premjan

I'll try to find them. In his case, he ate food that was offered to him (possibly he did not discriminate in such cases, although he recommended vegetarianism).

Here's a pretty extensive classification list from the Hindu Dharma Shastras (probably the Buddhist lists paralleled this) including animals like hedgehog, rhinoceros etc, animals dwelling in different types of habitat such as sea, marsh and so on.

http://www.knaw.nl/publicaties/pdf/20021013.pdf

You are right, boar is one of the foods the Buddha advised against eating:

http://www.faithandfood.com/Buddhism.php
however:

yalla

The priests and powers that be of organized religions like to have god-made rules of which they the priests are the interpreters thus giving the them secular power to control the daily lives of the obedient.

So they write them, the rules don't have to make sense, although it's nice if someone thinks so, just be obeyed.
The priests will tell if you are getting it wrong.

premjan

I think you are right. The rules start with some sort of rational or experimental justification, but subsequently serve more to reinforce the priestly authority.

Steven Avery

Actually the Macht study above gives strong evidence that the Bible food vs. scavenger distinctions make a lot of sense. As I remember, in the Macht study the results weren't just 'advantage clean meats', but far more decisively every clean meat had low toxicology and every unclean meat had high toxicology. A synchronicity that is a little hard to explain as coming from those primitive goat-herders (I'm trying to remember the usual skeptic term).

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

premjan

Again true, if the rules diverge too radically from experimental evidence, people are going to get wind of something fishy.

Kenjitar

What about the theory put forward by anthropologist Marvin Harris:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religio...mption_of_pork

A kind of of bronze age enviromental regulation banning resource intensive luxury items. Just think of a pig as a tiny little SUV.

Harris made the argument that many seemingly arbitrary cultural practices are in fact a pragmatic response to surviving uniquely difficult environments.
Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches: The Riddles of Culture

premjan

I think though that some groups in the Levant did keep pigs, and it may have been a rule to distinguish Jews from their neighbors. Other than that a good argument.

Sheshbazzar

Hello, and welcome to the BC&H Forum !
The Torah indicates that the distinction between the "clean beast....and the not clean..." is at least as early as the time of Noah's flood, Genesis 7:2
There are three commonly well known and accepted explanations for this distinction being made and incorporated at such an early date in the Biblical timeline.

1. Moses wrote the Torah (as the Torah itself states, Deut. 29:1, 31:24-26) and that therefore "all of these words...statutes, laws and commandments had their origination and their inception with him. (Of whom in the NT, it is written, "If you had believed Moses...." the express implication being that Moses did not lie, or "make up" the Torah, and therefore in this case it was he, or rather YHWH, that placed the distinctions between "clean" and "not clean" at so early a time, far before the birth of Moses, and even the existence of any "Hebrew" peoples.
Do you desire to argue the point against the "record" and "words" of YHWH and His servant Moses?

2. The position promoted by most skeptics, based upon "The Documentary Hypothesis", that most or all of the laws were invented far latter than the time of Moses by the Levitical priesthood, which therefor came to, and held their power over the Israelite people without any actual approval by YHWH or Moses, but by the employment of deception and outright fraud.
This of course is also irreconcilable with the respect paid to Moses and to the Scriptures throughout the entire NT.

3. Or the Torah is a compilation and redaction of earlier religious writings and oral traditions, not all of them necessarily originating with Moses himself,
- IF one is even willing to accept that he even existed or had any hand in the formation of the Torah, - which whether written down by Moses or by 'others', became the basis and foundation of the Hebrew's religion, and latter of the "Christian" and "Muslim' religions.
No distinction is made, implied, or allowed. The command was for the priests to teach the people "ALL the statutes which YHWH hath spoken unto them by the hand of Moses." The full statement prevents the exclusion from consideration of any category of holy and profane, or of unclean and clean, but ALL are to be taught with equity. (consider how that word "ALL" occurs again and again with reference to the Law throughout the Torah, as in Deut. 8:1, 10:12, 11:32 and 12:32)
Quote:
No man can be faithful to any faith, nor to any persuasion, nor to any friend, or loved one, except by a willing submission to the making of 'distinctions' in putting a "difference between" this category and that category.[/QUOTE]

Ah but there is the rub, there is that which appears evil, yet is good; and there is that which appears 'good' yet is in actuality evil;
We also have a commandment, "Judge not according to the appearance, but judge a righteous judgment."

So you say, you ought then to keep His words.

premjan

Another reason for not eating pigs is apparently that they retain more uric acid in their blood than other animals, which can cause gout if consumed.

Steven Avery

Question, how do you think Moses got his "experimental evidence" ?