20 Bible Food Laws That Have Been Misunderstood For Centuries

According to Leviticus 11:7 and Deuteronomy 14:8, pigs were considered unclean because they had cloven hooves but did not chew their cud. So, they failed the two-part test the Bible applies to land animals. The Bible does not once refer to disease in connection with the prohibition of pork. In the 19th century, an explanation was advanced that the Israelites avoided pork to escape trichinosis, a parasitic infection. Anthropologist Mary Douglas suggested the pig did not fit into any of the traditional categories, making it a symbol of what set Israel apart from surrounding nations.

In Exodus 22:31, the Israelites are told that any animal “torn by beasts in the field” must not be eaten but rather thrown to the dogs, as it was terefah, not properly bled. Later, rabbinic law expanded terefah to mean any animal found to have internal damage during slaughter inspection. Centuries later, the word treif evolved to become Yiddish slang for anything that wasn’t kosher, including pork and shellfish.

In Exodus 23:19, Exodus 34:26, and Deuteronomy 14:21, the verse reads: “You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.” This repetition led the rabbis to formulate the kosher laws regarding meat and dairy. Mid-20th century scholars suggested the verse referred to a Canaanite fertility ritual mentioned on an ancient tablet. A 1986 study of the tablet by epigraphers Robert Ratner and Bruce Zuckerman discovered no evidence of this fertility ritual.

In Leviticus 10:1-2, Aaron, the high priest, had two sons, Nadab and Abihu, the eldest of his four sons, who were incinerated by God for bringing “unauthorized fire” before Him. Almost immediately following this incident, in Leviticus 10:9, He forbids Aaron from drinking any wine or strong drink when he enters the tabernacle, the portable sanctuary where the ark is kept, lest he die. While the biblical text never actually states that the two young men were drunk, ancient interpreters made this connection. When off duty, priests could still drink.

Leviticus 11:9-12 and Deuteronomy 14:9-10 state that the Israelites could eat only those water animals that had both fins and scales. Shellfish, mollusks, catfish, and eels were all considered an abomination. Leviticus describes them simply as animals without scales, not as creatures living at the bottom of the sea that absorb toxins.

Numbers 6:1-4 outlines a voluntary Nazirite vow to separate oneself to the Lord for a period of time. The priests didn’t drink while on duty, but Nazirites abstained from all grape products for the length of the vow. They abstained from wine, vinegar, fresh grapes, raisins, “from the seeds to the skin.” Samson, the judge famed for his strength, the prophet Samuel, and John the Baptist, the New Testament preacher, are all traditionally linked to the Nazirite vow. The normal Israelite had no problem eating grapes and raisins.

Soon after the Flood, in Genesis 9:4, the Torah prohibits eating meat that still contains its blood. The prohibition was restated in Leviticus 17:10-14: “the life of the flesh is in the blood.” Even centuries later, when the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 relieved Gentile Christians from most Torah restrictions, it retained this one. The prohibition still informs kosher slaughter methods and contemporary discussions about blood transfusions.

Leviticus 11:20-23 bans swarming winged insects but carves out an exception for four kinds of locust with jointed hopping legs. John the Baptist, who preached in the wilderness, ate “locusts and wild honey” (Matthew 3:4). But at some point, Ashkenazi Jews lost track of which types were kosher and decided not to eat any. Yemenite and North African Jews, however, maintained a continuous tradition of eating desert locusts.

The Hebrew Bible says in Genesis 32:24-32 that Jacob, the patriarch regarded as the ancestor of Israel, wrestled a deity at the Jabbok River, emerging with an injured hip and a limp. Genesis 32:32 says that Israelites therefore abstain from the sciatic nerve, the hip tendon, in remembrance. The Talmud, a later compilation of rabbinic laws, referred to this practice as a binding from Sinai, though Genesis treats it as a commemorative custom. The removal of this nerve is so time-consuming that many kosher butchers in the West simply sold the back half of their cattle to non-kosher customers.

In 1st-century Roman cities, most meat came from animals sacrificed in pagan temples. In Acts 15:29, the Jerusalem Council asked Gentile converts to abstain from food that had been sacrificed to idols. The apostle Paul then wrote in 1 Corinthians 8 and 10 that because idols aren’t really anything, there’s no problem eating meat from the marketplace, but Christians shouldn’t eat at temple feasts or cause other believers to stumble. The two passages work together as one solution.

In Daniel 1:8-16, the exiled Daniel and his three friends refuse to eat the king’s rich food and drink wine, requesting ten days to eat only vegetables and drink water. At the end of ten days, they appear healthier than those who had eaten the king’s food. This passage has long been debated by scholars as to whether eating the king’s food would have violated kosher law, honored pagan gods, or represented submission to the Babylonian king. Daniel eventually resumed his regular diet; the popular “Daniel Fast” is a far later innovation.

According to Leviticus 17:13, hunters are required to pour out and cover the blood of a killed game animal. In Acts 15:20, “things strangled” appear in a list of things Gentile Christians are required to abstain from. Strangling keeps the blood in the flesh rather than letting it flow out. The early Christian writer Tertullian wrote (around 197 CE) that Christians don’t eat suffocated fowl or strangled game. Western churches eventually did away with this rule, but it remains part of Eastern Orthodox canon law today.

In Leviticus 11:13-19 and Deuteronomy 14:11-18, twenty specific winged creatures are prohibited, including hawks, vultures, herons, owls, and the bat. Unlike mammals, which were judged by whether they had split hooves and chewed their cud, all winged creatures were lumped together into one category in the Torah without reference to any biological characteristics. The Mishnah, the earliest known compilation of Jewish oral law, provides another set of guidelines: birds must be nonpredatory and have a crop, a separable gizzard, and an extra claw.

According to Leviticus 3:16-17 and 7:23, chelev, the hard fat that envelops the internal organs of animals, especially the kidneys and stomach, could not be eaten because it had to be burned upon the altar of God. This was in contrast to shuman, the regular fat (marbling), or alyah, the fat on the sheep’s tail, which were permitted to be eaten. Violators would be “cut off” from the Israelite community.

Leviticus 11:41-43 prohibits the Israelites from eating anything that swarms or creeps upon the ground, and this includes all reptiles, worms, and creeping insects. Even the inspection of kosher produce has its roots in this verse; leafy greens must be inspected on a light table for any bugs, and then washed to get rid of them. In rabbinic law, anything invisible to the naked eye is considered kosher, as “the Torah was not given to ministering angels.”

In Deuteronomy 14:21, God forbade the Israelites to eat anything that “died of itself” (literally, was not bled out correctly). This animal would be considered unclean. However, they could give the meat to a foreigner in their town to eat, or sell it to a foreigner. If this were a hygiene rule meant to protect everyone, it wouldn’t make sense to let a foreigner eat the meat, yet that is exactly what the text allows.

The requirements for land animals in Leviticus 11:3-8 were that they had to both chew the cud and have a completely split hoof. The camel and the hare chew the cud but have no split hoof. The pig has a split hoof but doesn’t chew the cud. Hares eat their own soft pellets, a behavior that looks like cud-chewing from the outside and was probably what ancient observers noticed.

In Exodus 12:15 and 13:3-7, the Israelites were told to remove all traces of chametz (leaven, which comes from any of the five grains: wheat, barley, spelt, rye, and oats) from their houses for seven days during Passover and eat matzo instead, or they would be “cut off.” Later, medieval Ashkenazi rabbis forbade eating legumes (beans, peas, lentils, etc.), rice, and corn. Corn wasn’t part of the ancient world at all. So this medieval ban was just that: a medieval custom, not scripture.

In Leviticus 19:23-25, the produce of a new fruit tree is considered “uncircumcised,” or unclean, for the first three years. In the fourth year, all the fruit is to be consecrated to the Lord as a praise offering, and in the fifth year the owner may finally eat the fruit. Horticulturists today say that removing the early fruit will help the tree establish a stronger root and trunk system. But the Bible sees things differently, as holy and patient, rather than agronomically correct.

In Genesis 1:29, God gave Adam and Eve every plant that bears seed and every tree that yields fruit to be their food. Following the Flood, God allowed humans to eat anything that moves (Genesis 9:3), but with a proviso: “But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood” (Genesis 9:4). It remains an unsettled matter among theologians whether the diet of Eden or the diet of the Ark was meant to be permanent.

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