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Islamic & Jewish Aversion To Pork

My dentist hadn't seen Marathon Man so I had to explain Is It Safe?
I made the mistake of cracking that joke with a dentist once. I think he didn't like it, and he did a bad injection which hit the root and the nerve. A year or two later, I lost that tooth as a result of a nasty root infection.
I learnt a lesson that day...don't piss off a dentist. Another lesson I learnt was that dentists cannot be trusted at all.
 
I made the mistake of cracking that joke with a dentist once. I think he didn't like it, and he did a bad injection which hit the root and the nerve. A year or two later, I lost that tooth as a result of a nasty root infection.
I learnt a lesson that day...don't piss off a dentist. Another lesson I learnt was that dentists cannot be trusted at all.

Its ok, this dentist has a sense of humour. Did a great job.
 
Another factor to consider is that pigs are confined livestock which have to be manually fed in place. The dominant livestock management approach of that ancient place / time was pastoralism (i.e., grazing herds with shepherds overseeing them).

Also, pigs can be more resource-intensive (especially with respect to water) than cattle or sheep.

Finally, pigs are omnivores, and the prospect of their eating meat (and whatever else they can get their snouts on) probably contributed to their not being seen as feasible candidates for certification as 'clean'.

These sorts of explanations have largely supplanted the older hygiene-related suggestions as the most common ones cited nowadays, but I still believe the hygiene / disease angle is a likely one.

I agree with OneWingedBird that the self-identification / cultural-control aspect was probably in play as well.

I suspect the prohibition arose and survived based on multiple such factors, not just one.

It also bears pointing out that swine prohibitions were widespread across the upper Red Sea / Palestine / Mesopotamian region(s) in ancient times. There's no reason to believe the prohibition that most clearly persisted to the present day was the original one. In turn, this opens up the possibility that different regional cultures' similar prohibitions may have mutually reinforced, and borrowed from, each other.
 
They knew enough to notice that eating pig flesh could cause fatal ilnesses and ditto for cross contamination and septicemia from shaving.

There is such a thing as learning from observation and empirical evidence.
So the idea that the early Jews had that illness was caused by demonic interference was based on "learning from observation and empirical evidence"

I'm sorry but observation and empiricism were not modes of thought available to the societies that formulated the books of the Septaguint. Observation and empirical evidence would have allowed these primitive thinkers to:
1) adopt the eating of shellfish after observing that other peoples in the area did not suffer from such ingestion;
2) adopt the eating of pork because other peoples in the area were fine with bacon;
3) stop making women accused of adultery a drink made with dust from the Temple floor because such drinks were not effective deciding the truth;
4) realising that shaving was fine, the Egyptians, Assyrians, Greeks and Romans all shaved to varying degrees and took no harm;
5) make clear that the Mitzvah B'peh is horrifically unhygienic and causes active harm.

The type of thought used was that of precedent; what did the forefathers think? and if there was no precedent then reasoning was carried out from what was thought to be the nearest comparable case. Precedent and tradition were everything; it was precedent that lead the Jews to classify bats as birds and to insist that insects have 4 legs. If observation did not fit precedent then that was the work of unseen powers be they angels or demons.
 
A couple of points about pigs
Another factor to consider is that pigs are confined livestock which have to be manually fed in place.
Pigs in Roman Europe and the Near East were sylvan animals grazed in woodlands.
Also, pigs can be more resource-intensive (especially with respect to water)
Which is why the New Testament report of swine near the sea of Galilee.
 
So the idea that the early Jews had that illness was caused by demonic interference was based on "learning from observation and empirical evidence"

I'm sorry but observation and empiricism were not modes of thought available to the societies that formulated the books of the Septaguint. Observation and empirical evidence would have allowed these primitive thinkers to:
1) adopt the eating of shellfish after observing that other peoples in the area did not suffer from such ingestion;
2) adopt the eating of pork because other peoples in the area were fine with bacon;
3) stop making women accused of adultery a drink made with dust from the Temple floor because such drinks were not effective deciding the truth;
4) realising that shaving was fine, the Egyptians, Assyrians, Greeks and Romans all shaved to varying degrees and took no harm;
5) make clear that the Mitzvah B'peh is horrifically unhygienic and causes active harm.

The type of thought used was that of precedent; what did the forefathers think? and if there was no precedent then reasoning was carried out from what was thought to be the nearest comparable case. Precedent and tradition were everything; it was precedent that lead the Jews to classify bats as birds and to insist that insects have 4 legs. If observation did not fit precedent then that was the work of unseen powers be they angels or demons.

AS usual you slay all in your path and your opinion emerges as the only possible truth.
 
Here is the text I referred to upthread. It is from The Golden Bough:

Attis, Adonis, and the Pig

Passing now to Attis and Adonis, we may note a few facts which seem to show that these deities of vegetation had also, like other deities of the same class, their animal embodiments. The worshippers of Attis abstained from eating the flesh of swine. This appears to indicate that the pig was regarded as an embodiment of Attis. And the legend that Attis was killed by a boar points in the same direction. For after the examples of the goat Dionysus and the pig Demeter it may almost be laid down as a rule that an animal which is said to have injured a god was originally the god himself. Perhaps the cry of “Hyes Attes! Hyes Attes!” which was raised by the worshippers of Attis, may be neither more nor less than “Pig Attis! Pig Attis!”—hyes being possibly a Phrygian form of the Greek hy¯s, “a pig.”
1
In regard to Adonis, his connexion with the boar was not always explained by the story that he had been killed by the animal. According to another story, a boar rent with his tusk the bark of the tree in which the infant Adonis was born. According to yet another story, he perished at the hands of Hephaestus on Mount Lebanon while he was hunting wild boars. These variations in the legend serve to show that, while the connexion of the boar with Adonis was certain, the reason of the connexion was not understood, and that consequently different stories were devised to explain it. Certainly the pig ranked as a sacred animal among the Syrians. At the great religious metropolis of Hierapolis on the Euphrates pigs were neither sacrificed nor eaten, and if a man touched a pig he was unclean for the rest of the day. Some people said this was because the pigs were unclean; others said it was because the pigs were sacred. This difference of opinion points to a hazy state of religious thought in which the ideas of sanctity and uncleanness are not yet sharply distinguished, both being blent in a sort of vaporous solution to which we give the name of taboo. It is quite consistent with this that the pig should have been held to be an embodiment of the divine Adonis, and the analogies of Dionysus and Demeter make it probable that the story of the hostility of the animal to the god was only a late misapprehension of the old view of the god as embodied in a pig. The rule that pigs were not sacrificed or eaten by worshippers of Attis and presumably of Adonis, does not exclude the possibility that in these rituals the pig was slain on solemn occasions as a representative of the god and consumed sacramentally by the worshippers. Indeed, the sacramental killing and eating of an animal implies that the animal is sacred, and that, as a general rule, it is spared.
2
The attitude of the Jews to the pig was as ambiguous as that of the heathen Syrians towards the same animal. The Greeks could not decide whether the Jews worshipped swine or abominated them. On the one hand they might not eat swine; but on the other hand they might not kill them. And if the former rule speaks for the uncleanness, the latter speaks still more strongly for the sanctity of the animal. For whereas both rules may, and one rule must, be explained on the supposition that the pig was sacred; neither rule must, and one rule cannot, be explained on the supposition that the pig was unclean. If, therefore, we prefer the former supposition, we must conclude that, originally at least, the pig was revered rather than abhorred by the Israelites. We are confirmed in this opinion by observing that down to the time of Isaiah some of the Jews used to meet secretly in gardens to eat the flesh of swine and mice as a religious rite. Doubtless this was a very ancient ceremony, dating from a time when both the pig and the mouse were venerated as divine, and when their flesh was partaken of sacramentally on rare and solemn occasions as the body and blood of gods. And in general it may perhaps be said that all so-called unclean animals were originally sacred; the reason for not eating them was that they were divine.

Make of it what you will.
 
AS usual you slay all in your path and your opinion emerges as the only possible truth.
So counter it with reasonable arguments, not assumptions about competences that were not in the skill set of the peoples local to Palestine.

Yithian points out that there are other possible explanations for the restriction on pork; Ulalume indicates that the prohibition may have been inherited from a more primitive cult which viewed the pig/wild boar as an embodiment of a deity; my contention was that it was due to the nomadic origins of the Semitic peoples.
 
So the idea that the early Jews had that illness was caused by demonic interference was based on "learning from observation and empirical evidence"

I'm sorry but observation and empiricism were not modes of thought available to the societies that formulated the books of the Septaguint. Observation and empirical evidence would have allowed these primitive thinkers to:
1) adopt the eating of shellfish after observing that other peoples in the area did not suffer from such ingestion;
2) adopt the eating of pork because other peoples in the area were fine with bacon;
3) stop making women accused of adultery a drink made with dust from the Temple floor because such drinks were not effective deciding the truth;
4) realising that shaving was fine, the Egyptians, Assyrians, Greeks and Romans all shaved to varying degrees and took no harm;
5) make clear that the Mitzvah B'peh is horrifically unhygienic and causes active harm.

The type of thought used was that of precedent; what did the forefathers think? and if there was no precedent then reasoning was carried out from what was thought to be the nearest comparable case. Precedent and tradition were everything; it was precedent that lead the Jews to classify bats as birds and to insist that insects have 4 legs. If observation did not fit precedent then that was the work of unseen powers be they angels or demons.

I think, if I understand you correctly here, science can't exist when people don't learn from their observations. Yet, I would assume we can both agree that we do have science these days, but people still hold onto superstitions and unsubstantiated claims such as sitting on cold walls gives you piles. Some people even actively engage in pseudosciences such as Astrology, or base their diet on assertions that have not been rigorously tested. On a more superficial level, the media routinely reports as fact, research that has merely established a correlation - and the public don't question it.
 
P.s. Hasn't The Book of Enoch, been credited with containing chapters on Astronomy that were ahead of what the Egyptians knew? Therefore Enoch is a scientist.
 
So counter it with reasonable arguments, not assumptions about competences that were not in the skill set of the peoples local to Palestine.

Yithian points out that there are other possible explanations for the restriction on pork; Ulalume indicates that the prohibition may have been inherited from a more primitive cult which viewed the pig/wild boar as an embodiment of a deity; my contention was that it was due to the nomadic origins of the Semitic peoples.

But I said you are correct, yours is the only view that could possibly prevail.

Your opinions are Laws of Nature.
 
But I said you are correct, yours is the only view that could possibly prevail.

Your opinions are Laws of Nature.
And I highlighted opinions other than mine that are equally correct, but your opinions in this case appear not to be correct because there is evidence of their flaws. The old "they did it for health reasons" is at best received wisdom and at worst sloppy thinking.
 
And I highlighted opinions other than mine that are equally correct, but your opinions in this case appears not to be correct because there is evidence of their flaws. The old "they did it for health reasons" is at best received wisdom and at worst sloppy thinking.

I think Loquaciousness has already answered more succinctly than I would have. All I'll add is that it is likely that the priesthood of the time contained many cynics who used religion to retain control over the masses and to accumulate privileges. It was in the priests interests to have a healthy flock, these priests from their better (even only) education were in a position to make more informed observations. Therefore they codified reasons for the avoidance of certain foods and practices. It was not in their interest to pass on observation which exposed their religion as hokum.

I will raise the matter in my Theology class.
 
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If your teacher puts forward the "health" argument you might want to question them about why pigskin leather is also unclean for both Jews and Muslims; whereas anthrax carrying (untanned) goat hide is clean.

The whole clean and unclean argument is very fraught, devout Muslims are, theoretically, not ever supposed to touch dogs whilst some devout Jews walk on separate pavements from their women in case of menstruation or temptation.
 
So counter it with reasonable arguments, not assumptions about competences that were not in the skill set of the peoples local to Palestine.
By saying that, aren't you making the assumption that certain competences were not in the skill set of the peoples local to Palestine at the time?
Yes, I know it's Greek, but what about the Antikythera Mechanism? Was that the result of random dice-rolling, hand waving and reading animal entrails? No, it was clearly the result of long observation and scientific method (long before the concept was established). How do we know there weren't similar geniuses and people with scientific capabilities in the Palestine area at the time?
 
If your teacher puts forward the "health" argument you might want to question them about why pigskin leather is also unclean for both Jews and Muslims; whereas anthrax carrying (untanned) goat hide is clean.

The whole clean and unclean argument is very fraught, devout Muslims are, theoretically, not ever supposed to touch dogs whilst some devout Jews walk on separate pavements from their women in case of menstruation or temptation.

You obviously know more than anyone with a PhD in Theology with a specialty in this area, there no point in me even raising the question.
 
By saying that, aren't you making the assumption that certain competences were not in the skill set of the peoples local to Palestine at the time?
Yes, I know it's Greek, but what about the Antikythera Mechanism? Was that the result of random dice-rolling, hand waving and reading animal entrails? No, it was clearly the result of long observation and scientific method (long before the concept was established). How do we know there weren't similar geniuses and people with scientific capabilities in the Palestine area at the time?

He really should check his privileges.
 
Didn't Christ send the demons known as Legion into a herd of pigs (on their request) to free the man they had possessed? Might be a clue as to how the animals were regarded, though begs the question what a herd of swine were doing in Israel in the first place if the locals hated them so much.
 
Didn't Christ send the demons known as Legion into a herd of pigs (on their request) to free the man they had possessed? Might be a clue as to how the animals were regarded, though begs the question what a herd of swine were doing in Israel in the first place if the locals hated them so much.

They were trotting along enjoying their sylvan setting, minding their own business when that bloody Messiah casts a gang load of demons into them.
 
By saying that, aren't you making the assumption that certain competences were not in the skill set of the peoples local to Palestine at the time?
Yes, I know it's Greek, but what about the Antikythera Mechanism? Was that the result of random dice-rolling, hand waving and reading animal entrails? No, it was clearly the result of long observation and scientific method (long before the concept was established). How do we know there weren't similar geniuses and people with scientific capabilities in the Palestine area at the time?
Well the primary difficulty with that is that the Antikythera mechanism was likely produced long after the time when the dietary laws were introduced and has I have noted observation of reality never altered those particular rules. Hominds have been eating shellfish with no particular harm for hundreds of thousands of years but that did not alter the dietary restriction on them.

Next in relation to science there are 3 further difficulties. Firstly; it is likely that the Antikythera mechanism was designed by one person and produced under that persons guidance. Secondly; it uses epicycles to emulate planetary motion and even at that time it was known that epicycles were observationally inaccurate. Thirdly; this product of one mind was never disseminated widely, the Pythagorean cult that (probably) produced it promptly lost the skills and knowledge associated with it. Yes, it is a wonder of craftsmanship but so were the early European clocks.

The loss of a single person also affected medicine, even in the Greek/Latin cultures of the Mediterranean. After the death of Hippocrates his works were considered as too perfect and unalterable. Like Pythagoras a cult formed round his memory and, until Galen, any variation in the Hippocratic method was not adopted although (in Wikipedia, salt pinch taken) it says that certain aspects of his work were lost.
 
They were trotting along enjoying their sylvan setting, minding their own business when that bloody Messiah casts a gang load of demons into them
Well I suggest you check the climate and environment of the eastern side of the "Sea" of Galilee at the time of Christ rather than making assumptions based on the idea that the whole area was desert. Even today it is not exactly barren.
ou obviously know more than anyone with a PhD in Theology with a specialty in this area, there no point in me even raising the question.
Well, I could observe that theology is not exactly a science or I could point out that there are other Ph.D.s in theology who would likely challenge the views of your teacher, notably Ehrman and Loftus - you have read some of their work, I trust? Do not assume that the addition of magical letters after an name makes your teacher inerrant; part of taking a course presented by a Ph.D. is that you are supposed to question not accept as holy writ all words they utter and all texts they prefer.

I am not inerrant, but if I can challenge your received wisdom with reason and observation, why cannot you challenge the received wisdom of your teachers?
 
Well I suggest you check the climate and environment of the eastern side of the "Sea" of Galilee at the time of Christ rather than making assumptions based on the idea that the whole area was desert. Even today it is not exactly barren.

Well, I could observe that theology is not exactly a science or I could point out that there are other Ph.D.s in theology who would likely challenge the views of your teacher, notably Ehrman and Loftus - you have read some of their work, I trust? Do not assume that the addition of magical letters after an name makes your teacher inerrant; part of taking a course presented by a Ph.D. is that you are supposed to question not accept as holy writ all words they utter and all texts they prefer.

I am not inerrant, but if I can challenge your received wisdom with reason and observation, why cannot you challenge the received wisdom of your teachers?

Firstly, you seem devoid of a sense of humour. I merely pastiched your description.

Secondly, I stated that I would raise the matter in class; you then rejected in advance any possible answer that might clash with your belief system. Nothing magical about Ph.D, but I would give more weight to the opinion of someone who has studied the area in depth than to your received wisdom.

I haven't even received the received wisdom of my teacher as yet, but you know better.

There is no point in continuing this discussion with you.
 
Just as a side note.... I have had severe food poisoning from oysters twice, both times eaten at reputable restaurants. Apparently, you can't tell when they've been infected with nora virus. You would have thought that I would have learned from the first time of ending up in hospital on a drip, but no it took a second trip there before I stopped eating oysters and I would probably still do it now ( I never learn from my observations ), if it wasn't for husband saying he won't nurse me if it happens again!
 
Just as a side note.... I have had severe food poisoning from oysters twice, both times eaten at reputable restaurants.
Bet you ate them raw. My worst case of food poisoning came after I ate Steak Tartare.

Mussels, cockles, winkles, razor shells and clams are all eaten cooked.
 
Bet you ate them raw. My worst case of food poisoning came after I ate Steak Tartare.

Mussels, cockles, winkles, razor shells and clams are all eaten cooked.
,
Not neccessarily, my fruit de mer platter in Nice was definitely still partially alive, or at least not cooked.
 
Film director Michael Winner eventually died from the aftereffects of a poisoned oyster.
 
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