I Would Rather Be Herod’s Pig: The History of a Taboo
blog.longreads.com
blog.longreads.com
I didn't know that Roman cuisine featured "liquamen—a fermented fish sauce central to Roman cuisine".
And note there are a TON of animals Jews don't eat, not just pig. Yet people seem to focus on the pig more than any other.
This says more about them than about the Jews.
- Israelites came to consider pork avoidance a central element of their identity.
- Scriptural dietary rules grew more significant with time.
- God expresses his fury at a few people who have eaten “swine’s flesh, and broth of abominable things.”
- even in the face of death, a Jew must refuse pork in order to remain true to his people.
The reasons listed in the first section of the article are referring to other ancient near eastern cultures, whose reason for avoiding eating pork products certainly wasn't due to Levitical laws.
In the latter section an emphasis is made on the fact that avoid pigs became more of an issue in the post-exilic period when the Jews found themselves ruled by cultures that did eat pig meat, and the point of difference was more apparent.
So, I'm really not sure which part of the article you think is "not entirely true". I can't vouch for the overall accuracy of it, but its representation of Jewish culture and history seems reasonable accurate to me.
> even in the face of death, a Jew must refuse pork in order to remain true to his people
Both you and the author have completely misunderstood this episode.
There is NO law requiring death from eating pork! There is however a law that if an oppressor tries to make someone violate a law in public you must must accept death rather than comply with even the most minor offence.
The important part here is "in public".
Pork simply has nothing whatsoever to do with it!
And that's just one of the reasons this article, while a nice story, is simply not accurate.
(At least about Jews, but when it gets the part I know well wrong it doesn't give me much confidence in the rest where I don't have the knowledge to check - it's definitely a great story though.)
I don't see anywhere in the article that even remotely suggested there is. And I certainly made no such claim.
Eleazer is a hero in Maccabees because he chooses death rather than violate the Mosaic law.
The eating of pork products was a key point of differentiation between the Romans and the Jews, not because the dietary laws relating to pigs are more important (to the Jews) than the other laws, but because the Romans ate a lot of pork products and the refusal of obedient Jews to partake was an obvious sign of their refusal to fall in line with Roman culture. It was not the only such point of contention, but in an article about eating pigs, it stands to reason that the pork issue is going to get a mention.
> Pork simply has nothing whatsoever to do with it!
Eleazar was killed for refusing to eat pork (or more accurately for refusing to pretend to eat pork). I think pork has at least something to do with that.
>>There is NO law requiring death from eating pork!
> I don't see anywhere in the article that even remotely suggested there is. And I certainly made no such claim.
You wrote: "even in the face of death, a Jew must refuse pork in order to remain true to his people"
So yes you did make such a claim, and no, it's not true. In the face of death a Jew MAY eat pork, and is actually REQUIRED to eat pork. Except in a public case like in the story.
> Eleazar was killed for refusing to eat pork .... I think pork has at least something to do with that.
If he was ordered to eat an apple from a tree less than 3 years old the story would play out identically. The pork is completely incidental, yet the author makes it central to his narrative.
> The eating of pork products was a key point of differentiation between the Romans and the Jews ..... not because the dietary laws relating to pigs are more important (to the Jews) than the other laws, but because the Romans ate a lot of pork products
So you do get it at least somewhat. But the author does not. The author makes the refusal to eat pork as something very important to the Jews to maintain purity, when actually pork does not hold any such central position. ALL the dietary laws are to maintain purity, pork is not more important than the rest.
The author believes Jews did not eat pork because it was physically unclean and they were required to maintain purity. This is false. Jews did not drink camel milk either - are camels physically unclean?
I can totally see how the Romans would elevate pork above other restrictions, but that's a story about the Romans not about the Jews, and it has nothing to do with the eating habits of a Pig. The Jews did not think "I don't eat pork therefore I am apart from you", pork was not the thing that separated them.
I might say the academic integrity of most non-religious disciplines is horrible and lazy. Academics will take text (for example The Epic of Gilgamesh) treat all the copies as one story and try to prove stupid things compared to the Old Testament that are just plain silly or they don't know how to read dates. Heck the way academics had treated the New Testament was also just play lazy and stupid, but now things are improving.
PS As a seminary student I had several non-believing professors come and teach in my classes because they found looking for the answer to the question you asked worthy of a life long pursuit. Theology is really a great discipline and very enjoyable academic pursuit. It deepened my faith but I must say most are terrified at learning too much will change their faith, which they shouldn't in m opinion.
A point I often bring up when people discuss things done "in the name of religion" that seem either counter to the themes of said religion or just odd under that justification.
And I say this as a non-religious person under the common usage of "religious".
For a lot of people, and possibly to a greater extent in different places and different times than the modern, western world, there is little distinction between "creed" and national/cultural identity. Religion wasn't just where you went to church or temple on Saturday or Sunday but rather it's another term for the distinct identity of a group. Ideas of divine laws and rules of behavior mix with the shared cultural, ethnic, and historically geographical identity of your tribe or nation.
Just as now we might talk about the things you must believe and practice to be considered a true Christian or a true Muslim, there were things you had to accept and behaviors you had to practice in order to be a "real" Roman or a "real" Hebrew. I think this was more of an identifying factor than our modern concept of nations and religions.
So when you wonder how someone could do a thing because of their religion, and so many people do different things based on the same religion, I often think about it in terms of how people act differently even though their motivation may fall under the scope of "because I'm an American" (or any other nationality). "Nationalism" almost serves the same purpose as "religion" when transposing between secular and sacred frameworks.
I'm admittedly not an expert on this but it's something that interests me in terms of history and anthropology.
So called "Biblical Scholars" mess this up all the time and put modern thought into ANE practice.
Case "The rain falls on the just and the unjust." They say this all the time when something bad happens. If you lived in a place where your food is dependent on rain the rain is the good thing. So instead of man bad things happen to everyone it really is good thing happen to everyone. Meaning the whole idea of Karma is broken and you do bad things and still good thing will happen to you from time to time. Doesn't mean your great because you got rich or lucky.
> It deepened my faith but I must say most are terrified at learning too much will change their faith, which they shouldn't in m opinion.
Can you talk more about "most are terrified at learning too much"? Do people think through studying rigorously they will inevitably shed beliefs?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi
I love wikipedia for the links to related subjects. I have read a ton of the various codes and have written papers on the similarities and differences. To keep it short the main idea for the eating is "unclean" and in Mosaic Law it had a good rational on keeping people separated that were "unclean and for health reasons probably saved a ton of people.
In our society we know what is bad for us and most of us including me still do eat the bad things. They made it a law even though the general population enjoyed pork, like I do.
> Can you talk more about "most are terrified at learning too much"? Do people think through studying rigorously they will inevitably shed beliefs?
To really hack to death "Platos Theory of Form" TL:DR The more you know something the more abstract you know it.
My theory: Most people struggle with abstract thought i.e. math beyond business math. When they struggle with the abstract thought what happens to their concept of their faith? Do they lose God like they believe others.
My wife and I share our belief very dear and close and it is the driving force of our lives. We never talk theology. Her idea is that since I have 2 years of ancient Hebrew and 2 years of Greek and even taught 2nd year Greek in college that I have answers. I would read anywhere between 5,000 to 20,000 pages per class in seminary, that would be around 400-500 pages a week minimum. I usually go, "It seems ...." or "It depends ..." and than she walks out frustrated.
I embrace the unknown and the mystery. I hold to the idea that if God was to be provable He would have made Himself a concrete object. This came from reading a lot of Soren Kierkegaard and in fact I named my son Soren after him. Kierkegaard came up with the "Leap of Faith" well after studying that the popular belief in that is wrong. It is a leap of despair and dread into the unknown and land upon faith. So it wasn't a Leap of Faith but a Leap to Faith.
Sorry I am use to writing 20 page papers on subject like this all the time.
I know Jewish people who avoid eating pork (etc) because it's their cultural identity and they don't want to disrespect that part of their heritage even though they have no particular belief in God or reverence for the Torah.
God said lots of crazy things without an explanation. This article though provides an interesting and entertaining historical context.