Today we get the rules about what these folks could eat and what they couldn't eat. And man oh man, do they get specific...
What I know, is that this little rule didn't stay around for long. I wonder who the first person to eat the pig was, and how he convinced everyone else to break the rules in order to experience the apparent delight one gets from partaking in pork. And did they all die?
Again, as I know we are creeping up on the gay issue (do not mention it now!!!) I want to know how this rule fell by the waist side. Are we picking and choosing? Pork tastes good so people find ways to discredit this rule. See what I'm saying?
We also get into the rules for the lepers. This chapter was redonculous!! It was fo sho cracking me up. I mean, I tried to follow it as best as I could but it was crazy. I would love to see the whole thing played out. I figured someone, somewhere had made a chart as to what the priest had to do when for example,
"examines the spot and there is no white hair in the bright spot and it is not lower than the rest of the skin but is darker"
check, check, check......CLEAN...come back in seven days.....check, UNCLEAN, come back in two days......check, check, CLEAN ...... UNCLEAN. .... CLEAN.... UNCLEAN
I just thought they were busy with the flawless animal sacrifices....these leprosy checks must have had them up all night...
SO anyhoo that's where we ended. Not too much here only the question of why the food rules got ixned. I think its going to be hard for me to understand why some rules are still to be followed while others are not. (Not including the big 10 of course, I get that those are set apart)
15 comments:
I just can't say this enough...love the visuals...being a simple-minded Christian that I am.
The things that Jesus coming changed was mostly the rules for atonement and maintaining holiness; which is what the eating unclean things is all about. He did not change what's right and wrong morally speaking. So it's not picking and choosing. If it seems like that now, don't worry, when we get to the New Testament, you'll understand better.
If a waiter at a restaurant asked me if I wanted something that chewed from the cud, I'd say no, too. That sounds...um...not good. Same with the rock badger. However, can't agree with the coney. Love em. Especially the chili cheese coney from Sonic.
Bacon is good, poke chops is good.
Some of this other stuff is just good common sense...most, if not all, the birds are scavengers; winged insects with four legs i.e. flies...dysentery, etc.; and shell fish. I mean really, I know some people like clams and mussels, but I heard it's like swallowing a big lugey. Again, no thanks. Do you think God knew about the higher risk of illness from eating many of these things?
Earthen jars are porous so any kind of bacteria that would touch them would not be easily cleaned. Good idea to just smash them. Same reason if you have a wooden chopping board you need to clean it with bleach after cutting chicken...the pores. All this for being holy to be in God's "presence"..not perfect in the sense we think of it, but holy. We're made perfect through Christ..again, spiritually speaking.
And as far as the women and birth and menstruation....I don't know what to say, except, I don't know how you girls walk around with those things.
I think the larger point to be taken out of all of the disease stuff, is just the knowledge and difference made in the symptoms. Knowledge that wasn't known then (by man). Like differentiating between something only in the epidermis and something extending deeper into the muscle tissue, etc. Also, we know now that certain diseases that cause skin sores/symptoms are only contagious for a certain period...again, something not known then (by man). The idea of quarantining someone, interesting. Too bad we forgot that in the Dark Ages.
Off of the subject kind of but...after reading about the mange I began to get a screaming case of the itchy scratchies.
Afte commenting on the reading itself, I just wanted to go back thru and make sure I had answered your questions. I think I have.
I do agree they need some sort of chart on a large poster board and easel. Of course, if Obama had been their king instead of ours, he would've just had it all put on electronic medical records and then it would've been much easier for priests in different fortified cities to see everyone's records, etc. Of course, without hardcopies, the first major solar flare might have destroyed all of those records then they'd be back to the poster board and easel.
There was good reason for such a prohibition.
Pigs are scavengers, and as such eat almost anything. In so doing, on occasion they ingest the parasite Trichinella spiralis, which is the cause of trichinosis in humans.
Pigs also are known carriers (as intermediate hosts) of the tapeworm, and of the parasite Echinococcus granulosis, which causes tumors in the liver, lungs, and other parts of the body.
Raw or undercooked pork can be very dangerous when consumed by humans. Pigs can provide safe meat, if they are fed properly and if the muscle tissue is well cooked. But such conditions often did not prevail in ancient times.
[Even today, in some countries, raw pork is considered a delicacy.]
This was another example of civil leaders infusing what they knew to be practical and necessary to the health of their peoples and labeling it "Word and Rules from God" to ensure people followed the guidelines.
If God wanted us to avoid eating pork it would taste terrible and be poisonous.
It tastes delicious, and we have always been meant to eat it.
...but then I wonder out-loud how did those guys know about all that pig stuff back then? Surely, (and yes you heard me, Surely) they didn't know about those illnesses? Yes we now know, but then?
I think their first clue would be when people started throwing up or getting fever, and someone was like, hey what did that guy eat?
And then someone points to the pig.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
Damn pigs! I don't know how you people eat those things anyway.
It's like I posted back when we were in Job...this is Divinely inspired. Like the comment made in Job about how the planets were "suspended" in the heavens. Ancient people would have no idea of how the planets were positioned. This was waaaay before even the, world is flat, theory. I'm sure I've pointed out a couple of times in our reading so far that shows Divine inspiration since much of the scientific knowledge that's shared wasn't known by ancient man when this was written. I hope I understood your question since I didn't read anyone else's comments I'm not sure that's what your were talking about, but it seemed so. You'll have to re-ask your question(s) more completely in the future since I'm not getting the "benefit" of the entire conversation.
Oh, I know, the other was about the word they used to describe light as moving...indicative of light waves, another fact that ancient man would not have known.
After explaing more in your txt about your question. I think ancient man did not know, nor had any way to know, that eating many of these foods with potential for carrying diseases could be harmful. Afterall, not everyone who eats these things (even today) get sick. They had no knowledge of course of any type of organisms smaller than the eye could see. And since some times you can eat this stuff and not get sick (or get sick to such great varying degrees) how would they ever make such a connection. Common sense tells us they could not. I mean, if one person eats part of a pig and nothing happens, and another eats part of the same pig and has only gastro-intestinal discomfort, and another eats part of the same pig and gets sick, and another gets violently ill and dies, how could they know what caused it? Fact is they wouldn't. Additional evidence to this is to look at how people have lived, eaten, and prepared food in the 3,000+ years since then. My point is empiracle knowledge would not have been sufficient to clue them in on these types of foods having a greater potential for harm.
I forgot something...I wonder what is meant by a land crocodile? Some kind of dinsoaur? Komodo dragon (although not indigenious to that area I don't think)? Interesting.
Tomorrow, Lev. 14-18
Information and knowledge is out there and it has jack shit to do with dinosaurs, which by the way, lived MILLIONS OF YEARS AGO.
land crocodile refers to EITHER crocodiles from the Nile and other large bodies of water, fresh water animals that lay their eggs in-land as opposed to under-water like other crocs/gators. So eating pregnant animals was normally taboo, and is referenced multiple times in the Talmud and Koran....
OR - it references the Gecko which is indigenous to that area and of which certain breeds are poisonous.
Also a good idea for leaders of those civil tribes to discourage people from eating ANY (geckos are really tasty) geckos that may make them sick/die.
also, I want to point out the ignorance of supposing that God would let them know not to eat the Komodo dragon, which as you point out isn't indigenous to the region, but he wouldn't mention bacteria at all in the Bible.
Huh.
I know you're not reading this, but you should know ancient civilization had surprisingly advanced medical knowledge. So, to assume they could build pyramids, but not know when meat has gone bad requires more than a little hubris.
Search google for medical knowledge of ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilization. You might be surprised what you find. (Surgery, antibiotics, setting bones, herbal remedies that modern medicine is based upon)
Here's a start:
http://tinyurl.com/kmryjd
http://tinyurl.com/krddhc
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