What The Bible Says About Dairy (original) (raw)

2016_From Ancient Vegetarianism to Contemporary Advocacy: When Religious Folks Decide that Animals Are No Longer Edible, Religious Studies and Theology 35.2 (2016), 37-57.

Abstaining from meat consumption has persistently been a source of debate within religious communities, often functioning as a center pivot around which theological or philosophical orthodoxy and orthopraxy turns. Drawing upon diverse ancient practices, motivations, and textual perspectives in Judaism, Christianity, and Indic traditions along with contemporary religious vegetarians, this essay maps three stages that religious communities have historically grappled with, are presently attempting, and must continue to tackle, as they re/consider eating animals and animal by-products as part of their ethical identities and community meals: (1) critical, deconstructive engagement of textual multiplicity and interpretive authority, (2) robust analysis of human supremacy in light of animal behavioral studies, new materialist science, and empathic experience, and (3) constructing imaginative coalitions beyond species, institutional boundaries, and cultural identities.

Medieval Muslim Cuisine as A Real-Life Foundation for the Meat and Milk Prohibition in Ibn Ezra's Biblical Commentary

Religions, 2018

In his biblical commentary, R. Abraham Ibn Ezra (c. 1090-1164) occasionally voices the contention that the language, culture, and lifestyle of the Muslim world are capable of contributing to our understanding of contemporary aspects of biblical stories and laws. The current paper deals with the influence of Islamic culinary art in medieval times on Ibn Ezra's Biblical commentary on the meat and milk ban. Ibn Ezra claims that the reality of the Arab kitchen, which includes the Bible lands, preserves the ancient ways of eating. Thus, we can understand the Bible ban in Muslim cuisine. According to the medieval dietary approach, cooking meat and milk is recommended because both products have similar properties. The meat of young goat healthier than lamb meat, so it is common to cook it. Muslims believe that the kid of a goat is better cooked in its own mother's milk, because the two products derive from the same origin.

To Eat or Not to Eat: Studies on the Biblical Dietary Prohibitions

2024

Anna Angelini and Peter Altmann address pivotal issues on the biblical dietary prohibitions and their significance as practices and texts through philological, zooarchaeological, iconographic, and comparative ancient Near Eastern and Greco-Roman lenses. They explore theoretical frameworks adopted in modern interpretation, possible origins in relation to ancient Israelite religion and society, and location in relation to Priestly terminology and Deuteronomic tradition. The authors expand the arc of investigation to the Second Temple reception of the prohibitions in both the Dead Sea Scrolls and Greco-Roman discourses from the first centuries CE. With their foundational studies, they provide an approach to the dietary prohibitions, opening the way for reconstructing their path of development into their present-day contexts. Table of contents: Preface 1. The Dietary Laws of Lev 11 and Deut 14: Introducing Their Ancient and Scholarly Contexts (Peter Altmann and Anna Angelini) 1. A Methodological View of the History of Scholarship 2. Human-Animal Relationships in Ancient Israel 3. The Hebrew Bible Context of Food and Drink Restrictions 4. Biblical Treatments of Meat Prohibitions 5. Questions for this Volume 6. Widening Horizons 2. Framing the Questions: Some Theoretical Frameworks for the Biblical Dietary Prohibitions (Peter Altmann) 1. Anthropological Terminology 2. Psychological Explanations 3. Materialist Explanations 4. Douglas and Other Structuralist Approaches to »Dirt« as Structural Anomaly 5. Synthesis 3. Traditions and Texts: The »Origins« of the Dietary Prohibitions of Lev 11 and Deut 14 (Peter Altmann) 1. Composition-Critical Concerns 2. Continuum: From »Sanctuary Ritual« to »Mundane Custom« 3. Mundane Customary Origins? 4. Sanctuary Ritual Origins? 5. The Influence of Household or Local Religion? 6. Ritual Practice and Ritual Text 7. Conclusions and a Possible Reconstruction 4. A Deeper Look at Deut 14:4-20 in the Context of Deuteronomy (Peter Altmann) 1. The Language of Deut 14:1-2, 3, 21 and 4-20 2. Abomination and Impurity in Deut 14 and Elsewhere in Deuteronomy 3. Mourning Rituals in 14:1-2 and their Link to vv. 3, 4-20 4. »You Are Children, Belonging to Yhwh Your God« 5. A Holy People and Treasured Nation: Deut 7:6; 14:2, 21; 26:18 6. The Relationship between Deut 14 and 26:12-15, 16-19 7. The Stipulations of Deut 14:21 in the context of Deut 14 8. Eating in Deut 14:1-21 in the Context of Deuteronomy 13 and 14:22-27 9. Summary 5. The Terms שׁקץ Šeqeṣ and טמא Ṭame' in Lev 11:2-23 and Deut 14:2-20: Overlapping or Separate Categories? (Peter Altmann) 1. The Usage of שׁקץ and טמא in the Rest of the Hebrew Bible and Their Relevance for Lev 11/Deut 14 2. The Usage of טמא 3. The Terms in Deut 14 and Lev 11 4. Conclusion 6. Aquatic Creatures in the Dietary Laws: What the Biblical and Ancient Eastern Contexts Contribute to Understanding Their Categorization (Peter Altmann) 1. Water Creatures from Iconography and Texts of Surrounding Regions 2. Water Creatures in Levantine Zooarchaeology and Evidence of Consumption in Biblical Texts 3. Sea Creatures in the Bible 4. Discussion of the Texts of Lev 11:9-12 and Deut 14:9-10 5. Reasons for the Prohibition? 6. Conclusions 7. A Table for Fortune: Abominable Food and Forbidden Cults in Isaiah 65-66 (Anna Angelini) 1. Introduction: Dietary Laws outside the Pentateuch and Isa 65-66 2. The References to Food in the Structure of Isa 65-66 3. Abominable Cults between Imagery and Practice 4. The Pig: A Marker for Impurity 5. The Greek Text: Sacrificing to Demons 6. Summary and Conclusions 8. Dietary Laws in the Second Temple Period: The Evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls (Anna Angelini) 1. Introduction: Food in Dead Sea Scrolls and Biblical Law 2. Methodological Remarks 3. Main Tendencies in the Dead Sea Scroll Materials Related to Food Laws 4. Animals and the Purity of the Temple 5. Summary and Conclusions: Food Laws between Discourse and Practice 9. Looking from the Outside: The Greco-Roman Discourse on the Jewish Food Prohibitions in the First and Second Centuries CE (Anna Angelini) 1. Introduction: The Origins of the Greek and Roman Traditions about Food Prohibitions 2. The Greek and Latin Witnesses on Jewish Food Prohibitions in the First Century CE 3. The Polemic Use of Jewish Dietary Prohibitions in Juvenal and Tacitus 4. Plutarch and The Philosophical Tradition 5. Conclusions Appendix: Plutarch's Moralia, Table Talk IV, Question 5 (669 e-671c) 10. »Thinking« and »Performing« Dietary Prohibitions: Why Should One Keep Them? One Meaning or Many? (Peter Altmann) 1. Introduction 2. (Envisioned) Practice and Significance and the Myth of the Singular Explanation 3. Knowing How and When vs. Knowing Why

The Holy Cow

Frontier, Vol. 48, No. 21, Nov 29 -Dec 5, 2015. ISSN 0016-2094

The article deals with the controversy surrounding the holy cow and beef-eating and the communal politics that it has given rise to.

Dietary Laws about Animals in Semitic Religions: An Analytical Study

Dietary rules and regulations may govern particular phases of the human life cycle and may also be associated with special events. Dietary Laws are grounded into the religious thought, and anyone expects logical clarifications for the continuation and determination of these rules in light of the respective religious tradition. The Semitic religions: orthodox Jews, Christians and Muslims have undoubtedly directed their adherents about the foodstuff "meat" with particular terms and conditions. This study attempts to define the similarities and differences between Halal and Kashrut (Kosher) in the light of their religion's commandments. The study confined to the Holy Scriptures. A comparative approach has been applied to these dietary practices. Moreover, it was found that Halal constitutes a different dietary law (Shariah) than Kashrut and vice versa. Even though similarities are found but it does not permit for the statutes to be usually supposed as reflection of each other. This analytical work will provide theoretical orientation; make reference to relevant theoretical and empirical literature for adequate clarification and comprehension where needed. To avoid pointless details, only the verse number mentioned in footnotes and extracted commands are just mentioned in the article. Qualitative research methodology has been adopted about the dietary laws about animals in Semitic Religions.