Studies in Food and Faith: Biblical Categories of Animals

This post continues with my notes on the collection of essays by James B. Jordan entitled “Studies in Food and Faith” available from Biblical Horizons.

At this point in Jordan’s essays, he has written a section on animals and their relation to men in the Bible as a background to understanding the dietary laws.  The main point being made thus far is that the categories of clean and unclean animals in Leviticus 11 have only a religious, Biblical symbolic meaning. 

Jordan asserts that the categories that Leviticus 11 uses are the same ones used in Genesis 1.  To wit…

Biblical Categories

The categories of animals as presented in Genesis 1 are based on…

1. visual appearance and

2. zone of life or where they live, and

3.  locomotion or how and where they move. 

The entire creation account is described with the language of visual appearance and not modern scientific categories.  The sun and moon are simply called lights in the firmament, for example. 

We rightly categorize bats, pelicans, and dragon flies as different species, but the Bible categorizes them together as flying/swarming things in the air.  The “swarming things” description makes use of the visual appearance, zone of life, and their kind of locomotion.

Lizards, mice, and roaches we categorize as different species but in the Bible they are grouped together as creeping things on the land.  Notice again, they are defined in terms of what they look like, where they live and how they move.   

…the language of visual appearance in Genesis 1 serves to establish a visual grid, a worldview. By writing in terms of visual appearance, the Bible sets up categories of visual imagery. Unfortunately, modern readers often have trouble with this. We who live in the post-Gutenberg information age are unfamiliar with visual imagery. We are word-oriented, not picture-oriented. The Bible, however, is a pre-Gutenberg information source; while it does not contain drawings, it is full of important visual descriptions and imagery. This visual imagery is one of the primary ways the Bible presents its worldview. There is nothing to indicate that Genesis 1 is merely symbolic. At the same time, however, by using the language of visual appearances, Genesis 1 sets up a worldview grid that is used later on in Scripture for symbolic purposes.

Through New Eyes by James B. Jordan, pg. 16

The reasons for an animal being clean or unclean have to do with their outward appearance, their zone of life or environment, and the method of locomotion.  These are the reasons given in Leviticus 11.  The categories in Leviticus 11 are not new but are the categories used in Genesis 1.

Jordan presents from Genesis 1:20-24 six categories of animals:

1. water: tannins (sea monsters, and other large reptiles)

2. water: swarmers (fish)

3. air: winged things (birds, bats, and winged insects)

4. land: domestic animals (insiders, cattle)

5. land: wild animals (outsiders, beasts of the field)

6. land: crawlers/swarmers

He maintains that these six categories of animals are “used throughout Genesis, and the rest of the Bible, with variations due to context.”, Studies, pg 73.

How Do These Categories Help Us Understand Leviticus 11?

Jordan believes that Leviticus makes use of these 6 categories. 

Leviticus 11:2-23; The categories are handled vertically.

1.  verses 2-8 discuss land animals

2.  verses 9-12 discuss fish

3.  verses 13-19 discuss flying creatures

Leviticus 11:22-45 horizontally focus on land animals, “or more precisely "land swarmers," since all the land animals are considered swarmers here. “ Studies, pg 73

Sea, Land, Air, each environment has clean and unclean animals in it.  These environments and their corresponding animals symbolize the following:  

The Air/Heavens

“The heavens are God’s primary domestic environment. Clean and unclean birds often have to do with angels and demons. Since Israel were a heavenly people, clean and unclean birds also have to do with Israel. “ Studies, pg 73

The Land

“Israel, the holy land, was also God’s domestic environment. The  cattle have to do with people living in that domestic environment. The clean cattle have to do with righteous Israelites, while the unclean cattle, such as the ass, have to do with excommunicated Israelites. “ Studies, pg 73

“The world also belongs to God, though outside Israel it was not His peculiar domestic environment –His house was not placed there. The beasts have to do with the Gentiles. Clean beasts have to do with converted Gentiles, and unclean beasts have to do with unconverted Gentiles.” Studies, pg 73

The Sea/Abyss

“Finally, the sea is opposite pole from heaven. The deep is the abode of the dragon, but it also is God’s territory. The sea has to do with the Gentile world. Clean fish are to be associated with converted Gentiles, and unclean fish with unconverted Gentiles.” Studies, pg 73

The sea is used to represent the Gentile nations while the land is used to represent Israel.  When God sends a Gentile nation to invade the Israel, He describes the enemy coming in as flood on the land (Jer. 46:6-8).  Jonah falling into the sea and into the great fish was a picture of the northern kingdom being taken into Assyria, which happened soon afterwards.  The Gentile empires that rise up in Daniel 7 first come as beasts from the sea.  In the book of Revelation 20, Gog and Magog gather for battle and their number is like the sand of the sea.  In Revelation 21:1, in the new heavens and new earth, there is no more sea, meaning no more Gentile unbelievers.

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Studies in Food and Faith: Biblical Symbolism

This post continues with my notes on the collection of essay by James B. Jordan entitled “Studies in Food and Faith” available from Biblical Horizons.

At this point in Jordan’s essays, he has written a section on animals and their relation to men in the Bible as a background to understanding the dietary laws.  The main point being made thus far is that the categories of clean and unclean animals in Leviticus 11 have only a religious, Biblical symbolic meaning.  In order to show this, we first have to become familiar with Biblical symbolism.

What is Biblical Symbolism?

Biblical symbolism comes from the doctrine of creation. 

The worldview of many people today is one of a vast silent universe in which earth is just a tiny insignificant speck.  Human beings are an even tinier speck on this tiny speck called earth.  The world around us and all it contains is to them an accident.  The only meaning the world around them can have is the meaning people give to it.  Any symbols are man-made with man-made meanings.

The view of the world that the Bible gives us however is much different.  It is a created world that shows the imprint of its Maker and joyfully proclaims who He is.

It is a world full of revealed meaning.  A world full of the revelation of God.  The Bible teaches that what can be known about God is plain to everyone in the things that have been made. So plain in fact, that everyone who denies knowing about God is without excuse and are suppressing that truth in their minds through their own unrighteousness.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.
For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.      Romans 1: 18-20;

This passage teaches us that every created thing teaches us something about God.  Every created thing symbolizes Him and reflects His character in some way.  Everything points to God.  Everything is a sign or symbol of God. 

This means that the Christian view of the world is fundamentally symbolic. The world does not exist for its own sake, but as a revelation of God.

How a created symbol symbolizes God is not willy-nilly guesswork on our part.  The Bible teaches us how to read these symbols.  The Bible teaches us how to read the world, to see the world through God’s eyes.  The symbolism in the Bible is not arbitrary but based in creation design.  

The first chapter of the Bible introduces us for the first time to these visual images that are packed with symbolic meaning.  It sets up a grid or matrix through which we see the world biblically.  For instance, our modern minds see the lizard, the cockroach, and the mouse as three different kinds of animals and rightly so.  But the Bible places them all in the category of “creeping things.”  This is the Biblical category and it is used throughout Scripture this way.  Knowing this helps us understand and interpret a passage that speaks of “creeping things.”  For instance, all creeping things are declared unclean.  Why?  It is because they crawl in the dirt, the dust of the ground that is cursed for our sakes and they are boundary transgressors.  More on this later…

There are many more images in Genesis 1: lights in the sky, sea, dry land, the firmament, plants, day, night, etc.  As we continue to read past Genesis 1, the symbolic meaning of these images is unpacked for us in the rest of Scripture so that by the time we get to the book of Revelation almost all of these images seem to come rushing at us at once.   God communicates to us through these symbols.  If we understand them, we can better understand the Bible. 

We can better understand Who God is.  We can better understand who we are.

For example, the Bible says that God is like a rock, a tree, a wind, and the sun, just to name four.

The doctrine of creation also teaches us that the primary symbol of God is man.  Man is the image of God, the special symbol of God.

In this way the Bible tells us that whatever symbolizes God also symbolizes man.

We are to be like a rock, a tree, a wind, and the sun.

In the ancient biblical times, men understood and thought this way this better than we do today.  This is because we live under the influence of a culture with a Greek view of the world and many of us have acquired a suspicion of symbolism and symbolic interpretation.

I remember growing up and being leery of symbolism and imagery.  I felt that you could go overboard with it and saw many strange symbolic interpretations (there are bad jobs of it out there).  I only wanted a systematic interpretation in logical language, that’s what made sense to me and I demanded it in my own thinking.

 

The study of symbolism is seen by some as a curiosity, rather far removed from the central matters of life. According to them, anyone who spends time studying Biblical imagery and symbolism may well be getting into a "dangerous" area. Persons who engage in an "overly symbolic" interpretation of Scripture are to be regarded with suspicion. What matters is the study of reality; symbolism is secondary.

This attitude betrays the influence of the Greek view of the world. According to the Greeks – and actually all pagans – the world was not made by God. Rather, the world, or the raw material of the world, has always existed. This always-existing stuff just is, and so it is called "Being." This "Being" stuff is like a blank slate. It is silent and meaningless "raw material." It does not bear the impress of any Creator, and it does not joyfully shout His name (Psalm 98:4-9).  

Through New Eyes, by James B. Jordan, pg 27

My leeriness for symbolism and demand for truth in plain, abstract or philosophical language is not a Biblical one.  It caused me to read in only certain familiar sections of the Bible that were more comfortable to me.  I read more teaching passages like Paul’s epistles.  I avoided Ezekiel and Isaiah and Zechariah, because I (I realize now) did not have the biblical-symbolic mindset to understand them.

But God reveals truth to us in most of the Bible through symbolism and imagery, parables, typological pictures, stories and poems.  Our modern Greek-like tendency is to try to boil this way of revealing truth down to abstract logical language.  In fact, we Christians have done this for centuries.  Open up our catechisms like the wonderful Westminster Confession of Faith and what does it say?  What is justification?  What is sanctification?  What is original sin? etc. These systematic ways of teaching the Bible are almost completely empty of biblical imagery.

In contrast to this, open up the book of Proverbs, which like the catechisms is supposed to be for instructing young men and women, and you encounter all kinds of biblical imagery used to communicate wisdom. 

I came to believe that, in order to understand the Bible, I needed to immerse my mind into the symbols and imagery of the Bible and understand them the way the Bible uses them.  The difference for me has been astounding and wonderful.  Some passages that were really difficult now make profound sense to me.  Entire books of the Bible that I never read and found strange and uninteresting, I’m now excited about and reading and learning from them.  Books like Leviticus, Ezekiel, Zechariah, Lamentations, and Revelation.

Why Symbolism?

I believe, God uses symbols and imagery to speak to us because it is the most powerful way to do so.  A symbol communicates eternal truths on many levels at the same time.  In Scripture, the Holy Spirit uses biblical symbolism and imagery to say many things to us at once and shape our way of thinking and living.

Biblical symbolism communicates eternal truth without shaving away the sublime, the mysterious, the awe, or the glory of that truth the way cold abstract philosophical language does.

Be Like a Tree

I want to take one symbol from the above list and show how I use biblical symbolism to read and understand a  passage.  When the Bible tells us in Psalm 1 that we should be like a tree, I try to call to my mind all the trees and tree-like things in the Bible and what they say to me about trees and their meaning: 

Two trees in the garden, olive branch of Noah, altars were built under trees by Abraham, the judges judged underneath trees, Abraham ate with God under a tree, Psalm 1 tree planted by waters bearing fruit, the staff of Aaron that budded, Solomon’s House of the Cedars of Lebanon, Nebuchadnezzar’s Tree Dream, ark made of wood, wooden things in the tabernacle and Temple covered with gold, the golden lamp stand which is a stylized almond tree, cursed is everyone hung on a tree, the tree-houses of the Feast of Tabernacles, high places of false worship under trees, olive oil trees of Zechariah’s night visions, Zacheus in a tree trying to see Jesus, Jesus curses an unfruitful tree, Jesus is hung on a tree, the Trees of Life and Healing in the New Jerusalem.

This is not a complete list of course.  But I can use these to help me answer the question “How should I be like a tree?” 

I should be a firmly grounded person in my knowledge of Scripture, I grow as I work on this.  I should be a shelter and protection for those under my care.  I should be a provider of food and healing.  I should be a provider of comfort (like shade).  I should be a ladder to heaven (others should be able to see my life and understand the gospel and become saved) like the Tree of Life, climb my branches to get to heaven, so to speak.  I should be a source of wisdom to those around me like the Tree of Knowledge.  I should live in such a way that my life is crowned with a canopy of glory.  I should be clothed in glory.  I should be light and warmth, like the lamp stand or the burning bush.  I should be filled with the Spirit, like the olive oil of the olive tree.  My hope is to be useful wood for the Kingdom, that some day I will be glorified, like gold covered wood.  I need to be a wise judge/elder when people come to me for counsel.  Sometimes in my life, I will experience death and resurrection, like a deciduous tree.  But I must remember that I have eternal life, whose leaf will not wither, like an evergreen tree.  And on and on…

All of this, and much more, is said to us when the Bible says God is like a tree and you should be like a tree.  Hopefully, this is a helpful although short example.

Food and Faith

Food and eating in the bible are very important and are no less symbolic than any other aspect of the created order.  Food and eating have meaning in the Bible.  They have meaning for us today, particularly in Communion. 

When God set up the restricted diet from the Mosaic Covenant to the New Covenant, it was for symbolic purposes that changed and shaped his covenanted people and prepared them to be priests to the Nations and to bring Christ into the world. 

This is what I will explore in the coming posts.

NOTES:
For more reading on biblical symbolism, I can recommend the following books:

Through New Eyes by James B. Jordan, this book serves as a  primer on understanding Biblical symbolism and it’s free!  You can find his lecture series for pennies at www.wordmp3.com.

 

 

 

The Shadow of Christ in the Law of Moses by Vern Poythress.  Excellent book, not free.

 

 

 

 

Paradise Restored by David Chilton, also an excellent introduction to Biblical symbolism and how it helps us understand Bible prophecy.  Also free!   I quoted from this book in a previous post on biblical symbolism.

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Studies in Food and Faith: Not The Perfect Diet? Really?

In the last couple of posts, my documenting James Jordan’s reasoning that the Mosaic dietary laws were not a prescription for the perfect healthy diet caused some negative reactions.  So I decided to try and clarify with some of my own thoughts.

I understand that some Christian’s use the dietary laws as a witnessing tool.  Oversimplifying it, the reasoning goes like this:

1.  In the Old Testament, God told the Israelites what to eat and how to eat it and what not to eat.

2.  Scientific research shows that this is the healthiest and best possible diet.

3.  See the Bible is true and you should believe it.

My last two posts were seen as an attempt to pull the rug out from under the above approach to witnessing.  Well, I guess that is true.  I don’t believe the above approach is a good way to demonstrate the Bible’s reliability or a good strategy for evangelism.  I think this because seeing the dietary laws as THE healthy way to eat leads to some problems:

1.  It is saying something the Bible never says, unbelievers can see through that just by reading Leviticus 11. 

2. It implies that we need science to prove the Bible is true.  Science is shifting sand upon which to place your faith or to use to shore up your faith in the Bible. 

The popular “scientific” studies are constantly changing what is believed to be healthy and unhealthy to eat.  In my short lifetime, I remember several things that were declared unhealthy by some study when I was young and now has been proven to be healthy in moderation by newer studies: eggs, coffee, tea, pork, beef, fish… all these have gone back and forth on the healthy/unhealthy list.

Using current science as a foundation for the reliability of the Bible is dangerous ground for evangelism in my opinion. 

The Bible is true whether the current version of “science” says so or not.  You either believe the Bible wholeheartedly or you don’t, whether there are scientific proofs or not.  Scientism is modern day Baalism.

2.  It keeps believers from seeing the true meaning of the dietary laws, their biblical-symbolic redemptive meaning, and what they teach us about our faith in Christ today.  In my mind, this is the more serious problem.

The Biblical Defense Against the Hygienic View of the Dietary Laws

It’s helpful to remember that the distinction between clean and unclean animals was known long before Moses.  Noah was told to take both clean and unclean animals on the Ark.

Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate…   Genesis 7:2;

In fact, Noah knew to only sacrifice clean animals to God before Moses wrote down the category descriptions (Abraham knew this too! Genesis 15).

Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.  Genesis 8:20;

After smelling this offering, the Lord told Noah that he can eat anything that moves.

Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.  Genesis 9:3

This includes both clean and unclean animals.  Clean does not mean edible.  Unclean does not mean inedible.  Was this proclamation of God prescribing the perfect healthy diet for Noah and everyone up until Moses?  I read this and have to say no, that wasn’t the purpose.

What it does strongly imply is that eating the animals beforehand was forbidden.  Does that mean that a vegetarian diet is the original and perfect diet?  I would have to say no again because this passage indicates an elevation to greater privilege.

Noah is elevated to kingship and given the power to exercise capital punishment (9:6) with that comes the privilege to eat meat.  There is nothing in the text that indicates that eating meat was necessary because there won’t be enough plants in a post-Flood world or that it was necessary to accommodate our sinful nature. 

God just says, Noah, you rule, put to death any man or animal who murders and with this privilege you get the privilege to eat meat.  

Only after several hundred years, after Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and all Noahic covenant believers have been eating “every moving thing” does God tell Moses that circumcised children of Israel must have a restricted diet.  The law says that uncircumcised believers, under the Noahic not Abrahamic covenant, can still eat “every moving thing.” 

If you want to be circumcised and come under the Law, and thereby become a priestly believer, then you must follow the restricted diet of Leviticus 11.  A healthy diet does not explain the reasons for all this!  If you want to be a God-fearing Gentile, then eat “everything that moves!”

So why restrict the diet at this point in redemptive history?  I believe it is because God has drawn nearer during the Mosaic covenant to a special group of people.

He cut out a section of humanity (symbolized by circumcision) and through the Mosaic covenant made them a special nation of priests to the other nations.  They were to be used to usher in the Scriptures and to give birth to Christ.  God then placed His Name/Presence in the Tabernacle, above the Ark of the Covenant behind three sets of veils and curtains.  These separations were for their protection, lest God kill them (Ex 19:12,21;32:10;). 

The clean and unclean distinctions in the law and the dietary laws were meant as a further means of separation and protection from God and as reminders that they were to keep holy even as He is holy. 

With proof texts to come later, the basic distinctions are:

Clean domestic animals represented circumcised (priestly) believers. 

Clean wild animals represented Gentile God-fearers (not priestly believers). 

Unclean animals represented unbelieving Gentiles.

So, when the New Covenant replaces the Old, these restrictions are removed and we (priestly believers) are given the privilege to eat freely again.

Now to see this, let’s fast forward to Mark 7:19 (ESV):

And he (Jesus) said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.)

Mark tells us that Jesus’ proclamation here had the affect of cleansing all foods.  Does this mean that all foods are healthy now?  That somehow all unhealthy foods are now healthy?  I don’t believe that makes sense.  Clean does not mean healthy.  Unclean does not mean unhealthy.

Now skip to Acts 10.  Peter sees a vision of a blanket coming down from heaven with all kinds of animals both clean and unclean.  God tells him to “Rise, Peter. Kill and eat.”

 

This happens three times.  Each time, Peter says “No Lord, I’ve never eaten unclean food.” (I find it interesting that Peter again denies the Lord three times.  The words “no” and “Lord” don’t belong in the same sentence!!)

The message is “What God has cleansed don’t call common (or unclean).”

The restrictions are removed in the New Covenant, the categories of clean and unclean are removed in the New Covenant.  Theologically speaking, the death of Jesus cleansed the world.  There are no longer different “classes” of believers, which the clean/unclean distinctions of animals symbolized. 

All believers are now priests.  In the passage following Peter’s vision, he goes to Cornelius’ house (a Gentile God-fearer, Acts 10:2,22).  At first Peter doesn’t know what to think of the vision, but then he realized that God was showing him that uncircumcised Gentile believers are accepted in the New Covenant.

And he said to them, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean.

After Peter preached the Gospel, Cornelius and his household were filled with the Holy Spirit.  The circumcised believers were amazed that uncircumcised believers were filled with the Spirit.

And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles.  For they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter declared, “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?”

Water baptism replaces circumcision (among other things) in the New Covenant (Col 2:12).  And so the vision telling Peter to eat unclean animals meant that believing Gentiles were accepted now in God’s presence in the New Covenant.  This is one of the meanings of clean and unclean.  But there is more to it than that!

My main point was to try and disprove the notion that the categories of clean and unclean animals do not have anything to do with a healthy or unhealthy diet.  (I hope I was clear on all points.  It’s hard to try and be clear and still keep the posts brief.)  They have to do with God’s unfolding plan of salvation in biblical redemptive history.

This was a pretty rough sketch.  I plan on going into more detail on each assertion above as I trudge through my notes on “Studies in Food and Faith.”

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Studies in Food and Faith: Wrong Views of the Mosaic Dietary Laws (Modern)

This post continuous with my notes on the collection of essays by James B. Jordan entitled Studies in Food and Faith.

My previous post dealt with the older views of the Mosaic dietary laws and why Jordan thinks they are not biblical.

There are two others left that lead us up to modern day approaches to these laws.  Here they are in brief:

Wrong View VI: The Jewish Mystical View

(Oh oh oh, its Magic! or Eat Your Corn Flakes You Vile Person!)

This view is fundamentally like the hygienic (for health) view but Jordan says it is…

…what I am calling the mystical view. This approach says that eating unclean food may not affect the body, but it works to corrupt the soul. This viewpoint is fundamentally hygienic, in a sense, but is based not on modern medical "science," but on a pre-modern "science" that appears almost magical.

Studies, pg 58

This view says that eating clean animals cleanses your soul and keeps you from being a bad person.  If you eat unclean animals, you become a harsh and coarse person with a thickness and an obstruction in your soul.

The nature of the animal you eat corrupts your heart and soul and your body causing you to having increased lustful desires and vile affections.

This view arose after the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in AD 70 and is associated with Jewish mysticism that rose up afterwards.  This mysticism grew along side the codification of the Oral Law and the Talmuds (commentary on the Oral Laws).  The surviving Jews, having rejected Christ and failing to enter the New Covenant developed a new false religion of Judaism based on these writings.  (Most Christians are unaware that most conservative Jews, especially the Hasidim, believe in reincarnation and use the dietary laws in this way.  See my post on the development of modern Judaism for more info.)

This is based on a pagan view of human nature and is not biblical for many reasons.

Jordan’s essay breaks down this view and thoroughly proves it unbiblical.  I will not summarize here, but just note that this view has been adopted by Christians in the past and still survives to this day in many circles.

In the nineteenth century there were prominent liberal and sectarian theologians who believed that the sinfulness of man could be curbed through diet and hygiene. John Harvey Kellogg, a Seventh-Day Adventist, invented corn flakes as a meatless breakfast food designed to reduce the sexual drive.  Control of “bestial sexual impulses” was linked in the popular imagination, both sectarian and liberal, with a bland diet devoid of alcohol, coffee, tea, tobacco, condiments, and largely devoid of meat. Assumption of this diet would reduce what is today called libido, and this reduction of the “animal” in man would be passed on to one’s children, who would grow up with less “original sin.”  Salvation through diet passed into the popular imagination through the writings of liberals like Horace Bushnell, sectarians like Kellogg and Charles Finney, and cultists like Mary Baker Eddy. As a result there is a pervasive orientation toward dietetic theology in American Christianity that colors our discussion of the Mosaic dietary laws.

Studies, pg 8.

This was also the purpose behind Sylvester Graham’s Graham flour which is still with us in Graham Crackers.  In a footnote to this essay, it says that the Graham diet was used at Charles Finney’s Oberlin College “to protect the students against vile affections.” 

Jordan’s conclusions on the Jewish Mystical view…

In conclusion, the Jewish mystical view is unacceptable from a Christian standpoint because its foundations are in pagan scale-of-being philosophy rather than in Christian creationism. It replaces a Biblical symbolic and relational worldview with a Greek ontological one. Moreover, while is certainly is true that what we eat can influence how we feel and how well we perform, this is not at all the reason given in Scripture for the dietary laws of Moses. The Jews have been forced to these speculations because of their separation from the true approach to the matter.

Studies, pg 63.

 

Wrong View VII: The Pacifist View

(You Eat Meat Because You’re a Violent Sinner!)

This view is a more modern one and is summarized in Jordan’s essay as follows:

 

We come now to the first of two modern symbolic approaches. What I am calling the pacifist view runs roughly as follows: Men were originally vegetarians. Because of sin, God permitted men to eat meat, but added a restraint. Men were not to be cruel or violent in procuring meat, but were to show kindness to the animals, just as God shows kindness to man. Since animals image human life, men were to regard violent animals as unclean, and not imitate them. Only peaceful, non-violent animals were to be regarded as clean. From this men were to learn peacefulness. Indeed, the prophetic image of the future world is one devoid of violent animals, with all meat-eating animals returning to a diet of vegetables (Is. 65:25).

Studies, pg 63

I have met a few Christians in my life that believe that God allows us to eat meat as a concession to our sinfulness and it is a part of shortening our lives after the Flood (Gen 9:3).  They believe that man would have never eaten meat if he had not fallen.  They also believe that in the our resurrection bodies we will go back to being vegetarian, like in the Garden of Eden (Gen 1:29).

This view is based on the idea that the clean animals of Lev. 11 are not predatory and are non-violent.

The problems with this view are:

1.  The Bible never says this is the reason for the categories of clean and unclean in Lev. 11.  Other reasons are given in that passage.

2.  You cannot divide clean and unclean animals into predatory and  non-predatory based on Lev. 11.  Scaled fish are clean and they are violent predators.  There is no connection between non-violence and cud-chewing and split hooves.  Many non-predatory animals are unclean, like bunnies! 

3.  Jordan maintains that the biblical position is that eating meat is never said to be a concession to our sinful natures but rather a grown up privilege for redeemed humanity, analogous to Adam being eventually allowed to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (see my three part post on this).  Jordan explains…

In fact, eating meat is a sign of man’s ascension from the milk of childhood to the fullness of maturity (Heb. 5: 11-13). The progression from Adam to Noah is not downward, so that God must make a concession to human lust, but upward, in that God bestows a great privilege on man. With Noah, humanity advances in the likeness of God to the point of being entrusted with the sword of capital punishment and the robe of judicial authority, and one sign of this is permission to eat meat. Similarly, it is when Israel comes into the land, and her position is glorified, that she may eat whatever clean meat she wishes, according to Deuteronomy 12:20. Properly read, this verse is not a concession but a privilege, a privilege to be celebrated before the throne of God at the Feast of Tabernacles according to Deuteronomy 14:26.

Studies, pg. 64

He is saying that in Bible history God advances redeemed humanity on to maturity with the privilege of eating more freely in His presence.   God is saying in Lev 11 something like, you can’t eat this yet it is too rich for you.  Along the same lines, we were not allowed to drink wine in God’s presence in the Old Covenant, but we are allowed to in the New.

If Jordan is correct here, and I believe that he is, then when we enter the New Covenant, we should see an even greater privilege in regard to food laws.  Indeed, we find that we are commanded to eat everything again (Acts 10), except blood which has always been forbidden across all covenants (Gen 9:4; Lev 3:17; Acts 15:29).

This has a rich biblical, symbolic meaning for us that we will explore in later posts.

Jordan concludes his survey of incorrect views of the Mosaic dietary laws:

The purpose of this essay has been to show that only a symbolic interpretation can have any claim to do justice to the dietary provisions of Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14. Other approaches simply ignore the text in favor of hypotheses that are ungrounded and that cannot withstand scrutiny. Accordingly, a new and thorough look is mandated.

Studies, pg. 67

 

Concluding Thoughts

So what made animals clean or unclean in the Old Covenant?  The categories were known by Noah and Abraham (Gen 7:2;15:9) long before Moses and it had nothing to do then about edible or inedible(Gen 9:3).  The inedible/edible distinction came in with Moses and was discarded with Jesus, why?

I believe that the categories are biblically symbolic and still instructive to us.  Wisdom to be gained from God’s Law.  But we must let the Bible only instruct us as to their symbolic meaning and look no where else.

In order to understand the meaning of clean and unclean and the dietary laws, we will need to explore the Biblical meaning of the following:

1.  The meaning of eating in the Bible and food for God.

2.  The analogy of animals to men.

3.  Diet from Adam to Moses.

4.  The Tabernacle came into existence at the same time as the dietary laws.  There is a strong connection here that was discarded in the destruction of the Temple in AD 70 and the start of the New Covenant.

5.  The meaning of clean and unclean with things other than food.  (Why wasn’t Jesus ever unclean?  He touched dead bodies and lepers and was never unclean.)

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Studies in Food and Faith: Wrong Views of the Mosaic Dietary Laws (Ancient)

In this post, I am continuing with my notes from the series of essays entitled “Studies in Food and Faith” by James B. Jordan.  This collection of essays is available from Biblical Horizons.

The following summarizes the different views of the Mosaic dietary laws through the centuries… and why they are wrong wrong wrong (or mostly wrong)!

It is important to understand these and clear them out of the way in our thinking.  Once our minds have been uncluttered from these extra-biblical ideas, we can look at the text of the Bible and see what God says the reasons are for the dietary laws.

Wrong View I: The Religious Separation View

(Don’t you know the Pagans do this?!?)

 

The religious separation view holds that the unclean animals were those used in pagan rituals, and so Israel was to avoid them in order to avoid being contaminated by paganism. God wanted Israel separated from the nations, and gave these dietary laws to enforce that separation. The unclean animals were used by the pagans in their religious practices, and so Israel was to abhor them.

“Studies in Food and Faith”  by James B. Jordan, pg. 48

Jordan goes on to say that this cannot be the reason for the dietary laws because:

1.  The pagans sacrificed all the same animals that Israel did.  If Israel was supposed to reject animals used by heathens, they would have to reject all animals.

2.  “This understanding of the dietary laws has the additional flaw of completely ignoring the specifics of the text (of Leviticus 11). What do divided hooves or fins and scales have to do with pagan religious practices?” Ibid., pg 49.

3.  This reasoning has a theological problem.  In Lev 20:24-25, God says to Israel that they have been separated from the Gentile nations, so therefore they are to distinguish between clean and unclean animals.  In other words, the observance of clean and unclean laws did not make them separate.  They were already separate.  “Salvation and separation are by God’s gracious deliverance, not by law keeping.”  Ibid., pg 49

Wrong View II: The Social Separation View

(I can’t eat with you so don’t come over for dinner!)

This view of the dietary laws of Leviticus 11 says that the purpose was to keep Israel from having a common diet with the nations around them and that this would have the effect of social separation from pagan nations.

 

This view is similar to the Religious Separation view and has similar problems.

1.  “The problem with this explanation is that the staple diet of ancient people was pretty much the same everywhere: bread and vegetables. Regular meat was fish or fowl. Only rarely were cattle eaten: It was costly to give up a member of the herd or flock, and it all had to be eaten at once. Thus, beef and mutton were not staples of the diet. This being the case, the dietary laws of Leviticus barely affected daily diet, and thus could hardly by themselves influence social intercourse. Moreover, cattle and sheep were animals everyone ate, and most ancient peoples avoided pork. The dietary provisions, thus, were not very far out of line with the customs of the neighboring peoples.”

Just like we don’t like to eat cats and dogs, the Jews did not like to eat the animals that God forbids.  It wasn’t hard to keep these laws for them and it didn’t distinguish them socially from other nations.

 

2.  This view also ignores the reasons given for the laws in Lev. 11. 

Beyond this, the same objections noted above regarding the religious separation view apply here. The position completely overlooks the details of the text, and is in essence moralistic rather than religious. Israel was separate because of what God had done, not because of what she had done.

Studies in Food and Faith”, James B. Jordan, pg. 50

 

Wrong View III: The Ascetic View

(I eat better than you so I am better than you!)

“The ascetic view assumes that these laws were given to restrict the lusts of the people, to teach them self-discipline. I know of no commentator who takes this as the primary motive for the law, but it is often brought in as a secondary one.” Ibid. pg 51

This view says that these food laws were restrictive and tough on Israel and it taught them self-discipline and thus kept them righteous.

This can’t be correct because:

1.  The Bible never says this is the reason for the dietary laws of Lev. 11.

2.  The laws weren’t tough on them, they were a light burden.  They didn’t want to eat a pig anymore than we would want to eat a dog.

Perhaps it was good for Israel to keep these laws just for the sheer discipline of it. Doing things for the sheer discipline of it is sometimes a good idea, but has little relevance here. In fact, these dietary laws were not hard to keep. They were not extreme, and no more ascetic than the restrictions we place on ourselves today. We are used to eating pork, so we think that the Jews wanted to eat it and had to restrain themselves. Actually, the Jews had no more interest in eating pork than we do in eating dogs, cats, mice, and horses. Indo-Chinese people eat dog, and the French eat horse, but Americans don’t. If we had grown up all our lives thinking of pigs not as food but as garbage collectors, we should feel the same way about pig meat as we do about dog or cat. So, the Jews had no trouble keeping these laws, and there was nothing ascetic or disciplinary about them.

Studies in Food and Faith”, James B. Jordan, pg. 51

 

Wrong View IV:  The Aesthetic View

(Ew, gross! I can’t believe you eat that!)

This view of the Lev. 11 dietary laws says that the forbidden animals were yucky and that’s why they were forbidden. 

Some expositors have felt that human beings are naturally repulsed by certain animals. Keil and Delitzsch argue that unclean animals are associated with death and violence, and provoke a feeling of revulsion in the minds of men. These animals, in their behavior, display sin and its effects, and men naturally are horrified at them.

Studies in Food and Faith”, James B. Jordan, pg. 52

This view argues that God says don’t eat yucky animals and you won’t be a yucky person.  Unclean animals are yucky, revolting, and cause a feeling of revulsion.  Pigs and snakes and roaches are nasty so don’t eat them.

This is incorrect because:

1.  The Bible never says that this is the reason for the dietary laws in Lev. 11.

2.   Some clean animals were disgusting but allowed to be eaten  (chickens for example).  The idea that God was trying to keep Israel from being gross in their eating habits just does not hold up under scrutiny.

“In sum, there is absolutely no reason to think that ancient Israelites felt any horror or revulsion toward the animals designated unclean. The Bible never says that the living animals are to be counted as abominable or detestable, only that their meat and their dead carcasses are to be so regarded. Moreover, even from a modern point of view, the "revolting habits" of the swine are no different from those of goats and chickens. The aesthetic view, then, simply does not account for the distinction between clean and unclean as we find it in the Bible.”  Ibid, pg. 52

I would add that several unclean animals were considered noble or majestic and certain tribes were associated with unclean animals like the Lion of Judah, or Dan the Eagle/Serpent or Benjamin the Wolf (Gen 49.).

An immediate criticism of the aesthetic viewpoint, whether Stern’s or some other, is that some unclean animals are regarded as highly honorable in Scripture. The eagle and lion, for instance, are found as faces of the cherubim, and the lion is a frequent symbol for the king of Israel and for the coming Messiah. These unclean animals are not disgusting but glorious. We are not repulsed by them; rather, we want to be associated with them, particularly with the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. Unquestionably that was also true of the Israelite of old.

“Studies in Food and Faith”, James B. Jordan, pg. 53

 

Wrong View V: The Hygienic View

(If I eat this way, I won’t ever get sick and I’ll live forever!)

This view says that the dietary laws were given for health reasons.  This is God’s perfect diet and His way of keeping His people healthy and well.

This view ignores the fact that the Biblical view of health is religious.  This means that in the Bible our health is viewed as tied to our faithful obedience to God, not as the legalistic result of obeying laws.  This idea that the dietary laws were meant for our health is a relatively new one and stems from a modern “scientific” worldview.

Particularly with the coming of the modern era and "science, " commentators began to try to find explanations that fit the new worldview. It is possible that only someone influenced by a medieval Aristotelian or modern "scientific" worldview would even dream up hygiene as an explanation, because the ancient world (and the Bible) always tied health primarily to religion.

“Studies in Food and Faith”, James B. Jordan, pg 55

I talked about this view being incorrect in the previous post, so I’ll summarize here with a few extra thoughts included:

1.  The Bible never says that health is the reason for the dietary laws. (In fact, it clearly states that they served a symbolic purpose, which we will get to in future posts).

2.  What about all the believers before Moses?  Didn’t God want them to eat healthy?  How did they live so long?

3.  What about edible and inedible plants?  If health was the reason surely they would have been included.

4.  If these laws are important for health, then why are we released from them in the New Covenant?

5.  Finally, the New Testament plainly states that these laws were not given for health reasons.

Finally, and most importantly, the New Testament explicitly states that these dietary laws were not given for personal hygiene. Indeed, the New Testament warns us to beware of people who advocate the hygienic misuse of these dietary laws: "Do not be carried away by varied and strange teachings; for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, through which those who were thus occupied were not benefited" (Heb. 13:9). In themselves, these laws can provide no benefit –none at all, including hygienic benefit. Benefit only came to those who understood the true symbolic meaning of these laws, which it is the purpose of these studies to discuss. Moreover, the New Testament explicitly states that these laws were only for the Mosaic period: "They relate only to food and drink and various washings, regulations for the flesh imposed until a time of reformation" (Heb. 9:10).

“Studies in Food and Faith”, James B. Jordan, pg 56

Next we’ll look at what Jordan claims to be the true biblical reasons for the Mosaic dietary laws and how we can gain wisdom from them.  Proper understanding of these dietary laws and the laws that distinguish the clean and unclean help us better understand the New Covenant and our own salvation in Christ.

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The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, Part III: In The Day You Eat of It, You Shall Surely Die

In the previous two posts, I have argued that the prohibition on the Tree of Knowledge was temporary.  That God did not intend the human race to run around naked in a garden eating from fruit trees forever and avoiding only the one.

Genesis 1:29 tells us that “God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food.”

It was after this announcement that God told Adam not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge.  From this we can understand that they would eventually be allowed to eat of the Tree of Knowledge, but not yet.  The prohibition was temporary.

From the post “The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, Part I”

If what I am saying is true, this should bring a question to your mind… didn’t God say that in the day he eats of the Tree of Knowledge, Adam would surely die?

Was that God’s plan?  For Adam to eventually mature to the point of eating the forbidden fruit and dying.

I believe that the answer is yes, sort of.  In the day Adam was to be allowed by God to eat of the Tree of Knowledge, he would have died.  But he would have died a “good death.”

Consider this:

a. By the time of the temptation, Adam had already “died” once. The Bible says that God put him into a “deep sleep.”   The Hebrew word means to be put into a state as close to death as possible without actually dying physical death.

Adam was put to “death” and “resurrected” and he woke up to find a wife.  This was a good thing, a good death.  It also serves for us as a symbolic or literary death.

This happens to us when we get married, we lay down our lives for our future spouse to get married.  On the day I was married, “single Shawn” died and I came out with a beautiful wife and that was a very good thing!

I believe that something similar would have happened to Adam when he ate of the Tree of Knowledge.  Adam would have “died” a “good death” when God allowed him to eat when he was mature and ready.  He then would have been robed with authority as a King under God.

The death and resurrection theme is all throughout the Scriptures

This kind of symbolic or literary death and resurrection pattern resulting in kingship occurs throughout all of Scripture and finds its complete fulfillment in Christ’s actual death and resurrection.

Here are some examples of death/resurrection/kingship patterns:

1.  Noah and the world dies and is resurrected through the Flood.  Noah is established as King with the new power of the death penalty.

2.  Jacob goes through a death/resurrection in his nighttime wrestling with the Angel.  He comes through with a limp and a new name.  It is directly after this experience that God tells him “kings shall come from your body.” (Gen 35:11)

2.  Joseph goes through two death and resurrection experiences.  Once in the pit (buried in the earth), elevated to rule Potiphar’s house.  Secondly in the prison, then he is finally resurrected and exalted to kingship at the last.

3.  David’s trials under Saul constitute a death/resurrection experience for him resulting in kingship.  David is a New Adam, notice how he refused to grasp the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge  before his time by killing Saul.  Psalm 18 was written during this time of his life and talks about his “death” experience.

4.  Daniel goes through a death/resurrection in Daniel chapter 2 and he is exalted to the Chief of the Magi.  The fiery furnace is a death/resurrection experience for Daniel’s three friends that resulted in their exaltation to rule (Dan 3:30).  The lion’s den is another death/resurrection experience for Daniel, the result is that he’s the only ruler left under Darius.

5.  Daniel 4, the conversion of Nebuchadnezzar, is very illuminating to subject of my post.  In his dream, King Nebuchadnezzar is pictured as a Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. 

At this point in Neb’s life, God has made him into a Tree of Knowledge.  He was food and splendor and rule for the Babylonian Empire (which was God’s empire by the way, read Daniel 2).

But he did not believe he received his kingship from God but by his own power (Jer. 27:6; God says Neb is "my servant").

Thus it was removed from him and he “died”, until he confessed that rule and authority comes from God alone. (Rom 13:1);

“Nebuchadnezzar had to undergo death and resurrection to become a true king under God. Nebuchadnezzar’s passage from old kingship, through “death,” to new kingship, anticipates Jesus’ drinking wine, fasting from it during His crucifixion, and then drinking it anew in the New Kingdom (Matthew 26:29; 27:34)”

6.  Of course, Jesus’ death and resurrection results in His ascending to be seated at the right hand of the Father, receiving the Kingdom and becoming the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Like Adam’s deep sleep resulting in his wife, Jesus dies and his side is pierced and the Church, His Bride is born.

One Life Many Deaths

These all serve as examples for our lives.  Christ is the Head of the Body.  Where the Head goes, we go.  We live one life, but experience many death/resurrection experiences before we have our actual one.  We will experience times of death in our lives.  These death experiences are the Spirit’s sanctifying work and how God grows us, matures us, and prepares us for service, for leadership and for rule. 

This takes time, suffering, and patient faith, it is why they call the office of elder “elder” because only old guys who have been through this should be put in that office.

Passing through death and resurrection is essential in making a man into a Tree of Knowledge with true Godly kingly authority. 

We can be certain that the valley of the shadow of death we are passing through right now is for our good and will end up in a resurrection to a better life on the other side of the experience.  We will be more useful for advancing Christ’s kingdom here on earth as a result and be able to comfort others that we see passing through the same kind of thing.

Other Thoughts and Notes

In one sense, the Tree of Knowledge is a mature Tree of Life. It is both trees together. It has food as well as glory and authority.

When you eat of the tree, you become the Tree itself.

a. eating of the Tree of Life makes you a Tree of Life (others find life in Christ through you).

b. eating of the Tree of Knowledge makes you a Tree of Knowledge (your wisdom now guides those under your authority).

Forms of the Tree of Knowledge

Moses’ staff is a picture of the rule of God.

Aarons rod that budded is a picture of his rule over the house of God.

Trees are associated with Thrones

Deborah set up chair of judgment at Palm tree. Jud 4:4-5;

Abiezrite held court and false worship at an oak. Jud 6:11-32;

Saul held court at a pomegranate tree (1Sa 14:2) and at a tamarisk tree (1Sa 22:6);

During Old Covenant, God gave His people to eat of the Tree of Life the festivals and meals picture this.

But priests were never allowed to drink the wine, in the priestly rituals it was poured out (Num 15), this is because wine is the Omega Food, the Tree of Knowledge and God’s people were not mature enough to drink wine in His direct presence yet. 

The Tree of Life corresponds to bread, the Alpha food.  (You eat bread in the morning to obtain strength for the day, you drink wine in the evening at the end of your work to rest.  Alpha and Omega.)

When we get to the New Covenant, Jesus passes from the bread to the wine, from the Tree of Life to the Tree of Knowledge.

Now in the New Covenant, His people are allowed to consume both bread and wine in His direct presence.  What a privilege!  As a redeemed race, we have matured (Gal. 4).

Bread and Wine in the Lord’s Supper means that we are given to eat of both trees, for both are in Christ.

But in our experience, we still have to grow to maturity. As new believers, we start out as Bread and then we are “broken” and pass through a death/resurrection experience and mature into Wine.

“We start out feeding on Christ the Tree of Life until we “have our senses exercised to discern good and evil,” and we become more mature. Then we are ready to engage in some aspects of ruling— over small things at first—having “become teachers” and leaders, able to help others move through the pilgrimage of this life (Hebrews 5:11–14, in the context of the pilgrimage theme of Hebrews 4).” 

James B. Jordan, “The Handwriting on the Wall”

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Studies in Food and Faith – Modern Judaism is not the Old Testament Hebrew Faith

When you finish reading Genesis through Malachi and then start into Matthew, you read about all these groups of people that were not there before.  Suddenly there are Scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, Lawyers, Publicans, Tax Collectors, the Herods, Pilate the Governor, two Caesars and a Zealot.  There’s a group called the Sanhedrin and a large Temple. 

Obviously, during the 300 years between Malachi and Matthew some changes happened! 

One thing of significance that happened during this time is the creation of the evil “Oral Law” by the Jews.

In Section 05 of James B. Jordan’s “Studies in Food and Faith”, page 44, he gives an really good summary explaining how the Pharisees and Sadducees came into existence, but more importantly the influence of the demonic Oral Law that resulted in the Mishnah that then resulted in the Talmud all of which makes up the false religion of modern Judaism.  

Only the Oral Law existed in Jesus’ and Paul’s day – the Mishnah and Talmuds came from it later.  Many Christians make the mistake of thinking that the Oral Law legalism that Jesus and Paul attack is the religion of the Old Testament.  It is most definitely not.  Jesus came to fulfill the entire Old Testament writings (Luke 24:27).  All believers of both the Old and New Covenants were saved by grace through faith and they knew that (Gen 15:6; Ex 20:1-2;).  But this truth along with many other truths had been obscured by the Oral Law “traditions of the elders." (Matt 15:1-20; Mark 7:1-23) and a legalistic tradition was set in place of biblical truth.

During the inter-testamental period, the Jews divided gradually into two large parties. One group sought to obey the Mosaic law, as law, and as a consequence began to draw all kinds of legal inferences from it. They expanded the law in such a way as to generate rules, known as halakah, to cover all kinds of situations. In so doing, they lost sight of the fundamental symbolic-didactic aspect of the Mosaic revelation. The Pharisees of Jesus’ day were the heirs of this tradition, and they had generated a myth to explain their rules.

They said that God had given Moses two revelations at Sinai, a written law and also an "oral law." The oral law was not to be written down, but was to be handed down by tradition (Matt. 15:1-20: Mark 7:1-23). The Pharisees maintained that the oral law was more important than the written, because it was the oral law that interpreted the written law. It was the oral law, they said, that gave all the extra rules.[1]

The Sadducees maintained the opposite position and mentality. They held that there was no Divinely inspired oral law, only the written law. Moreover, they maintained that all a man needed to do was keep the few specifics of the written law, and then he might do as he pleased. In other words, they refused to draw inferences or make applications of the law, and they, like the Pharisees, lost sight of the symbolic and revelatory dimension of the Torah. The Sadducees were compromisers with Greek culture, and eventually were absorbed into it. All historic Judaism stems from the Pharisees.[2]

The effect of Christianity on Pharisaical Judaism was two-fold. First, the Church drew off from Judaism all those who were open to the true nature of the Torah. When the Spirit was poured out at Pentecost, large numbers of Jews recognized Jesus as the Messiah, and came into the Church. This eliminated from Jewry whatever remained of the typological approach. All that was left was legalism. The result was the total triumph of the oral law myth.

Second, partly out of reaction to the Church and partly as a response to the destruction of the Temple, the Pharisaical rabbis redoubled their efforts to reinterpret Moses in a legalistic manner.[3] Whatever revelatory, symbolic, typological dimensions had remained in their exegesis were expelled from their system, and everything was reinterpreted. The rabbis who worked on this project are known as the Tannaim. Just after A. D. 200 the oral law was written down for the first time, and this compendium is known as the Mishnah. This became the foundation for the next phase of Jewish interpretation, the production of the Talmuds. The Talmuds, Babylonian and Palestinian, are commentaries on the Mishnah, on the oral law. The Babylonian Talmud was completed around A.D. 500. The Palestinian faded into obscurity, and when "the Talmud" is referred to, it is the Babylonian that is meant. While one Jewish sect, the Karaites, rejects the oral law, mainstream Judaism is Talmudic.[4] That is to say, mainstream Judaism, whether Orthodox, Conservative, or Reform, sees the Talmud as the authoritative guide to the oral law, and the oral law as determinative for the written law. Of course, today only Orthodox Jews take any of this very seriously, but all three groups stem historically from Talmudic Judaism.

In this way, Judaism produced a total worldview designed to block out the essence of the Mosaic revelation. The most important and fundamental aspect of the Torah, the symbolic dimension that points to the Triune God and to Jesus Christ, was filtered out by the huge labors of the Talmudists and their heirs. From a Christian standpoint, then, Talmudic Judaism is the ultimate illustration of Paul’s statement that the unbeliever " suppresses the truth " (Rom. 1: 18).

As a reaction against anti-semitism there is a tendency in today’s Church to ignore and/or accommodate the profound differences between Judaism and Christianity. It is not anti-Semitic, however, to point out that the differences are indeed quite radical and no philosophical accommodation is possible. It is far more honest to be straightforward about the differences between Christianity and Judaism. There is nothing anti-semitic in calling upon Jewish people to turn to Jesus Christ as their Messiah. Neither Jesus nor Paul was an anti-semite.

Contrary to what many Christians think, Judaism is not a "religion of the Old Testament." Like Islam, Judaism recognizes the Old Testament, but adds another book to it, and this new book is functionally more authoritative. As Danby wrote, "While Judaism and Christianity alike venerate the Old Testament as canonical Scripture, the Mishnah marks the passage to Judaism as definitely as the New Testament marks the passage to Christianity.”[5] From a Christian standpoint, Judaism, like Mormonism and Islam, is a "religion of a counterfeit  book.”

 

 

---

[1] For more details on this process, standard encyclopedia articles on the history of rabbinic Judaism can be consulted, as well as literature on the history of the inter-testamental period. A useful introduction is D. S. Russell, Between the Testaments (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1965), pp. 63ff.

[2] Ibid., p. 52.

[3] "The Midrash [halakah oral law] was the concern of the Rabbis before the destruction of the second Temple, and after that date it became their main preoccupation. The function, presentation, and amplification of the oral tradition were the main features of their studies." Ibid., p. 67.

[4] There are virtually no Karaites left. The movement began in Persia in the 9th century, and has a long and interesting history as a Jewish fundamentalist movement. See the article "Karaites" by Samuel Poznanski in James Hastings, ed., Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1914) 7:662-672. As regards the dietary laws, Karaites differ from Rabbinates "on the detailed regulations of ritual slaughter, and therefore regard the meat of animals slaughtered according to Rabbinate regulations as prohibited…..Karaites permit the consumption of the meat of those animals only that are enumerated in the Bible, and reject the criteria for permitted mammals and birds as formulated in the Talmud Many Karaite scholars hold that ever since the destruction of the Temple, any consumption of meat is prohibited." Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem: Keter Pub., 1972) 10:780.

[5] Herbert Danby, The Mishnah, Translated from the Hebrew with Introduction and Brief Explanatory Notes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1933), p. xiii.

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Studies in Food and Faith

I have just finished reading a collection of essays by James B. Jordan called “Studies in Food and Faith.” 

I am going to be logging my notes and quotes here on this blog for safe keeping.

Written in 1989, it is 277 pages of some of the most fascinating insights into: the Mosaic law concerning diet and how they represented holiness for us, the meaning of clean and unclean and how Christ’s death cleansed the world, the biblical meaning of eating and how it ties into the Lord’s Supper, the relationships of animals to men and why they could serve as substitutes for us in the Old Covenant, the meaning of Peter’s blanket vision in Acts, what or who is God’s food, and much much more.

It is amazing what you have to know about the Bible in order to understand food and faith.  It simply has to do with everything.  Consider that the human race fell because of eating and since we will be like Jesus, we will still be eating after the resurrection.  At the end of human history is the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.

Eating is not just something we do, it is a basic part of God’s creation design.  It is how we commune with God and each other,… but I am jumping ahead.

Here is the first quote:

It is the premise of this essay, as it is that of these essays as a whole, that the primary meaning of food in the Bible is religious. Our need for food demonstrates our dependence on God, and His provision of it shows His grace. Beyond that, how we relate to food has a lot to say about how we relate to God. The food laws God gave His people at various stages of redemptive history were all fundamentally sacramental in character.

Additionally, we have to say that the primary and ultimate factor in health is our relation to the Holy Spirit, Who is, according to the universal confession of Christendom in the Nicene Creed, "the Lord and Giver of life." Ultimately all life and power come from God, and apart from Him there is only sickness, impotence, and death. Health, therefore, is primarily religious in character.

The misuse of the Mosaic dietary code –taking it as "God’s laws of health" —arises from a failure to keep clear and central this religious meaning of food and health. The one abiding food law in the New Covenant is to join with Jesus Christ at His thanksgiving meal, the Holy Eucharistic Communion of the saints. In that we are to fellowship with God, we must eschew the table of demons (1Cor. 10:18-21), which is to eat food in any idolatrous religious setting; and in that we are to feast upon the blood of Christ, we are still to avoid all other blood (Acts 15:29). We are assured that proper communion with Christ, including the act of eating the Lord’s Supper, is conducive for good health, in that blasphemous eating results in sickness (1Cor. 11:30).

From this it is clear that good health is indeed connected to proper food, but that such proper food is nothing less than the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, given us in a mystery in the sacrament of Holy Communion

The Arguments

Jordan’s first argument he puts forth is that it is a big mistake to say that the dietary laws in the Old Testament are meant to be the healthy way to eat.

They are healthy in the sense that God would not command his people to do anything unhealthy, but they are not meant to be the perfect diet.  Here are some of his reasons:

1.  The Bible never ever says that the dietary laws are given for health.  God does say that faithful observance will result in good health but this is because God won’t put the diseases on them, not the result of the eating.  It is the result of obedience and faith. (Dt. 7:12-15; 11:8-9; 18-21;)

What, then, was the hygienic value of the law? Simply that God would not put diseases on them if they kept it. God would not put — that is the important phrase. God sends disease, and He can restrain it. The key to health is obedience and faith, not mechanical observance of health techniques. Valuable as exercise, good diet, and the like may be, they are not part of God’s revealed law.

2.  If the laws are supposed to be the only healthy way to eat, then why wait until Moses.  Didn’t God care if Noah or Abraham or Joseph ate shrimp or pork?  If the purpose of the dietary laws were for health, God would have given them to the Patriarchs.

3.  The laws are temporary in Scripture according the vision given to Peter in Acts 10.  These laws are ceremonial laws and are no longer binding on us.  This isn’t because God doesn’t care for our health anymore, but that the purpose of these laws was something else.

4.  The Bible gives no list of edible versus poisonous plants.  Surely if good health was the reason for the laws, plants would have been included.

5.  The Bible states that the purpose of these laws was symbolic.  “Peter’s vision in Acts 10 establishes a symbolic connection between the unclean animals and the Gentile nations, an association already set forth in Leviticus 20:22-26. No one denies this, but modern Christians are not accustomed to Biblical symbolism, with the result that full justice is not done to the laws of uncleanness.”

 

6. “… clean and unclean do not mean edible and inedible when it comes to food. As Genesis 9:3 makes clear, Noah was free to eat the flesh of unclean animals as well as clean. It was only with Moses, and after the erection of the Tabernacle and God’s putting His Name-presence in it, that the flesh of unclean animals was declared detestable for Israel, which meant it was not to be eaten.”   pg 2.

 

 

My concern is that the Old Testament laws are being misused by persons who, with the best of intentions, want to find health hints in the Bible. My hope is that these studies will help redirect the focus of this concern and put matters back into perspective. The food law of the New Covenant is the Lord’s Supper, and sickness and health are indeed tied to its faithful observance (1Cor. 11:30). Sickness and health were related to the dietary laws of Moses for the same reason, but that reason is the Spiritual efficacy of the sacrament, not the biological mechanics of the human body.  pg 3

 

 

All quotations from “Studies in Food and Faith” by James B. Jordan

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The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, Part II

You shall be like gods…

Satan tempted Adam and Eve at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil saying that if they eat of the forbidden fruit they “shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”

What was this temptation?  I thought that they were already like God, created in His image?  Why would they want to be like gods?

I believe that the temptation to become “gods” was a real one and that when Adam and Eve partook of the tree they would have become “gods”, or to use the Hebrew word: elohim, but what does this mean?

We are uncomfortable using this language in our day and rightly so.  The Mormons and New Agers and other cults have taken over the term “god” and perverted it so that we as Christians cannot use it without explanations and qualifiers. 

But Scripture uses this language and in order to “think God’s thoughts after Him”, I believe we need to learn to think and speak in biblical language and categories.

The purpose of this post is to show that one aspect of the temptation before Adam was impatience: to grasp the privilege of kingly rule before he was ready, to become a “god” an elohim before he was mature.

I showed in the previous post that the phrase “knowledge of good and evil” was used throughout the Bible to mean mature kingly wisdom with the privilege to rule and pronounce judgments under God.   I tried to show that Adam would have eventually been allowed to eat of the forbidden tree when he had matured through patient faith by abstaining for a time.  The test was not one of just sheer obedience, but of maturing patience and hope of reward, like the faith of Abraham.

In this post, I am trying to demonstrate how the temptation to become “gods” confirms this conclusion.  For Adam to grasp the forbidden fruit and eat was the sin to grasp too soon at rule and kingship and not to wait and exercise patient faith in God’s command.

Elohim or “gods” in Scripture

When Satan said “you shall be as gods”, he used the word “elohim.”

The Hebrew word elohim can be translated as the word “God”, referring to Him in a general sense and not by a revealed name like Yahweh.  However, many times elohim is translated as “gods” and is used for judges, elders, rulers, and kings in Scripture.  Elohim therefore is the Hebrew word analogous to our word: god. We use it as god or God.  Hence, English uses the term “gods” to refer to great men and rulers, though it seems to me that we have fallen out of that usage.

Here are some Scriptural examples of the usages of elohim:

Exodus 21:6;

Then his master shall bring him unto the judges (elohim); he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an aul; and he shall serve him for ever.

In ancient times, the city rulers/judges/elders would assemble court at the gate of the city.  The love-slave (vs. 5) would then have his ear “circumcised” at the gate of the city, that’s where the door or doorpost is in this verse.

Psalm 58:1 Do you indeed decree what is right, you gods (elohim)? Do you judge the children of man uprightly?

This entire Psalm talks about unjust “gods” that are not ruling the people rightly.  God sees and will judge them.  Elohim (God) will judge the elohim (gods).

Psalm 82 uses elohim and speaks to the judges and rulers of the people.

1  God has taken his place in the divine council;
    in the midst of the gods (elohim) he holds judgment:
2  “How long will you judge unjustly
    and show partiality to the wicked? Selah
3  Give justice to the weak and the fatherless;
    maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.
4  Rescue the weak and the needy;
    deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”
5  They have neither knowledge nor understanding,
    they walk about in darkness;
    all the foundations of the earth are shaken.
6   I said, “You are gods(elohim),
    sons of the Most High, all of you;
7  nevertheless, like men you shall die,
    and fall like any prince.”
8  Arise, O God, judge the earth;
    for you shall inherit all the nations!

Notice the use of the word prince in verse 7 confirming that we are talking about judges and kings.

In John 10:34, Jesus quotes Psalm 82.  Evidently, the Greek word theos is somewhat analogous to our English “god"…

33  The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God (theos).
34  Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods (theos)?
35  If he called them gods(theos), unto whom the word of God (theos) came, and the scripture cannot be broken;
36  Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God(theos)?

In verse 35, Jesus says that the word of God, the Scriptures, came to the “gods” of the Old Covenant, the kings (David, Solomon) and the prophets (Abraham, Jeremiah, etc), the judges (Samuel, Samson, etc.).

These verses are enough to establish what the Bible means when it uses the word “gods” in this context.

A god in the Bible is often a king or elder who has the judicial knowledge of good and evil acquired through years of patient faithfulness to God.

Had Adam waited until God knew he was ready, he would have been allowed to partake of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and become a god in the Biblical sense, imaging God’s kingship and authority in his life.

We are to become “gods’”

It is in this biblical sense, that we are to become “gods.” 

The two trees are a picture of our lives.  We all start out as priests, as children under the law, partaking of the Tree of Life.  Don’t touch that, don’t eat that, do this, do that, etc.  We are to obey without question at first, and as we do, we learn faith and patience, and as a result we grow and mature. 

As children growing up, there were all kinds of forbidden fruit in our lives.  Foods, drinks, responsibilities, sex, and many boundaries we were not to cross.  These are things that would come to us and be allowed to us eventually, but only through patient obedient faith to our parents and to our elders under God and to God through His Word.

It is only later in life that we enter into the “kingly” stage of our lives.  A king still obeys the law through the motivation of love.  In contrast to the priest though, he has to use kingly wisdom to apply the law to new situations.  A king has to make much tougher choices, sometimes between the lesser of two evils. 

In our lives, we begin to partake of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and slowly come into the rewards of “gods” with the privilege of rule.  These include marriage, jobs, business ownership with employees, children, money, etc., and deaconship then eldership, or statesmanship. 

The rest of the book of Genesis is a contrast to Adam’s failure:

1.  Ham wanted Noah’s robe of authority and kingship and instead was punished (through his son Canaan) to be a slave (the punishment fits and explains the crime).

2.  Abraham was promised a seed, land, and a great name.  Abraham exercised patient faith and was not to grasp the promises of God himself before it was time.  Though he tried once with the one promise of a child.  He had two trees in his garden, Sarah and Hagar, one was forbidden.

3.  Jacob was to wait to possess his blessing and inheritance by wrestling men (Isaac, Esau, Laban) for many years until he was 97, and then he had to wrestle God!

4.  Joseph was to endure with patient faith until his God-given dreams were brought to pass, and he was given a robe of authority by Pharaoh.

Jesus is our example of patient faith.  He was anointed as Priest by John the Forerunner at His baptism.  He refused to grasp kingly authority at the temptation of Satan in the wilderness.  He partook of the Tree of Life, he had food that His disciples did not know about.  He was the Tree of Life.  He would say “who made me a judge over you?” Luke 12:14 when it came to non-Temple issues during His earthly life.

It was only after His death and resurrection, that Jesus partook of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  It was only after it was finished, that he would drink wine anew in the Kingdom.  He would be given rule and authority (not grasp it beforehand) when he ascended and received the Kingdom from His Father.  He is the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  He is King and ruling and reigning now and His Kingdom is expanding now and filling all the earth.

You see bread is priestly, but wine is kingly (Gen 49:9-11).  Children eat bread, mature kings drink wine.  The Tree of Life is the Bread.  The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil corresponds to the Wine.  The Covenantal Meal is also a picture of your life, you start out as bread and then become wine.

Adam should have been our example of patient faith.  The Second Adam is our example of patient faith.  Now we as Christians are to be examples of patient faith and be…

 

"… imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. For when God made the promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying, ‘Blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you.’ And thus, having patiently waited, .he obtained the promise" (Heb. 6:12-15)   

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