@LeeWoofenden I'm not sure about that specifically, but there's evidence priests doubled as doctors. They were to inspect sores and such, then decide what to do.

I think they more thought along the lines that illness was caused by evil, but we can glean they were developing toward medicine and even infectious germ theory.

It's not a stretch that they were connecting health and food, as well as spirituality.

Verses such as "drunk with meat" and condemnation of wine support this.

@LeeWoofenden "I shall call no man unclean". That means the person is always clean, but acts can still be unclean. The law was not removed, but fulfilled.

None of the Christian Jews started eating pork because of this.

@fredsbend It's not that they weren't aware of issues of health and disease. There is a great deal of material in the OT about health and sickness. But I'm not aware of any that connects that with which animals were ritually clean and which were not. As for developing toward (modern) medicine and germ theory, that, I think, is a fine example of superimposing modern ideas onto ancient texts.

@fredsbend Where are you getting the phrase "drunk with meat"? There are, of course, prohibitions against gluttony in the Bible. But that's not a matter of which meat is eaten, but of the quantity of meat eaten.

@fredsbend Yes, in Acts 10:28 Peter says to Cornelius (a Gentile), "God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean." Clearly Paul interpreted metaphorically the vision God gave him of all kinds of unclean meat, which God told him to "kill and eat." And yet, God in that instance said, "What God has made clean, you must not call profane," referring to the "unclean" meat.

I think it's hard to argue that this is only metaphorical, given that in Acts 15 the debate was all about whether Gentiles were to be required to be observant Jews. That would include the dietary restrictions.

Naturally the Jewish Christians would continue to eat the way they were accustomed to eat. For them, it would have been too jarring to eat food that had been prohibited to them by religious law all their lives. But those dietary restrictions were abolished even for them, and certainly for new Gentile converts to the faith.

@LeeWoofenden I'm not aware of a clear connection either.

Burt what I said was "we can glean they were developing toward medicine and even infectious germ theory."

Modern ideas didn't come out of a vacuum.

"Things make illness" vs "evil spirits". The transition started a long long time ago, especially among elites.

@LeeWoofenden biblehub.com/proverbs/23-20.htm

That's a twofer.

Gotta love KJVs wordsmith ways.

> Be not among winebibbers; among riotous eaters of flesh

The plain observation that meat is heavy is in play here. It's not a prohibition, but it does show they understood food/feeling/behavior correlations.

@LeeWoofenden "What God has made clean, you must not call profane."

Pretty sure the subject is sinners. Gentiles.

God, through Christ, made all men clean. Interpreting this verse as being about food rabbit trails at best and robs the gospel itself at worst!

Come on Lee, stop thinking so materially.

@LeeWoofenden The apostles, as you know, had a very hard time thinking past this life and world.

The clean foods mechanism is the metaphor. That God makes all things clean is the reality!

Jesus seems to say that it was a metaphor all along:

> “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? 19 For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.”

@LeeWoofenden Mark 7 reminds me that the Jews had a lot of cleanliness laws, as in, they washed their hands and bodies.

@fredsbend All of this is part of the argument that the dietary laws of the OT are abrogated, and no longer apply.

@fredsbend Once, when I was a teenager, my grandmother gave me a $5 bill and, with a twinkle in her eye, admonished me "not to waste it on riotous living." :-)

@fredsbend If so, it was a very long way off. Also, health through healthful eating habits and health through avoiding germs are two quite different things. It certainly could be argued that the ancient Jews were aware that unhealthful eating habits could lead to disease, based at least upon the laws against gluttony. But the idea that germs and pathogens in foods cause disease was many centuries away.

To get back to the issue that was being argued, the idea that Moses prohibited pork because it's full of nasty germs is utterly anachronistic at best.

@LeeWoofenden Not necessarily. It does make clear that the eating wasn't the point. It was a physical metaphor that highlights God's grace and power.

Remember, Christ fulfills the law, not removes it.

@LeeWoofenden Nice.

@LeeWoofenden If you believe the message is wholly godly, then that actuality is very much on the table. And many Christians think it's perfectly reasonable theology.

This is my fundamental issue with the doctrine of an infallible, inspired scripture.

When taking this dogma as given, you can easily explain and believe nearly anything because of God's [foresight, kindness, power, etc].

Conversely, when taking the correct exegetical approach the conclusions that the author was inconsistent, or changed his mind, or lied, or doesn't know what he's talking about are all on the table.

For me, it was some silly societal meme that Moses inherited. He saw the value in the people having unique characteristics, so he made it law. That's in/out group theory 101.

You need real positive markers to tell your kindred from the foreigner.

And the incessant "chosen people" nonsense in the rest of the bible supports this.

And a lack of benign consistent memes in Christianity is one of its biggest issues. The reformation, for the preservation of a culture, was ultimately a bad thing. Christians have nothing like "clean foods". Not anymore.

The effect has been 40k kinds of Christian.