or answer that question?

Why Did God Prohibit Certain Foods?

Just as there was one reason given for not eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and ev"il (in the day you eat of it you will surely die"), so too there is one reason given for this prohibition against unclean meat. It is found in Leviticus 11 – and it is not the reason one might expect. It wasn’t that these animals filtered poisons through their systems (some call them the earth’s ‘clean-up crew’), nor that they were prone to parasites that could infect anyone who ingests them, nor even that they were ‘unhealthy’, eg they contained too much fat etc. No, the reason God gives for telling His people not to eat unclean animals was ‘be holy, for I am holy’. In other words, it was a prohibition designed to make a separation between God’s people and the rest of the world. God’s people were to be holy just as God is holy and the way that was shown in daily living was in the things they consumed. We will come back to that phrase later, when we look at 1 Peter, but for the moment, the food laws can be summarised as follows:

·        Clean animals were those that had cloven hoofs and chewed the cud (ie ate grass)

·        Clean fish had to have fins and scales

·        Clean birds were not carrion feeders

·        The fat surrounding the internal organs of an animal was forbidden

·        The blood was to be thoroughly drained before the animal was eaten

Were these rules just for the budding Jewish nation only? Or do these rules apply to Christians today, most of whom are Gentiles – ie non-Jews? Most Christians today would say ‘No!’ claiming ‘Jesus declared all foods clean’, or ‘Jesus death freed us from having to follow all the rules and regulations of the Old Testament’.

So the purpose of this article [and several others if necessary] is to look at that a little more closely.