I think you both are right. Originally, a pastoral society that evolved into an agricultural society, but that doesn’t prevent anyone from hunting. Heck, we are primarily an industrial society, but plenty of people hunt, especially farmers.
I’ll see if I can’t find a cite for what I was talking about.
Oops, I had meant to mention Esau.
This is more than a little frustrating. I do not have access to any books or commentaries, or the like, here at work. The best I can do is search a bible web site. Here is a quote along the lines of what I was talking about, although it deals just with not consuming the blood of an animal killed in a hunt. It is from Leviticus 17.13, 17.14 (NIV).
" 'Any Israelite or any alien living among you who hunts any animal or bird that may be eaten must drain out the blood and cover it with earth, 14 because the life of every creature is its blood. That is why I have said to the Israelites, "You must not eat the blood of any creature, because the life of every creature is its blood; anyone who eats it must be cut off."
Now, I have no trouble believing my memory of some passages I read 10 years ago are off, so I won’t try until I get time to look up my notes and sources, which may be never. Now, though, I have to ask about this “because”. We are we not to consume the “life” of a creature. Ok, fine. But this is an explanatory clause. What is the logic behind it?
Ahh crap. Sorry for the dorky quote thing I selected. I guess I should preview.
I think the search for the cause of religious rituals, prescriptions and prohibitions is always an interesting endeavor. However, can we not accept perhaps a religious/cultic explanation instead of a purely practical one for the prohibition against eating meat with “life blood” still in it?
The Israelites were trying to forge a monotheistic society in a generally polytheistic land. Drinking the blood of animals and those of your enemies was not uncommon in the religious rituals of the middle east. Thus the prohibition against blood was to seperate their people from the practices of their neighbors (thou shall not worship any other gods) and draw a distinction as the “chosen” people.
Genesis was after all supposedly written by Moses and given to the Israelites as they marched/wandered through all these gentile lands.
I’ll support Mendicant in this. There is no reason given for the biblical prohibitions – well, a few of them have reasons attached, but the vast majority have no reason other than “to be holy.” The Hebrew word translated holiness is used in the sense of separateness or distinction, so one very popular interpretation is that the dietary laws were to prevent the Israelites from eating socially with the pagans around them. If you don’t eat with them, you don’t socialize or become friends with them, you don’t intermarry with them, and you remain separate/holy.