Bible: Leviticus 11 -What is the rationale?

[zapatos]

Sort of like military types wearing specific head gear, like green berets? Yeah, that certainly seems likely. It makes them feel elite.

[overtone]

Many shellfish would have been unsafe for inland folks inexperienced with the tides and seasons and different kinds of shellfish, and not because they are disgusting in their diet (nothing is more disgusting in its diet than a tomato or a chicken) - because some kinds are periodically infused with poisonous algae ("red tides") and can kill you during those periods.

 

The rest of the time they are good healthy food - very good, very healthy food (omega 3s and all that). An inland desert people would be wise to avoid eating them on those uncommon occasions when the possibility came around, but the rest of us are OK.

 

Obviously the religious law was written for a particular culture in a particular place, to deal with questions of cleanliness, public health, and tribal economics, in various situations of temptation. It isn't really God's fault if modern Chesapeake Bay residents mistake themselves for ancient Israelis.

[imatfaal]

Sort of like military types wearing specific head gear, like green berets? Yeah, that certainly seems likely. It makes them feel elite.

Yep - exactly. And we still use the word Shibboleth to describe such a distinguishing feature, custom,or action.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibboleth

 

 

Gilead then cut Ephraim off from the fords of the Jordan, and whenever Ephraimite fugitives said, 'Let me cross,' the men of Gilead would ask, 'Are you an Ephraimite?' If he said, 'No,' they then said, 'Very well, say "Shibboleth" (שבלת).' If anyone said, "Sibboleth" (סבלת), because he could not pronounce it, then they would seize him and kill him by the fords of the Jordan. Forty-two thousand Ephraimites fell on this occasion.

—Judges 12:5–6, NJB

Nice to know the merciful god and people were at their peaceful best

[Moontanman]

I guess the classification could have been a lot worse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celestial_Emporium_of_Benevolent_Knowledge's_Taxonomy

 

But I still think the "We don't eat shellfish- only heathens do that" was designed to separate "us" from "them"

 

Circumcision anyone?

 

 

On yeah, my two favorites...

 

 

The list divides all animals into one of 14 categories:

• Those that belong to the emperor
• Embalmed ones
• Those that are trained
• Suckling pigs
• Mermaids (or Sirens)
• Fabulous ones
• Stray dogs
• Those that are included in this classification
• Those that tremble as if they were mad
• Innumerable ones
• Those drawn with a very fine camel hair brush
• Et cetera
• Those that have just broken the flower vase
• Those that, at a distance, resemble flies

[imatfaal]

 

On yeah, my two favorites...

 

 

The list divides all animals into one of 14 categories:

• Those that belong to the emperor
• Embalmed ones
• Those that are trained
• Suckling pigs
• Mermaids (or Sirens)
• Fabulous ones
• Stray dogs
• Those that are included in this classification
• Those that tremble as if they were mad
• Innumerable ones
• Those drawn with a very fine camel hair brush
• Et cetera
• Those that have just broken the flower vase
• Those that, at a distance, resemble flies

That sounds like the The Analytical Language of John Wilkins - as famously reproduced by Jorge Louis Borge and as the beginning of of the order of things by foucault.

 

Brilliant and thanks for posting - makes me laugh everytime

[John Cuthber]

That sounds like the The Analytical Language of John Wilkins - as famously reproduced by Jorge Louis Borge and as the beginning of of the order of things by foucault.

 

Brilliant and thanks for posting - makes me laugh everytime

I realise that it's gibberish and that someone just made it up. But this is the religion forum, so that's OK.