Seeing as how one of the primary purposes underlying any legal codex is the preservation of the health of its citizenry – and seeing as how one of the primary additional purposes of the Jewish Law was the preservation of the spiritual purity of the same, it can come as little surprise that a significant portion of the 613 edicts of that Law had to do with proscribing what &/or who could or could not be eaten by the Jewish people (see Leviticus 20:25). As such, animals who had split hooves and who chewed their cud could be killed and their corpses consumed (see Leviticus 11:3 & Deuteronomy 14:6) while all those who didn’t, couldn’t (per Leviticus 11:4-8 & Deuteronomy 14:7-8). Aquatic beings having fins & scales could be killed and their corpses eaten (see Leviticus 11:9 & Deuteronomy 14:9) while all those who didn’t, couldn’t (per Leviticus 11:10-12 & Deuteronomy 14:10). Birds could be killed and their corpses eaten, as long as they were not considered “unclean” (i.e. essentially those avians who were neither scavengers nor predators – see Leviticus 11:13-19 & Deuteronomy 14:12-18). It was not allowed for Israelites to kill and consume insects who walked on all fours (per Deuteronomy 14:19) – except for those who happened to have “jointed legs above their feet” (i.e. locusts, crickets, grasshoppers, and the like – see Leviticus 11:20-21). Likewise was it forbidden to kill & then consume the corpses of animals who “swarm upon the ground” (i.e. rodents &/or lizards – see Leviticus 11:29-30) &/or those who “swarm upon the earth” (i.e. snakes, worms, millipedes, & centipedes – see Leviticus 11:41-44). In addition, quite a few potential sources of “food” were forbidden for obvious health reasons – primarily the carcasses of animals who had not been slaughtered by human hands; those having either already died of natural causes (per Leviticus 11:24-39 & Deuteronomy 14:21) or those having already been killed by other animals (per Leviticus 22:31). The consumption of blood was also expressly forbidden (see Leviticus 7:26 & Deuteronomy 12:23).

That having all been duly noted, it is just as unsurprising to see that Jesus Christ – legal radical that he was – went out of his way to boldly if not brazenly challenge the sanctity of these dietary rules as well. Consider that, whereas the Law called for the devout Jew to exude a great deal of energy worrying about whether or not he or she remained within the extremely specific bounds of dietary (and therefore spiritual) “purity,” Jesus had the audacity to stand forth and brazenly state: “Do not worry at all about your life, that is – what you will eat or drink. For is not your life more than mere food? Indeed, can any of you by so worrying add even a single hour to your life? Therefore worry not about what you will eat or what you will drink, for it is the Gentiles who uselessly focus upon the same. Strive instead to enter the Kingdom of God by enlivening His righteous way, and all the other more petty things will be given to you as well.” (see Matthew 6:25-33 & Luke 12:22-31). Yes, it is true what some conservative apologists say – namely, that the aforementioned passage speaks more to Jesus gently dismissing the fear caused by the layman’s regular encounter with hunger than it does to his rejection of the ridiculous & often overbearing meticulosity of the dietary shackles of the Law. And yet reject the latter he did later in that same Gospel, and with great verve & courage did he do so …

“There is nothing outside a person that by entering him can defile … Indeed, whatever enters a person from outside cannot defile, for it enters not the heart but the stomach, and thereafter exits into the sewer. And so it is that I declare all foods to be clean.” ~ Jesus Christ (Mark 7:14-19 – also Matthew 15:10-20)

*In addition, whereas the Law also limited how food and drink were to be consumed – by forbidding Jews from acting as gluttons or drunkards (see Leviticus 19:26 & Deuteronomy 21:20), Jesus openly downplayed this prohibition as well (per Matthew 11:19 & Luke 7:34).

*Finally, in keeping with the Law’s goal of maintaining the purity of its populace, its edicts bred strict & binding religious traditions that regulated who could eat with whom – traditions that Jesus taunted and decried at frequent turn.¹ As a primary example, the rabbinic rules of the Pharisees forbade Jews of good standing from partaking of any meal with “sinners” – those who knowingly and openly violated the Law (see Mishnah Abot 1:7‘s “Keep thee far from an evil neighbor and consort not with the wicked” – as well as Leviticus 15:31, Numbers 16:21, Deuteronomy 14:2, Ezra 9:1, Tobit 4:17, Sirach 1:25, Jubilees 22:16, Luke 10:31-32, Acts 10:28, 1 Corinthians 15:33, and the rabbinic midrash on Exodus 18:1 – Mekilta Amalek 3:55-57, which reads “Let not a man ever associate with a wicked person, not even for the purpose of bringing him near to the Torah”). In addition, eating with tax collectors² was seen by devout adherents of the Law as being equally sacrilegious (see Mishnah Nedarim 3:4, Mishnah Kilayim 9:2, & Mishnah Bava Qamma 10:2 – intimated as well in Proverbs 13:8-13, Proverbs 14:10, Matthew 5:46, Matthew 11:19, Matthew 18:17, Matthew 21:31-32 & Luke 18:9-14). Despite this (or probably because of it), Jesus often chose to do just that – unabashedly dining “with many tax collectors and sinners” on a number of occasions,³ and openly rebuking the scribes & Pharisees for criticizing his doing so (see Matthew 9:7-13, Mark 2:13-17, Luke 5:27-32, Luke 15:1-7, & Luke 19:1-10⁴).

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Filed under: Jesus Christ, a most Holy Heretic by Scaughdt