Trivia Fact of the Day:
Honey is one of only two foods that is kosher, in spite of the creature that produces it not being kosher. The other being breastmilk
See DCnDC’s first link, above.
[QUOTE=Captain Amazing]
See how many of your ideas about science and the natural world are still accepted 1800 years from now, then get back to me.
[/QUOTE]
As new information becomes available, scientific ideas change. New information about honey is available. Why have Kosher laws not changed?
I assume honey was first considered Kosher because people would have eaten it anyway. The justification was bound to follow.
Because God hasn’t changed them. He must have know that honey was produced by bees, but he allowed the Rabbis to think otherwise. So what is the need for change? Unless you don’t believe in God’s omnipotence, but in that case, why would you care?
Why would I care about what?
Because kosher laws are based on a holy book that was written 1800 years ago, itself based on traditions that are even older and thought to be divinely commanded. So challenging the Talmud challenges those assumptions. I mean, look at the controversy in the haredi community over the Zoo Rabbi.
Land of milk and honey indeedy.
Well, I say yes. What makes the Orthodox rabbi’s conversion superior? Did he perhaps receive his semicha directly from the Vilna Gaon?
But I recognize others may disagree. 
If the hive is inside a rotting lion carcass, perhaps.
From your lips to Netenyahu’s ears.
Why would you care that Kosher laws haven’t changed if you don’t believe they are the laws decreed by God?
What I cared about was getting a clarification from Captain Amazing. You can follow the conversation through posts 13, 17, 20, and 25 if you like. But to answer your question, when an ideology states as one of it’s tenets something that is demonstrably contrary to fact, I am interested in exactly how twisty the explanation for such is, if for no other reason than that it amuses me. Especially when that ideology purports to tell people how to live. Is that sufficient?
I have a question for you. Why do you care what I care about?
Wrong answer to the question.
Why should jews not change in the light of knowledge to align more closely with the divine creation?
Why believe in a divnely inspired statement when it is so blatently and provably false? What credibility remains for the rest of it?
Why do I care? Because religious zealots of all stripes have caused havoc throughout human history, from justifying war, slavery, sexual slavery and execution of innocents because they happened to live in a ‘chosen land’ - in that, all of us have an interest, yet we can demolish these things, so we can reason that much or perhaps all of it is suspect - so the real question is - why do you still hold to these tenets unquestioningly?
I sense a forum change coming up … 
Wait … didn’t we have a thread a while back about whether cannibalism is kosher or not? If we didn’t, should we?
I was doing the same thing. Looking for the amusing, twisted explanation. I wasn’t addressing you directly, just the question. Interesting though, a tenet contrary to fact seems to be an essential component of something that could be called an ideology.
I agree. Unless it’s a brand spanking new one! 
Whoa nelly. I don’t get at all what the fuss is about.
Captain Amazing, why would you say the Talmudic Rabbis did not know about the nature of honey?
And Contrapuntal, what tenet of Judaism are you saying is contrary to fact?
As for the Zoo Rabbi, Captain, I’ve read his book “Challenge of Creation” and his conclusion is in fact very controversial. I have corresponded with him by e-mail, and I’m not particularly satisfied that his answers are reconcilable with the core beliefs of Judaism (as defined by we Orthodox). I have great respect for his breadth of knowledge, and many of his other books are perfectly innocent, but the controversy is hardly about trivial details such as the nature of the Kashrut of honey.
Bricker, are you being facetious? Because practically all non-Hassidic and non-Sephardic Orthodox Rabbis did in fact receive their semicha not directly, obviously, but from someone who can trace his chain of semicha to the Vilna Gaon.
Well, perhaps Kosher law is not technically a tenet of Judaism. But it certainly is a belief system that Jews are expected to embrace, right? And honey is in fact a product of the bodies of the bees, which is contrary to kosher law right?
Contrapuntal:
It’s one of the behaviors that Jews are expected to do as a result of the tenets of Judaic belief, yes. If one believes that the Torah is true, and has been faithfully transmitted, then it’s just as much so.
That’s where we disagree. Honey is not, in the main, produced by the bees’ bodies, in the sense that, say, pig or camel milk is produced by theirs. Honey is essentially nectar that was merely STORED in bees’ bodies and then disgorged in mostly intact manner. The fact that a minute amount of bee stomach enzyme is now mixed with it does not change its essential nature. The bee does not digest the nectar and then produce honey from the substance of its body (as, again, in the example of milk from a non-kosher mammal).
Nectar is, however, chemically and physically distinct from honey. It is not simply stored; rather, it is fundamentally changed.
To argue that this is not a production process seems disingenuous to me. Product A comes in, Product B comes out, regardless of how minute the catalyst is. (Whatever that means. Sufficient to do the job suggests to me that the amount is exactly right.)