Kosher

It wasn’t until the late Second Temple period—shaped by Greek and Roman legal culture—that Torah law started to function as actual law.

The Greek historian Herodotus, who visited Egypt in the 5th century B.C.E., reports that Egyptians would not kiss a Greek on the mouth or use any of their food implements—knife, fork, or pot—because Greeks ate cows, which Egyptians regarded as sacred. This background sheds light on the biblical account of Egyptians refusing to eat with Joseph’s brothers—or even with Joseph himself.

Owls are predators and are forbidden to eat, but as early as the 4th millennium B.C.E., they emerged as potent symbols in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Levant. What do these nocturnal creatures, with their large, expressive eyes and haunting vocalizations, signify—and why does the Bible place them among ruins and demons?

Biblical dietary laws forbid consuming animals that shed the blood of other animals, reflecting an ideal world without violence among humans or animals. But what counts as blood?

Deuteronomy and Leviticus drew on common Vorlage (source text) to develop their regulations about the consumption of land, marine, and winged creatures. While Deuteronomy only lightly modifies this Vorlage, the editors of Leviticus expanded the text in several stages to align it with Priestly ideology.

The original biblical prohibition before it was interpreted to forbid cooking or consuming meat and milk together.

Fishbone remains discovered in eight different excavations in Jerusalem, from the Iron age to the early Islamic period, give us a sense of what fish the locals ate, and from where they were imported.

The Romans were baffled as to why Jews would not eat pork, an idiosyncrasy that became the subject of speculation as well as ethnic humor. In response, Jewish texts highlight the way the hated Romans remind the rabbis of pigs and wild boars.

In contrast to Descartes’ theory of animals as automatons, the Torah and rabbinic text express deep concern for animal suffering. One vivid example is the donkey’s rebuke of Balaam, “What have I done to you, that you have struck me?” (Num 22:28).

But Chicken and Egg Remained Permitted

Karaism is often characterized by its rejection of the Talmud in favor of a super-literalist interpretation of the Torah. But Karaism is better understood as an alternate, parallel form of Judaism based on the Bible.

How does the Torah envision that keeping kosher makes a person holy?

Does God have a penchant for cows, goats, and pigeons? A distaste for pigs, mice, and weasels? If not, why are the former permitted to eat but the latter proscribed? According to some Jewish and Christian allegorical interpreters in ancient Alexandria, the Torah’s distinction between clean and unclean meats was intended to tell us as much about how to behave as how to eat.

The dietary laws in Leviticus are not expressed in terms of kosher (כשר) or not kosher but in the terms of the Priestly purity laws: purity (טהרה), pollution (טומאה), and disgust (שקץ).