Deuteronomy 14:21 (KJV)
Ye shall not eat of any thing that dieth of itself: thou shalt give it unto the stranger that is in thy gates, that he may eat it; or thou mayest sell it unto an alien: for thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.
God wraps up the dietary laws by telling Israel they may not eat of anything that died by itself. He goes on to say they were free to sell that very same meat to a stranger or the alien.[1]
Some modern Bible teachers claim that God gave the restrictions He did because the unclean animals’ meat contain diseases and other properties that are potentially dangerous. His way of protecting their health was by forbidding them to eat these meats. Pork, for instance can carry a parasite dangerous to humans. Shellfish can carry toxic shellfish poison, deadly to humans. These Bible students would claim that it’s ok to eat them now because we have better ways of caring for the animals, better means of preparing their meats and better tools to detect the poisons.[2]
While there might be some truth in this, it cannot be the main truth. God declared those meats clean long before any of these improvements were made. Further, God said, at least in the case of the animals that had died of themselves, that meat could be sold. It is ridiculous to believe that God would forbid Israel to eat it because it was potentially harmful but allow them to sell this dangerous meat to others.
The dietary laws had to do with holiness, separation from the world for God.
[1]I think the stranger is a non-Jew living in Israel and an alien would be one not living in their country. See the notes in the Cambridge Bible.
[2]Making Peter’s vision in Acts 10 and Paul’s teaching in 1 Timothy 4:4 more about social advancement than Spiritual instruction.
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Deuteronomy 14:21 (KJV) An Holy People
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