Or rather, why do they not *not *eat pork (or meat+milk etc…) ?
May seem like an odd question, but it just hit me.
Unless I’m mistaken, the various dietary laws observed by Jews are laid down in the Old Testament. I recall my dear Grandma looked them up in…hmmm… Leviticus ? whenever a Jewish GF of mine came to eat with us, for fear of her cuisine being a social faux pas.
And while I admit I haven’t read much of the Bible, I doubt Jesus ever said his disciples to forget the old laws, did he ? Yet both testaments are equally valid Words of God, unless the New one definitely contradicts the Old, in which case Testament 2.0 supercedes the unpatched version, correct ?
So how come modern Christians don’t follow these rules, when did they stop, and why ?
WAG: I believe that the fact that many of the OT rules aren’t followed by most Christians* is derived from the debate about baptizing Gentiles. There was a fair amount of confusing in the early Christian world when it came to Gentiles who were converting and whether they would need to first become Jewish (and be circumcised) or if they could just become Christian. Paul (or a writer whose letter is attributed to Paul) writes in his letters to Galatians:
I believe that this line of thought is used for interpreting other bits of the old laws, such as dietary restrictions. So, to answer your questions, Christians eat pork because grown men didn’t want to have their penises sliced at.
*Except for the fictional Flanders of Simpson’s fame, who kept kosher “just in case”.
This was a major issue in the early church. There were two camps: those who argued that the Mosaic laws continued to govern, in addition to the new revelation of Jesus and his teaching, and those who argued that Jesus’s teachings and resurrection had superceded the ritual aspects of the law. The issue was of considerable importance, because it was linked to another key issue: was Jesus’ revelation to be limited to Jews, or was it open to Jew and Gentile alike?
This issue was first shown in the account of Peter’s vision:
Right after this, a messenger came and asked Peter to come to a Gentile named Cornelius, a centurion. Peter went, and the following occurred:
Note that as a centurion, Cornelius was a ranking officer of the the Roman army, which had occupied Israel and Judea. Peter was saying that even the hated Romans could become Christians.
However, that apparently did not settle the issue. Paul in the Letter to the Galatians records a further episode, also involving Peter:
Based on there two passages, the early church concluded that they were no longer bound to obey the ritual aspects of the Mosaic law, even those believers who had been born Jewish. The new revelation was to all the world, Jew and gentile alike.
FWIW my preacher told us in Sunday School this was the relevant passage from the NT - but with a bit of extrapolation from clean/unclean hands to pork, shellfish, and other goodies:
Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. What goes into a man’s mouth does not make him ‘unclean,’ but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him ‘unclean.’”
Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?”
He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. Leave them; they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.”
Peter said, “Explain the parable to us.”
“Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean.’ For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what make a man ‘unclean’; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him ‘unclean.’”
Also, in re: the Law, ch 15? of Acts says that the only real ‘legal’ aspects to be followed were 1. abstain from sex sin 2. abstain from meat offered to idols, 2 other things that I can’t remember.
There is some thought that this was a application of the “Noachic Law”, which Jewish thought regards as binding on all humanity- against idolatry, blasphemy, murder, adultery, theft, for establishing courts of justice, and against eating the living flesh of an animal (by extension, against eating blood and cruel prolonged methods of getting meat, rather than a quick clean kill.)
The early Christians did what they could to make conversion easier, thus eliminating the Kosher laws, circumcision, and most of the other 613 laws of the Jewish religion.
No, I was really asking for the historical answer. I didn’t understand the religion when I did believe in it, I sure won’t now that I don’t anymore, I’m afraid.
