Walter Houston Purity and Monotheism Clean and Unclean Animals in Biblical Law PDF

JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
SUPPLEMENT SERIES
140
Editors
David J.A. Clines
Philip R. Davies
Editorial Board
Richard J. Coggins, Alan Cooper, Tamara C. Eskenazi,
J. Cheryl Exum, Robert P. Gordon, Norman K. Gottwald,
Andrew D.H. Mayes, Carol Meyers, Patrick D. Miller
JSOT Press
Sheffield
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Purity and Monotheism
Clean and Unclean Animals
in Biblical Law
Walter Houston
Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

Supplement Series 140
To the memory of
Henry Houston
1905-1965
and
Joan Houston
1912-1982
Copyright © 1993 Sheffield Academic Press
Published by JSOT Press

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Sheffield Academic Press Ltd
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Houston, Walter
Purity and Monotheism: Clean and Unclean
Animals in Biblical Law.—(JSOT
Supplement Series, ISSN 0309-0787; No. 140)
I. Title II. Series
241.5
ISBN 1-85075-368-7
CONTENTS
Preface 7
Abbreviations 9
A Note on Hebrew 11
Chapter 1
APPROACHES TO A PROBLEM 13
Chapter 2
THE LAW OF UNCLEAN FLESH 26
Chapter 3
A REVIEW OF EXPLANATIONS 68
Chapter 4
THE CONTEXT SURVEYED 124
Chapter 5
THE CONTEXT INTERPRETED 181
Chapter 6
PURITY AND MONOTHEISM 218
Chapter 7
MONOTHEISM WITHOUT PURITY 259
Bibliography 283
Index of References 304
Index of Authors 311
PREFACE
The origins of this book go back a number of years. Some of its ideas
were developed in a sabbatical term in 1984 and tried out in papers
read to the Cambridge Old Testament Seminar and to the Society for
Old Testament Study at its summer meeting that year in Birmingham.
But the present work is essentially a new one. Much of the work was
done on sabbatical leave from Westminster College in the summer of
1989, and it was completed over the following two years. I must
record here my gratitude first of all to Westminster College and the
United Reformed Church for granting me the two terms of study
leave to which I have referred, without which the book would never
have been begun, and also for providing assistance in my administrative
duties in the college, without which it is doubtful whether it would
have been completed.
Secondly, I wish to thank the many people who contributed in vari-
ous ways to the progress of the work. Graham Davies stands out among
them by virtue of his constant interest over the whole eight-year
period in which I have been working on the subject; he has read every
chapter in draft form with the greatest care and made very thorough
comments; he has also spontaneously directed my attention to various
items of relevant literature. John Rogerson has also read drafts of
every chapter and I am much indebted to him not only for his valuable
comments, but also for his recommendation of the work to David
Clines for inclusion in the JSOT Supplement Series. This has consider-
ably speeded its progress. Parts of the work have been read at various
stages also by Roger Tomes, Liora Kolska Horwitz and Philip Jenson,
and they have all made helpful suggestions.
At a stage in the work when I was uncertain how to proceed, Peter
Ackroyd advised me to turn to Gillian Clark at the British School of
Archaeology in Jerusalem, and she introduced me to the field of
archaeozoology which was at that time completely unknown to me.
Without this I could never have written Chapter 4, which is of central
8 Purity and Monotheism
importance in the work. Many of the practitioners in that field whom
I then approached in my ignorance were kind enough to reply to me,
and some of them supplied offprints of their own work; I should
mention here Simon Davis, Richard Meadow, Giinter Nobis, Robin
Thomas and Paula Wapnish; Liora Kolska Horwitz deserves particular
mention in that she gave me work which was at that time unpublished,
and, as I have mentioned, she was also good enough to read a first
draft of what is now Chapter 4.
I wish particularly to thank David Clines as a director of Sheffield
Academic Press for accepting the work into the JSOT Supplement
Series, and for the care with which his staff have processed it for
publication. Technical difficulties in the late stages of production
unfortionately made the inclusion of a subject index impracticable.
Mention of one's spouse is a customary element in the genre 'preface
to learned work', but I have more than customary obligations to my
wife. She has encouraged me throughout, including some rather barren
periods, with her genuine interest, and has also helped me in various
practical ways: she typed the earliest version of the work and later
generously gave part of a legacy to her to pay for the word-processing
equipment on which I have composed the present book, and she has
helped to compile the indexes and to check the proofs. The work is
dedicated to the memory of my parents, in whose house I first learnt
both to love the Bible and to read it critically. They have no other
memorial.
Walter Houston
Westminster College, Cambridge
28 July, 1992
ABBREVIATIONS
AASOR Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research

AES Archives Europe'ennes de Sociologie
AUSS Andrews University Seminary Studies
AV Authorized (King James) Version
BA Biblical Archaeology
BARev Biblical Archaeology Review
BASOR Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research
BOB F. Brown, S.R. Driver and C.A. Briggs, Hebrew and English
Lexicon of the Old Testament
BH Biblical Hebrew
BHS Biblia hebraica stuttgartensia
BKAT Biblischer Kommentar, Altes Testament
Byz. Byzantine period
BZ Biblische Zeitschrift
CB Century Bible
CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly
Chalcol. Chalcolithic
CIS Corpus inscriptionum semiticarum
CNRS Centre national pour la recherche scientifique
CTA A. Herdner (ed.), Corpus des tablettes en cuntiformes
alphabltiques
De Abst. De Abstinentia (Porphyry)
De Spec. Leg. De Specialibus Legibus (Philo)
EB(A) Early Bronze (Age)
EncJud Encyclopaedia Judaica
Ep. Arist. Epistle of (Pseudo-)Aristeas
EvQ Evangelical Quarterly
ET English translation
EvT Evangelische Theologie
EVV English versions
HAT Handbuch zum Alten Testament
Hist. Nat. Historia Naturalis (Pliny)
HR History of Religions
IEJ Israel Exploration Journal
Int.B Intermediate Bronze
J Yahwistic writing
JAAR Journal of the American Academy of Religion
JArchSci Journal of Archaeological Science
JANESCU Journal of the Ancient Near East Society of Columbia
University
JBL Journal of Biblical Literature
JCS Journal of Cuneiform Studies
JESHO Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient
JNES Journal of Near Eastern Studies
JPSA Jewish Publication Society of America
JQR Jewish Quarterly Review
JSOT Journal for the Study of the Old Testament
KA1 H. Donner and W. Rollig, Kanandische und aramdische
Inschriften
KTU M. Dietrich, O. Loretz and J. Sanmartin (eds.), Die keilalpha-
betische Texte aus Ugarit
LA Lexikonfiir Agyptologie
LB(A) Late Bronze (Age)
LCL Loeb Classical Library
MB(A) Middle Bronze (Age)
MNI minimum number of individuals
NEB New English Bible
NRSV New Revised Standard Version
OTS Oudtestamentische Studien
Or Orientalia
P Priestly Code
PEQ Palestine Exploration Quarterly
PG J. Migne (ed.), Patrologia graeca
PPN Pre-Pottery Neolithic
Praep. Ev. Praeparatio Evangelica (Eusebius)
Proc. Prehist. Soc. Proceedings of the Prehistorical Society
RB Revue Biblique
REB Revised English Bible
RivStudFen Rivista di studifenid
Rom. Roman period
RSV Revised Standard Version
RV Revised Version
SJOT Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament
StudOr Studia orientalia
TDOT G.J. Botterweck and H. Ringgren (eds.), Theological
Dictionary of the Old Testament
UT C.H. Gordon, Ugaritic Textbook
VT Vetus Testamentum
VTSup Vetus Testamentum, Supplements
WBC Word Biblical Commentary
ZA Zeitschriftfur Assyriologie
ZDPV Zeitsc.hrift des deutschen Palastina-Vereins
A NOTE ON HEBREW
Although this is primarily a work of Old Testament scholarship, I hope that it will be
read by anthropologists and archaeologists and others interested in the subject. For
their sake, I have not used foreign scripts in the main text, as distinct from the
footnotes, except in the table on pp. 45-46. But I have used a technical scholarly
system of transliteration for Hebrew and other Semitic languages, and readers
unfamiliar with them may need a little help with how words are supposed to be pro-
nounced. The vowels should be pronounced in the 'Continental' way; there is, for
example, no difference between a and a. A raised vowel is a light unstressed sound.
Most of the consonants are as in English, but the following should be noted:
'
a glottal stop
' similar, but voiced, like the cawing of a crow
h a throatier version of h
h like ch in loch
q a k pronounced as far back in the mouth as possible
s now usually pronounced ts
§ now the same as s
S sh
t an emphatic t
Chapter 1
APPROACHES TO A PROBLEM
1. The Problem
Our theme is no mere siding on the main line of Old Testament
research. The dietary laws have taken a central place in the self-
understanding of Judaism throughout its history. While Jews have
expressed their faithfulness to their God by the observance of all the
laws, it is these, along with those of circumcision and the Sabbath, that
have most conspicuously enabled them to express their identity as Jews
over against their neighbours, to resist assimilation, and thereby to be
faithful to the God who has called them to be 'his special possession
among all the nations that are on the earth'. This power of the dietary
laws arises not least from the fact that Jews draw attention to them-
selves among their neighbours by their observance, often indeed
incurring ridicule for it.
Central to these dietary laws is the law on forbidden flesh in
Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14. It is specifically this law that is
chosen by the author of the code of Leviticus 20 (or the editor of the
Holiness Code as a whole) to symbolize the 'separation' of Israel as
God's holy people 'from the peoples' (Lev. 20.24).
You are to make a clear separation between clean beasts and unclean
beasts and between unclean and clean birds. You must not contaminate
yourselves (Id' f$aq<fsu napSotekem—see below) through beast or bird
or anything that creeps on the ground, for I have made a clear separation
between them and you, declaring them unclean. You must be holy to me,
because I the LORD am holy. I have made a clear separation between you
and the heathen (lit. peoples), that you may belong to me' (Lev. 20.25-26
REB).
A number of the terms and concepts in this short passage will occupy
us later; but the leading significance of the law of forbidden flesh for
this author is quite clear.
The same understanding is expressed in a small number of

narratives1 in which the motivating theme is the threat of pollution by
unclean food in situations of crisis or extremity. For example, there is
the story of Eleazar, and that of the seven brothers, in 2 Mace. 6.18-
31 and 7.1-42. The situation is King Antiochus's desecration of the
Temple and his attempt to suppress the traditional observance of
Judaism. Eleazar, we are told, had his mouth held open while the
officers forced pork into it, but he spat it out, preferring to die rather
than disobey the Law of his God; and he did indeed die under fearful
torture, and for the same reason did the seven brothers and their
mother in ch. 7. The issue is primarily expressed in terms of the
requirement to obey God rather than the king; but Eleazar describes
the action being urged upon him with a unique word that might be
barbarously translated as 'foreignism'—allophulismos (6.24). It is in
itself wrong to disobey God, but one of the objects of God's law is to
keep his people distinct from all others. The adoption of foreign
customs, and in particular foreign diet, frustrates this purpose. This is
the precise conception of Leviticus 20. It is not just that being a Jew
entails not eating pork, but that eating pork in a certain sense entails
ceasing to be a Jew.
One can understand, therefore, one important reason for the horror
with which Peter in his vision in Acts 10.9-16 greets the command to
kill and eat unclean animals (one reason—others may suggest them-
selves later). This is a sharply contrasting narrative which neverthe-
less, as Gordon Wenham has pointed out (1981), shows the same
understanding of the dietary laws. To eat unclean flesh would be to
cross the boundary that separates him from the Gentiles. But that is
precisely what God, according to the story, wishes him to do, as he
acknowledges in the house of Cornelius (v. 28). Luke's universalist
God forces Peter to and across the boundary. 'What God has cleansed,
you must not call common [i.e. unclean].' Because he not only wants
Peter to enter a Gentile's house, but Gentiles en masse to enter the
Church as Gentiles and on equal terms with its Jewish members, he
must cleanse what in Leviticus he too had called unclean, for he is
demanding the erasure of the boundary which that distinction cele-
brates and maintains, and which it echoes both structurally and ideo-
logically. Although Peter is not in the same kind of extremity as
1. Besides the stories discussed in the text, see Est. 3.8 (Greek); 14.17;
Dan. 1.8; Jdt. 12.1-2, 19.
1. Approaches to a Problem 15
Eleazar, his understanding of himself in relation to his nation and his
God is in no slight crisis.
Luke here encapsulates in symbolic narrative that process which
expresses itself in discursive style in the Pauline letters. It is now
widely acknowledged, above all through the work of E.P. Sanders
(1977), that the fundamental motivation of Paul's attack on 'the Law'
is the conviction that guides his sense of mission: that 'in Christ there
is neither Jew nor Greek', and therefore the Law, which shapes the
identity of the Jew as a member of God's people, can have no place in
the salvation of humanity in Christ. In this context the Law means
above all the ritual and purity rules, those of forbidden flesh among
them, which mark the boundaries of Israel. Even if he himself does
not wish the 'strong' in the Roman church to make an issue of it
(Rom. 14), it is not surprising that they flaunt the banner of their
freedom of diet. Ever since, the opposition of kosher and non-kosher
has symbolized the opposition of Church and Synagogue. (This issue is
discussed fully below in Chapter 7.)
Now, in itself this function of the dietary laws in marking bound-
aries and protecting holiness could operate with a perfectly arbitrary
definition of the permitted and forbidden species. Nothing in the ide-
ological framework of the story of Eleazar suggests any intrinsic
reason why it should be pork—rather than, say, beef—that the king's
officers vainly force down his throat. But it was of course pork,
because it is pork, among other things, which is forbidden in
Leviticus. But why is it pork (and the rest) in Leviticus? There have
been strong souls who have been perfectly happy that the definition
should be arbitrary, and that there should be no answer to that ques-
tion. But they are rare. For the mass of the devout it is as difficult to
suppose that the Most High makes arbitrary decrees as for the scholar
to leave such questions unanswered; and through the centuries there
have been many attempts both by the devout and by scholars—not of
course mutually exclusive groups—to explain the prohibitions of
Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14.
Before we begin to examine the various explanations that have been
offered, we must give ourselves a solid theoretical basis for our exam-
ination by analysing what it might mean to 'explain' such a cultural
feature as a system of food prohibitions. We must of course take seri-
ously here the work of social anthropologists who have studied the
cultures of a wide range of societies, most of which include food
prohibitions or avoidances. Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, in The Savage
in Judaism (1990), has argued at length for the validity of a compar-
ative method derived from anthropology as a tool in the elucidation of
Israelite religion.1 As he argues, this is a cultural phenomenon that
should not be understood in a totally different way from the culture of
other societies, including those we term 'primitive', though many
people even today try to do so, as we shall see in Chapter 3.1 am not
saying that dietary rules in all societies are to be understood in the
same way—though some anthropologists do seem to be saying this—
but simply that it is likely that at least some societies present at least
partial analogies to the Old Testament system.
2. What do we Have to Explain?

In the first place, we must understand what it is that we have to
explain. The foregoing discussion will, I hope, have already made it
clear that an understanding that is perfectly satisfactory as regards the
mere fact that a society distinguishes between permitted and forbidden
foods may be unable to explain why any particular food is forbidden,
or permitted. Hence we need to distinguish in our reflections between
the fact that food avoidances exist and the particular avoidances that
are practised. Since most societies practise some form of dietary
restriction, there are likely to be fairly general reasons for this. One
of these is the boundary-marking function that we have already
observed in the Jewish case. This certainly applies also to Hindu castes,
who not only protect themselves against the contamination of lower
castes by elaborate purity rules applied to the preparation and con-
sumption of food (Douglas 1966: 32ff.), but also proclaim the purity
of their Hinduism over against outcastes by their care in the selection
of foods, for example by refusing all flesh-meat. There are other
general explanations available, as we shall see; but they cannot nec-
essarily be expected to explain what it is about pork that excludes it
from the Jewish dinner table. Much more specific cultural associations
may well be involved.
This is not the only necessary distinction in what we are called on to
explain. We are confronted in the Old Testament not merely by a
1. I regret that this fascinating and suggestive book came into my hands too late
for me to respond adequately to it, but I have been able to refer to it in a number of
places.
society that as a matter of fact avoids certain foods, as nearly all do,
but by a religiously based system of prohibitions, which is not a uni-
versal feature, though most world religions have such a system.
(Christianity is the notable exception, no doubt because of that aspect
of its early history that I have already referred to.) There may in fact
be any degree of formality in cultural features of this kind, and any
degree of consciousness. Some societies' taboos may be said to be un-
conscious (cf. Leach 1964: 31), but that does not make them any the
less taboos.1 Marshall Sahlins (1976: 170ff.) discusses preferences
among Americans for some domestic animals as food rather than
others on these lines, quoting Franz Boas:
Supposing an individual accustomed to eating dogs should enquire among
us for the reason why we do not eat dogs, we could only reply that it is
not customary; and he would be justified in saying that dogs are tabooed
among us, just as much as we are justified in speaking of taboos among
primitive people (Sahlins 1976: 173 n. 5, from Boas 1965: 207).
Leach indeed considers that in all societies some potential food is un-
consciously tabooed. So far as animal food is concerned Leviticus 11
is an exception to this rule, if it is a rule: it covers all animals explic-
itly and without exception. Some societies explicitly prohibit certain
foods and expect those who ignore the ban to suffer physical ill-
effects. Few systematically define all animals as permitted or forbid-
den and invoke divine authority for the instructions.
Now some anthropologists distinguish sharply between the study of
behaviour and of 'mental events' (e.g. Harris 1979: 31), an expression
that would cover all attitudes, rules, statements, prohibitions or pre-
scriptions about food. The rules of Leviticus 11 would count under
this rubric as the object of mental rather than behavioural study, as
they are prescriptive rather than descriptive of the behaviour of Jews.
The difference is a rather fine one when dealing with a society that
defines its behaviour before all else as obedience to divine pre-
scription. However, if we are seeking to understand the scriptural
rules in their original social setting, it may be important to make the
distinction between the rules themselves, which may be seen as the
work of an educated and reflective class of priests, the customs
actually existing at the time, and the popular or unconscious attitudes
1. Cf. however Halverson 1976, who argues that this is an illegitimate use of
the word 'taboo'.
on which they may have been based.

A further example from biblical narrative may clarify the relevance
of this point to the biblical setting. Once again the setting is a time of
crisis, a situation of extremity. The prophet Ezekiel is being forced to
bear symbolically upon his own person the physical and psychological
pain of exile (Ezek. 4), taking short rations of food and water; and he
is told to take his food in the form of a barley cake which he must
bake using human excrement as the fuel (v. 12). And the Lord adds,
'That is how the Israelites will have to take their food, unclean (tame")
among the nations where I am going to drive them'. Ezekiel replies,
'Alas, Lord Yahweh, I have never been denied (metummd'a); carrion,
or meat killed by wild beasts, I have never eaten from the time I was a
lad until now, andpigguP has never passed my lips'.
Both Yahweh and Ezekiel use the root tm', the most widely used
technical term in the priestly writings for everything that is ritually
defiling; Ezekiel is a priest, and it is as a priest that he protests his
scrupulous avoidance of all pollution.2 Yet to all appearance they are
not using the word technically. No priestly passage in the Pentateuch
attributes ritual defilement to human excrement. It is true that one
passage in Deuteronomy, 23.10-15 (Eng. 9-14) comes near to this.
The passage is concerned with the purity of the military camp in time
of war, treating it effectively in the same way as the Temple, so that a
man who has had a nocturnal emission must stay outside the camp the
whole day; the word qados ('holy') is used of the camp (v. 15). Rather
similarly the men are instructed to go outside the camp to evacuate
their bowels, and to cover the excrement behind them. But the passage
falls short of attributing technical uncleanness to it; it is simply
described as something 'unseemly', 'offensive' in the sight of Yahweh
('erwat ddbar, v. 15). In any case, the fact remains that the seemingly
systematic and comprehensive priestly treatment of ritual pollution in
the Pentateuch does not mention excrement as a possible source of
uncleanness. And none of the three types of unclean meat that Ezekiel
protests that he has never allowed to pass his lips are strictly relevant
to the present case; all three are flesh, and Ezekiel's emergency rations
are strictly vegetarian. Yet the passion of his protest, and the
1. Used in Lev. 7.18 and 19.7 of sacrificial flesh which has been left until the
third day.
2. In the Priestly Code (Lev. 11.40 and 17.15) carrion is not forbidden to lay
people, provided they purify themselves of the pollution.
conviction that the technical terms of unclean flesh are relevant by

association or analogy, as well as the Deuteronomic passage, make it
clear that there was a strong conviction of the unclean nature of
human excrement that for some reason simply failed to become part
of the technical priestly system. Here is a taboo that does not appear to
arise out of or to be systematized within the sophisticated ritual and
theological system of the priestly code. Is there not a strong possibility
that the animal taboos that we find systematized in Leviticus 11 and
Deuteronomy 14 existed prior to that systematization in a similar way?
But Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14 are not the product of a pri-
mitive society, but of a literate and learned elite. This distinction
remains a useful one, though it must be used with care (cf. Eilberg-
Schwartz 1990: Iff.); it does not imply superiority in modes of
thought, morals or motives, but rather in the techniques available and
the complexity of the intellectual operations that can be performed.
Jack Goody in The Domestication of the Savage Mind (Goody 1977)
has studied the effect of writing on culture.
Making explicit the hierarchies of classification implicit in linguistic usage
and in man's perception of the world, and developing these systems into
more elaborate, and sometimes more precise and 'accurate' classifications,
is certainly an important activity in early literate societies, and one that
leads both to the type of scholastic preoccupation with the classification of
food, prohibited and allowed, exemplified in Leviticus 11, as well as [sic]
to the classification that laid the basis for the development of zoology and
botany (p. 103).
C.R. Hallpike's magisterial examination of The Foundations of

Primitive Thought (Hallpike 1979) deals in detail (pp. 169-236) with
classification in primitive societies. To put it very briefly, this is
typically based on associative categories ('complexes'), linked with
concrete imagery, or else on an analogical procedure based on proto-
types, rather than on criteria that define the logical intension of the
class as in the Aristotelian classification typical of 'modem' thought.1
This may help us to distinguish the learned, literate element in the
1. Hallpike has a tendency to contrast 'primitive' thought over-rigidly with the

cognitive categories of 'modern' societies, without paying attention to the continuous
spectrum which extends between them, but in the present instance he makes it clear
that everyday classification in all societies, whether 'primitive' or 'modern', is not
the same as 'Aristotelian' classification, and that this in turn is not the model used by
the biologist.
classifications of Leviticus 11 from its customary inheritance, though
it cannot of itself show us whether the distinctions between clean and
unclean are the creation of the authors or of more ancient origin.
Edwin Firmage, in his recent very significant article on the subject
of the dietary laws (Firmage 1990), has made the point that, regardless
of any possible basis for the distinctions in ancient or popular atti-
tudes, any explanation must begin from the criteria that we find in the
text.
We must discover whether in fact the present criteria can be explained as
indicating a coherent purpose behind the definitions of animal purity. Only
having done that is it admissible to speculate about the prehistory of the
present law. The text before us must be the starting point for any discus-
sion of the issue (p. 177).
It is not permissible to begin, as scholarship did before Mary Douglas's
work (in particular Douglas 1966: 4Iff.), by assuming that the criteria
in Leviticus 11 are merely a secondary systematization of a distinction
that was already opaque to the priests who drew them up. Even if the
priests took over old customs, they could have reinterpreted them and
given them new meaning. If we can see sense in their criteria, that is
the sense that they have, and the system must be explained, as both
Douglas and Firmage attempt to do, on the basis of the values and
beliefs of the priestly writers themselves.
Whatever version of the prehistory of the dietary law we accept, there
remain a number of important questions whose answers must largely
come from the present text, the organizing principles of which are pre-
cisely those neglected criteria, for which modern scholarship has had no
use (Firmage 1990: 178).
With this there can be no quarrel, and one aim of the present work is
to answer those questions, and from that source. Certainly, if there
were food avoidances in the society in which the present law was
developed, they may have been entirely different from those in the
present law, or if they were similar they may have been entirely re-
interpreted. Is Firmage right, however, in implying that they would in
any case be essentially irrelevant to the interpretation of the rules as
they now exist? I believe not. Theological and legal systems such as
that of the Priestly Code do not emerge out of a void; they must be
seen in the context of the social realities of their time; and these
realities cannot necessarily be read off from the system itself. In
particular, if the system uses animals symbolically, it would seem
advisable to inquire what symbolic and material associations animals
had in the contemporary world, lest we miss significant connections.
3. Kinds of Explanation
In part it is a question of what is to count as explanation. Marvin
Harris has promoted the distinction between 'etic' and 'emic' accounts,
meaning accounts of the features in question as viewed respectively
from the point of view of the observers and of the subjects.1
The test of the adequacy of emic analyses is their ability to generate state-
ments the native accepts as real, meaningful or appropriate... The test of
the adequacy of etic accounts is simply their ability to generate scienti-
fically productive theories about the causes of sociocultural differences
and similarities (Harris 1979: 32).
This rather crude typology highlights an obvious divergence between
those social theories that do and those that do not give a significant
place to the intentions and perceptions of the subjects. Thus, among
'etic' accounts, which may adopt any kind of aetiology that the
observer regards as relevant, we might include the hygienic theory
which was popular at one time as an explanation of the dietary laws
(see Chapter 3, §l.a); neither those who drew the laws up nor those
who observe them had any such thought in their minds (unless some
very devious priestcraft is presupposed). While this theory has lost its
appeal in educated circles, functional explanations that purport to
show how particular social arrangements serve to support the struc-
ture and power-relationships of the society, whether or not that is how
they are viewed by the people themselves, have been very significant
in social anthropology since the time of Durkheim. But the main 'etic'
approaches with which we shall have to reckon in relation to the
dietary laws are that of cultural materialism, as seen in Harris's work
(Harris 1979 etc.; cf. Chapter 3, §2.c), which regards the material
requirements of a people for food and other necessities as prior to,
and determinative of, their culture; and historical approaches, which
1. These barbarous expressions are derived from the use of 'phonetic' and
'phonemic' in linguistics, pertaining respectively to the study of the sounds of a
language, their production and articulation, without reference to the meaning of the
utterances in which they are employed, and the way in which sounds are recognized
by the speakers of the language as different and as capable of being opposed to one
another to create meaning.
see a society as invariably being to some extent the prisoner of its

past, so that cultural features that at one time were functional or
meaningful, or both, may now be mere survivals, or else may have
been given new meaning in new circumstances. This was the charac-
teristic approach of the nineteenth century, which so far as Semitic
religion is concerned was classically expressed by William Robertson
Smith (W.R. Smith 1894).
In contrast, anthropologists who aim at accounts of ritual phenom-
ena that Harris would describe as 'emic' characteristically see them-
selves as interpreters. They are faced with what seems to them to be a
system of communication, different from language, yet presumably
equally meaningful; the task of the anthropologist as interpreter is to
make the meaning that the native takes for granted plain to the
stranger. So Clifford Geertz, who entitles his collected essays (Geertz
1973) The Interpretation of Cultures. But there are many ways of
going about such a task, as Geertz makes plain. Victor Turner empha-
sizes the conscious meaning attributed to the symbols by their users,
particularly the specialists. The aim in writing about (for example)
Ndembu ritual is 'to explore the semantics of ritual symbols...The
first step in such a task is to pay close attention to the way the Ndembu
explain their own symbols' (Turner 1969: 10). Others use other
information about the structures of thought in the society, such as myth
and cosmology, to deduce the meaning of the ritual. Structuralists like
Leach (Leach 1976) place the accent on the formal structures that they
believe the symbols create by their mutual relationships. This is
plainly true of Douglas (see below, Chapter 3, §2.d). (It has to be said
that many such structuralist accounts cannot been seen as 'emic' in the
proper sense: it is unlikely that ancient Israelites would recognize the
acounts given by Leach and Aycock [Leach 1983] as representing their
own belief or experience.) Others see it as more important to
investigate the meanings of the symbols individually, which are seen
as 'motivated', to use the technical language: there is a reason for their
meaning what they do, unlike linguistic signs, which are quite arbit-
rary so far as the existing linguistic system is concerned (this is really
only true of basic, underived terms like 'dog', not words like
'doghouse'). This is strongly argued by Hallpike in the book already
referred to, who points out, among much else, that many symbols are
cross-cultural—unkempt hair is a common symbol for wild nature or
being outside or on the margins of society (Hallpike 1979: 151-52).
Although the 'etic/emic' distinction thus points to a significant

empirical divergence between theories, which is useful for this study,
the way in which Harris defines it is far from neutral: for it implies
no less than that only 'etic' theories are scientifically valid and have
explanatory power, while 'emic' accounts are merely descriptive.
Similarly exclusive claims are made on the other side by those who
believe that ritual and symbolic systems do not need to be explained
but only 'understood'. But, as W.G. Runciman argues (Runciman
1983: 183-84), there are no special rules which apply when meaning
is brought into a scientific argument; there is no essential difference
between a causal explanation and a 'hermeneutic' or 'structuralist'
one; meanings and perceptions may figure as scientific explanations as
well as more impersonal processes.1 With dietary customs, it would be
surprising if material factors such as ecology had nothing to do with
them; our use of the material world must be constrained by its possi-
bilities, and tends to be constrained by our methods of production, our
class relationships and so forth. But 'the decisive quality of culture' is
'not that this culture must conform to material constraints but that it
does so according to a definite symbolic scheme which is never the
only one possible' (Sahlins 1976: viii). Thus the meaning that the rules
have, consciously or unconsciously, for those who drew them up and
those who observe them must be relevant.
But it seems equally one-sided to insist that the only significant
understanding that can be achieved of a symbolic system is in terms of
its conscious meaning to its practitioners, which Firmage appears to
come close to asserting. In the present case it seems particularly
difficult to arrive at the understanding that we are seeking by this
route. The focus of our study is the rules of the Torah, but the Torah
itself is remarkably sparing in explanation of its rules of ritual; we
shall find ourselves therefore using the accounts given by Jews of the
rules that they observe. The difficulty is that these tend to be no less
diverse than those given by outsiders, and the privileged status that
they ought to have in explanation of the rules therefore seems largely
1. Since Runciman clearly says this, it is strange that Mayes (1989: 124) criti-
cizes him on the grounds that 'the beliefs of individuals are effectively excluded as
causative factors in the development of the level of explanation'. Mayes seems to
have misunderstood Runciman's insistence on the distinctness of the task of descrip-
tion from that of explanation (see below) as excluding subjective factors from
explanation.
valueless. Is it really true that the rules are opaque even to those who
observe them? The truth is rather that in their normal function the
rules are by no means opaque, but rather quite explicit; we have
already looked at Lev. 20.24-6, though we have not yet exhausted its
meaning. But as we have seen, the clarity of function does not prevent
the detail of the rules from appearing arbitrary.
But this is remarkably similar to the case of language. No one could
begin to explain even the function of language in general, let alone the
purpose of any particular utterance, without reference to meaning.
But there is, as I have noted, an element in language that is arbitrary
from the point of view of meaning—and yet not totally inexplicable.
There is no other way of explaining why a dog is called 'dog' (or its
equivalent in any other language) than by reference to the history of
the language. The same may well be true of ritual systems. The ques-
tion that we, like countless others, have been asking in this chapter is
comparable to that kind of question about language. There is no real
problem about the significance and function of the rules; they are spelt
out very clearly in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. The question is why
they mean what they do, and in particular what is the origin of the
significance of the individual units of meaning, the 'words' of the
symbolic language; for example, why does 'pig' mean 'unclean'? It
seems likely that such questions can only be answered by giving atten-
tion to origins as distinct from function. Our study must therefore
have a diachronic (and therefore 'etic') aspect; it will investigate the
dietary and related ritual customs likely to have been observed by the
Israelites and their neighbours during the time in which the priestly
torah on the subject was in process of formation. Whether its rules
were formed in opposition to current customs, as many believe, or
rather following them, or indeed both in different ways, is one of the
questions that need to be resolved. Both 'etic' and 'emic' aspects then
take their own appropriate place in a full account.
Runciman (1983: 15ff.) divides the work of the social scientist into
four distinct tasks, four levels of understanding to be achieved. The
first is the statement of the facts ('reportage'), which is not proper
reportage unless it defines the facts as the agents understood them, but
should avoid the implication of any explanatory theory,1 and the
1. Mayes (1989: 123) may here well be right in objecting that there can be no
theory-free reportage, since reportage depends on the selection of facts, and the
selection will be guided in advance by theoretical considerations such as the values of
second is explanation, which should depend on a testable theory sub-
ject to the normal requirements of scientific validity. The third type of
understanding he calls 'description', using this word in a specialized
sense designating an account of things as they are perceived and expe-
rienced by the people themselves. It is the answer to the question, 'What
did they think they were really doing (or suffering)?', in our case,
'What did they think it meant?' And there is a fourth task: that of
evaluation, or saying whether whatever it was was a good or bad thing;
on the one hand this may be alleged not to be part of scholarship, but
on the other it is constantly indulged in by scholars who are ostensibly
describing, explaining or even reporting. Runciman's concern is that
the four tasks should be kept distinct, but he is of course also aware
that in practice they are constantly running into one another. At least
writers should make it possible for their readers to distinguish them. I
shall therefore try to sketch the structure of this work in terms of his
typology, in the hope that it may be of some help to the reader in
assessing the value of the work.
The next chapter, Chapter 2, is intended as reportage: I attempt as
precise as possible a statement of the rules through a detailed study of
the source texts. The next three chapters are devoted to the problem
of explanation. Chapter 3 looks at and evaluates some of the more
important explanations that have been offered over the centuries, and
particularly, in awareness of the ethnographic parallels, in the present
century. This will lead to the formation of a hypothesis that will be
tested in the following two chapters through an investigation of the
evidence for the use of animals for food and sacrifice in the Syria-
Palestine area in the last two millennia BC (with some use of literary
evidence from later times), and of some of their symbolic associa-
tions. In Chapter 6 we return to the texts and engage in the descriptive
task of trying to sketch an understanding of their significance in this
broader context. The final chapter has an inevitable evaluative aspect.
It is an attempt to understand the rejection of the purity law about diet
in Christianity, my own faith, closely related as it is to the Old
Testament and Judaism.
the reporter and an explanatory framework. But it is at least possible to separate these
levels in thought, and that is all that matters here.
Chapter 2
THE LAW OF UNCLEAN FLESH
The acknowledged source of the distinction between clean and unclean

species in Judaism is to be found in the partially parallel texts Leviticus
11 and Deut. 14.3-20, whatever background there may possibly be in
their environing culture. The object of this chapter is therefore
essentially to set out as clearly as possible what these texts say, with
due regard to context and to form-critical considerations—that is to
say, to social context. As a major instrument to this end I offer my
own translations of the texts set out in lines in order to exhibit the
structure clearly. Some existing translations of Leviticus 11 are mis-
leading in that they have either misunderstood the structure at one or
two points or failed to show it clearly. I shall also briefly offer some
considerations that may help us to understand the relation between the
two texts, and their origin and growth. I shall leave to a later stage
any attempt to assign dates to the material and its development.
1. Leviticus 11
a. Form and Setting
The genre and outline structure of this text are relatively easy to
define. It is a priestly torah, or to be more precise a group of toroth,
formulated in the second person plural because its object is to give
guidance to the people on important ritual matters.1 The greater part
of it falls naturally into two sections. Verses 2b-23, headed 'These are
1. Elliger (1966: 145-46; cf. also Noth 1962: 76) detects passages (vv. 24b-
26a, 27-28, 31b-38) written in a different, 'objektiv-neutraler Stil', i.e. in the third
person; according to Noth these would be originally for the priests' own guidance.
But this can hardly in itself be a sign of diverse origin; it is simply the kind of
stylistic adjustment one might expect within a single document when it turns from
general prescriptions to particular cases.
2. The Law of Unclean Flesh 27
the animals you may eat', comprise a section that defines species of
animals permitted and prohibited for the table. It is this section alone
that has a parallel in Deuteronomy 14.
Verses 24-38 are entirely concerned with a subject that is twice
touched on incidentally in the previous section: the ritual pollution
caused by contact with the dead bodies of unclean animals. Though
this is of less direct relevance to our subject, the classifications of
animals employed here are of interest in relation to those in the first
section,1 and moreover the precise relationship between prohibition
for food and ritual uncleanness is an important aspect of the subject.
We cannot therefore neglect this second section, though the technical
details in vv. 31-38 have no significance for our subject and I have
not included them in my translation. The following two verses, 39 and
40, deal briefly with pollution caused by contact with or eating of
animals that may be eaten but have not been correctly slaughtered,
that have died of themselves. This may be regarded as an appendix to
the second section.
Verses 41-45 return to the subject of diet, and plug an obvious gap
in the first section, as I shall show. They cannot be regarded simply as
the continuation of the first section (as Milgrom does [1991: 692]), for
there is no obvious reason why vv. 24-40 should then have been
inserted where they are; besides, there is no trace of this section in
Deuteronomy 14 (cf. Elliger 1966: 147).2 Rather, it serves as a con-
clusion to the whole chapter, moving from instruction (vv. 41-42) to
exhortation (vv. 43-45). This is the one place in the chapter where the
style shifts from instruction to sermon style: in v. 43 alone the
1. Mary Douglas badly misinterprets them. See below, § 1 .c.6.

2. Similarly David Wright in a private communication quoted by Milgrom
(1991: 698). Milgrom replies to the first point, that vv. 24-38 were placed before
vv. 41-42 before the further addition of vv. 39-40 in order to form the section on the
teeming things of the ground into one continuous block. But this leaves the placing
of vv. 39-40 unexplained in its turn. To the second point, he argues that Deut.
14.2la, 'you shall not eat any carrion', covers the prohibition of creeping things.
This involves the absurdity that Deuteronomy recommends Israelites to give aliens
dead mice, and worse, to eat. It is far simpler to suppose that the three sections have
been added successively, and that the Deuteronomic law parallels vv. 2-23 only.
Milgrom asks how one could justify a list of diet rules (w. 2-23) that omits one
major class of animals: 'as an independent list, it would have led to the conclusion
that all land swarmers are permitted'. My answer (§l.c.5, end) is that they were at
first simply assumed to be inedible.
personal vetitive 'al with the jussive is used rather than the formal
prohibitive Id with the imperfect, and in vv. 44-45 alone the divine
first person is used and motivation is offered for observing the
instructions. Michael Fishbane (1985: 259 and n. 61) notes that in this
and many other cases 'where the teaching begins with a divine introit,
originally anonymous materials have been reauthorized and personal-
ized'. The whole chapter is introduced by two sentences defining
everything that follows as the word of Yahweh given through Moses
and Aaron, and concludes with what Fishbane calls a 'subscript', sum-
marizing the instructions that have been given.
The chapter is the first of a series (11-15) giving instruction on
various types of ritual pollution and how to get rid of it, but in one
way it is untypical of the series. The first and concluding sections,
rather than taking cases of involuntary or unavoidable pollution and
giving instruction on dealing with it, simply permit or prohibit differ-
ent types of animal for food. Nothing is said about ritual pollution that
may be incurred by eating prohibited species, nor about any remedies
for this or any sanctions for transgression, though there is no question
that in the case of inadvertent transgression the remedy would be a
purification offering (Lev. 5.2, 6).
The authorship of the chapter can be assumed to be priestly, both
because of the general assertion in Lev. 10.10-11 of the responsibility
of the priests for distinguishing between clean and unclean and giving
instruction on Yahweh's commandments, and because of the specific
reference to Aaron in the heading of the chapter. We shall have to
consider, obviously in relation to the point in the last paragraph, why
diet should be a specifically priestly concern. One may assume that the
chapter is the written form of a tradition governing oral deliverances
on the subject over a long period; as we go on we shall discuss the
growth of the instruction in a more detailed way.
b. Translation and Structure

I have not aimed at elegance of English style in these translations, but
at exhibiting clearly the structure of the passage, both in the large and
in small details. The rhetoric of the priestly writers has usually been
overlooked, but is unmistakable if simple. Notice, for example, in the
first paragraph here, the effect achieved by the inversions in every
verse and by the elegant variation in vv. 4, 5 and 6, where the parti-
ciple, the imperfect tense and the perfect tense of the verb are used
successively to convey exactly the same idea. I have tried to convey
something of the flavour of these variations, obviously without being
able to match them grammatically.
Translation choices that I comment on below are marked with an
asterisk. I have left untranslated most of the names of birds in vv. 13-
19, all the names of locusts in v. 22, and most of the names of teeming
things in vv. 29-30. To have given translations would have given a
totally spurious impression of certitude as to the identification of these
creatures; the majority of the names only appear here, or at most also
in the Deuteronomic parallel, and with most of them it is sheer guess-
work what they mean. I do comment on some of the more notable
suggestions below. Obviously it is of some importance to try to iden-
tify the general type of creature implied in each case, if possible.
[Introduction]
1 And Yahweh spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying to them:
2 Speak to the sons of Israel, saying:
I. These are the living creatures* you may eat:

A. Of all the beasts* that live on land:*
3 X. Every one that:
(a) is hoofed*
(a') and makes a cleft in the hooves;
(b) chews the cud,
among the beasts, you may eat it.
4 Y. However, these you may not eat
(a) among those that chew the cud
(b) and among those that are hoofed:
[a] (i) the camel,
because it chews the cud
but hoofed it is not:
it is unclean to you;
5 [a] (ii) and the hyrax,1
but hooves it has not:
6 [a] (iii) and the hare,
but hooves it does not have:
1. Or 'rock-badger' or 'daman' (Hyrax capensis).

1 [b] and the pig, because it has hooves and
makes a cleft in the hoof
but the cud it does not chew;
it is unclean to you.
8 Of their flesh you may not eat
and their dead bodies you may not touch:
they are unclean to you.
9 B. These you may eat of all that is in the water:
X. everything that has fins and scales
in the water—in the seas or or in the streams—
you may eat;
10 Y. but everything that does not have fins or scales in the seas or in the
streams
among all that teems in the water, and among all the living creatures in the water
an abhorrence* are they to you [11] and an abhorrence they shall be to you;
of their flesh you may not eat
and their dead bodies you shall abhor.
12 Everything that does not have fins or scales in the water is an
abhorrence to you.
13 C. And these you shall abhor among winged creatures; they shall not be
eaten; they are an abhorrence to you:
Y. the neSer, theperes, the 'ozniyyd, [14] the da'a, the 'ayyd with its
kinds, [15] every kind of crow, [16] the daughter of ya'and, the
tahtnas, the Sahap, the hawk with its kinds, [17] the kos, the Salak, the
yanSup, [18] the tinSemet, the qd'at, the rdham, [19] the stork, the
>a
ndpd with its kinds, the hoopoe and the bat.
20 Y. Every teeming winged creature that goes on all fours is an
abhorrence to you;
21 X. However, these you may eat of all teeming winged creatures that
go on all fours, that have1* a pair of legs over their feet to hop with
on the ground, [22] these you may eat among them:
the 'arbe with its kinds,
the sol'am with its kinds,
the hargol with its kinds
the hagab with its kinds.
23 Y. But every other teeming winged creature that has four feet is an
abhorrence to you.
1. It does not seem to be grammatically possible to read the Ketib vb in this

verse, which must be taken to be a simple mistake for the Qere t>.
24
II. By these creatures you will be made unclean;
everyone who touches their dead bodies will be unclean until the evening,
25 and everyone who picks up the dead body of any of them must wash his
clothes, and will be unclean until the evening.
26 (a) All beasts that are hoofed
but do not have cloven hooves
or do not chew the cud
are unclean to you; everyone who touches them will become unclean.
27 (b) Every one that goes on its paws* among creatures
that go on all fours
is unclean to you:
everyone who touches their dead bodies will be unclean until the
evening
28 and everyone who picks up their dead bodies must wash his clothes
and will be unclean until the evening;
they are unclean to you.
29 (c) And these are the unclean ones among all the
teeming creatures that teem on the ground:
the holed, and the mouse, and the sab with
its kinds, [30] and the ''anaqa and the koah,
and
the letd'd, and the hornet, and the tinSemet.
[31-38 omitted]
39
Ha. When any of the beasts dies that are permitted to you for food:
A. anyone who touches its dead body will be unclean until the evening;
40 B. whoever eats from its dead body must wash his clothes and will be
unclean until the evening;
C. anyone who picks up its dead body must wash his clothes and will
be unclean until the evening.
41
III. All teeming things that teem on the ground are an abhorrence; they may not be
eaten:
42 from everything that goes on its belly
and everything that goes on all fours
to everything that has many legs:
every teeming creature that teems on the ground; you may not eat them, for
they are an abhorrence.
43 Do not make yourselves abhorrent with any teeming thing that teems;
do not make yourselves unclean with them or become unclean with
them.
44 For I am Yahweh your God,
and you shall sanctify yourselves and be holy,
as I am holy,
and not make yourselves unclean with any teeming thing that crawls
on the ground.
45 For I am Yahweh who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God;
and you shall be holy,
as I am holy.
[Subscript]
46 This is the law covering beasts, winged creatures, all living creatures that
move, in the water, and all life that teems on the ground,
47 distinguishing between unclean and clean,
between animals that may be eaten and those that may
not be eaten.
c. Comment
Naturally I will not comment on everything of interest in the chapter,
but only on those points that are of relevance for our discussion in this
study. For information on every aspect of this chapter, the interested
reader should now consult Milgrom's magisterial and expansive com-
mentary (1991: 643-742). As will be seen, there are many points on
which I find myself in disagreement with Milgrom, some of them
fundamental. But I have learnt a great deal from him, and I regret
that his work appeared too late to influence the basic composition of
my own.
1. Verses l-2a. Verses 1, 2a integrate the chapter into the narrative

structure of Leviticus. It is the first torah given by Yahweh after the
ordination of Aaron as High Priest, and Aaron is associated with
Moses in the address for the first time in Leviticus (cf. Exod. 7.8; 9.8;
12.1, 43). This presumably implies that the subject is a proper one for
priestly instruction—it has ritual implications.1 This is obvious for the
second half of the chapter, where the instructions concern uncleanness
1. Nevertheless, as Roger Tomes has pointed out to me, there are many places
introducing ritual instructions which do not mention Aaron, and the possibility that
this reflects different strata in P should be borne in mind.
that disqualifies persons or things from participation in the cult (cf.

15.31). It is perhaps less obvious for the first half, which is concerned
with permitted and prohibited food. However, Israel was by no means
unique in the ancient world in associating restrictions on diet
specifically with the cult of their God (cf. Chapter 5, §3).
2. Verse 2b. Despite the punctuation of the MT and English versions

other than the REB, I have taken the first clause, 'these are the living
creatures you shall eat', as the heading of the first half of the chapter
rather than linking it closely with 'of all the beasts'. Otherwise the
section on diet as a whole is without a heading; and if the half-verse is
taken together as the heading of the first sub-section, it is structured
differently from the headings in vv. 9, 13 and 21. That is true ajso of
the way I have taken it ('these you shall eat' is lacking from the sub-
heading), but in that case the difference can be explained by the close
proximity of the main heading. The expression hahayyd, 'the living
creatures', is then the general term covering the groups that are men-
tioned successively in the subsections that follow. Although the sub-
script, vv. 46-47, apparently takes both main sections of the chapter
into account, it does not have any precise correspondence here at the
beginning; the second half is headed separately (v. 24). This suggests
that the chapter is not through-composed, but consists of two or more
separate pieces joined editorially (so Elliger 1966: 148).1
The subsections (A, B and C in my translation) divide the animals
between the three spheres of life: land, water and air. But the term
used for the land animals raises a difficulty. One would expect it to
refer to all land animals, but it would appear that it does not. (The
detailed study of the lists of animal groups in Genesis 1, 6-9 by
W.M. Clark [1968] is helpful here; cf. also Carroll 1978: 120). The
word behemd 'beasts' elsewhere in P never refers to all land animals.
Gen. 1.24; 6.7, 20; 7.14, 21, 232 and Lev. 5.2 all distinguish between
behemd and rentes 'creeping things '/seres 'teeming things' as I have
translated it (alternatively 'swarming things'). In addition, Gen. 1.24-
25, 7.14, 21 and Lev. 5.2 distinguish between behemd and hayya,
presumably domestic and wild beasts. But it is clear that this latter
1. However, I cannot agree with Elliger that vv. 41-44a are an original part of
the second half. They return to the subject of diet and must have the chapter as a
whole in view.
2. This verse, however, is probably J.
distinction is not operative here, where hayya is not parallel to

fchemd, but is a more inclusive term, as in Gen. 8.17, 19.1 Could it be
that the distinction between behemd and seres/remes is also not opera-
tive (as Firmage appears to assume)? This is more than doubtful. The
distinction is implied in this chapter in vv. 26, 29. There is no passage
where behemd plainly refers to all land creatures; the nearest possibil-
ity, pointed out to me by Graham Davies, is with the general contrast
between 'dddm and behemd in such passages as Exod. 8.13-14; 9.9, 22,
25; 12.12; Ps. 49.13. But it is doubtful whether much can be deduced
from this stereotyped wordpair. Besides, vv. 41-42 suggests that its
author was conscious that the 'teeming things' of the ground had been
omitted from the dietary instructions in vv. 2b-23; and v. 46 explicitly
distinguishes them. It is true that I am going to argue that the chapter
is not an original unity, so that arguments drawn from sections II and
HI and the subscript are somewhat less compelling, as Dr Davies again
suggests. However, not only is there no positive evidence that behemd
ever refers to all land animals, but the simplest explanation of section
III is that it makes good a perceived deficiency in section I, which
would most naturally arise from the awkwardness of reading behemd
as referring to creeping things as well as the larger animals.
Thus the classification of animals implied by the chapter as a whole
is not threefold but fourfold, as set out (with a change of order) in the
subscript (and cf. Clark 1968: 442): there are (1) behemd 'beasts';
(2) 'dp 'winged creatures'; (3) 'all life that moves in the water' (v. 46:
no technical expression); (4) seres hassores 'al-hd'dres ( v . 41)
'teeming things that teem on the earth'—generally spoken of with the
qualification 'that teem on the ground/earth' to distinguish them from
the seres of the water (v. 10) and among winged creatures (vv. 21-
23), which are themselves apparently only subsets within the creatures
of the water and air respectively.2 It would appear that one of these
groups, the teeming things of the land, has simply been passed over in
the first part of the chapter. This classification is implied in the texts
referred to above (Clark 1968), and also appears in Ezek. 38.20 and
in Deut. 4.17-18, even though this occurs in an exposition of the Second
Commandment (Deut. 5.8), which has only the threefold division.
1. This rules out the suggestion of Michael P. Carroll (1978: 118) that a fivefold
classification is implicit: 'fish, birds, cattle, beasts of the earth and creeping things'.
2. The first is probably not even that, but an alternative expression for all the
living creatures of the water, I discuss this below in Chapter 3.
Thus with Carroll, rather than speaking of the 'three elements' that
determine (for example) Douglas's presentation (1966: 54; see Chapter
3, §2.d.2), I should prefer to think of the four groups of animals as
occupying the four levels of a stratified universe set out in Deut. 4.17-
18: the winged creatures 'that fly in the sky'; the 'beasts on the earth';
the creeping things 'that creep on (or in?) the ground' (bd'adama)\ and
the creatures 'in the waters under the earth'. This kind of scheme is
found also among other peoples. It is the regular classification adopted
in learned texts from Egypt (Hornung 1967: 69-70), whence the
Israelite priests could well have learnt it. Kesby (1979: 40-41)
describes a classification in three levels (excluding the waters) among
the Rangi of Tanzania: 'those of the sky; those of the here, where
people are; those more lowly than people'. He argues that this
distinction 'occurs in all the major cultural regions of the world,
although not necessarily in all known societies'. The Rangi word
makoki corresponds to seres/remes; makoki are always small com-
pared with people, and are always low on the ground.
What then is the precise distinction among land animals between
behema and seres! The term seres certainly includes all reptiles and
invertebrates (cf. vv. 30, 42), and in view of the mouse in v. 29 it
seems likely to include among mammals rodents and small insecti-
vores, as well as creatures like the weasel, if that is what is meant by
holed in v. 29. In fact it means all animals that have short legs, if any,
and move close to the ground. This is more or less how Rashi defines
the word (on v. 41): 'a thing which is low and has short feet and
seems only to progress by a creeping movement'. behema will then
include all the larger mammals, from the size of a hyrax (v. 5)
(roughly the size of a rabbit) upwards: those defined or named in
Lev. 11.3-8 and Deut. 14.4-8 together with the ass and the horse and
most carnivores. (Hunn [1979: 106-107; after Harrison 1972] gives a
table of all the native mammals of Palestine.1)
3. Verses 3-8. It is already apparent that we are dealing here with the
work of a literate, learned elite capable of more than merely associa-
tive classification; and this becomes very clear as we read the opening
1. He does not include the hippopotamus, remains of which have been dis-
covered at Tell Qasile on the Philistine coast (Davis 1985; Horwitz and Tchernov
1990), nor the kobus antelope, nor the bubale hartebeest, said by Hope (1991) to be
present in the archaeological record.
sentences, which define those of the behema that may be eaten by

means of a definition per genus et differentiam. There are three clauses
in the differentiation, the second logically subordinate to the first and
the third intersecting with them. They must have hooves;1 the hooves
must be cloven; and they must chew the cud. Now these characteristics,
as Eugene Hunn has shown (1979: 106), define a zoologically recogni-
zable taxon: the sub-order Ruminantia of the order Artiodactyla ('with
an even number of toes'; it will be noted that the modern zoologists
have used precisely the same criteria to identify the group as the
biblical text does). The fit is not perfect, as we shall shortly see in dis-
cussing the camel, which in fact (despite v. 4) does have cloven hooves:
but the specific exclusion of the camel means that it is in fact precisely
the members of this sub-order that are defined as the permitted beasts.
Its coherence as a group is demonstrated by the fact that its members
share other characteristics as well, as the Talmudists noted (b. Hul.
59a, /. Hul. 3[4].20-21): they lack incisors and canines in the upper
1. For none nonso almost all versions and commentators give 'that cleaves the
hoof or words to that effect. But this cannot be right. It makes v. 3 tautologous,
and, worse, it makes v. 26 nonsense. The LXX evades the latter consequence by the
simple expedient of omitting the negative, and Rashi makes a creditable attempt to
distinguish between the meanings of this phrase and the following one: the first means
simply 'split' (Targ. Hp-no), and ncns yoti nyotf means 'split from top to bottom'
(rtOQ1?! n^jjnbo nV-QQCi): in other words, the latter provision excludes the camel,
which does actually have cloven hooves, but the hooves rest on a thick elastic sole,
so that the division does not extend all the way down. This interpretation must come
to grief on v. 4, which excludes the camel on the ground of the former provision and
not the latter (the statement in v. 4 is incorrect whichever interpretation of onsa WK
TOTS is adopted); Rashi's interpretation of npoc? may nevertheless be correct (Levine
1989: 66). The correct approach is taken by Ibn Ezra and clearly explained by S.R.
Hirsch (1958: 268). The clue is in Ps. 69.32, which is the only place outside our two
chapters where ens hiph. appears in the Bible: cr-iooi jnpn ~IB can only mean 'a bull
with horns and hooves'. The verb is a denominative hiphil meaning 'having hooves';
whether the internal object is used, as in our passages, or not, as in the Psalm, makes
no difference to the meaning. There is no connection with the verb ens in the qal,
used mostly of breaking bread to distribute it (contra BDB). As Milgrom (1991: 646)
has seen, this interpretation makes far better sense of all the places where this and
similar phrases are used. It appears to be adopted by the new translation of the JPSA:
'that has true hoofs' ('true' presumably in an attempt to justify the exclusion of the
camel), and by Levine in commenting on it; the REB is regrettably inconsistent,
adopting the correct translation in v. 3 : 'any hoofed animal', and in v. 26 'which has
hoofs', but in vv. 4-6 going back to 'have cloven hoofs'.
jaw, and possess horns or antlers. This group includes all the domestic
animals comonly used by the Israelites as food or offered in sacrifice
(cf. Chapter 4): cattle, sheep and goats; it must also include all the wild
animals listed in Deut. 14.5, though many of these are unidentifiable.
According to Hunn all members of the sub-order found in the Middle
East are listed there, but that must depend on correct identification
(see comment on that verse below).
No explicit statement is made that animals possessing none of the
required characteristics, or having only undivided hooves (the ass and
the horse), are not to be eaten, but obviously it is implied (the Rabbis
deduce it a minori ad maius: if the animals in vv. 4-8, which all pos-
sess at least one of the characteristics, are unclean, how much more
those that possess none); and precisely these are defined as conveying
corpse-uncleanness in vv. 26-27.
What we find in place of this is a passage (vv. 4-8) that deals with
borderline cases that might be considered doubtful because they either
chew the cud or have cloven hooves.1 The purpose of the passage is
plainly to clarify possible ambiguity in the initial formulation, and we
may refer here to Fishbane's category of 'qualifying exegesis' (1985:
252-53), which stops possible loopholes in a rule of law. This does not
necessarily mean that the passage is a later expansion; we shall have to
consider later whether that is the right conclusion to draw. The ambi-
guity arises first from the way in which the rule is formulated: it
would be easy to read the two qualifications for edibility as alterna-
tives rather than as cumulative: cloven-hoofed or ruminant; this pass-
age makes it clear that both characteristics must be present. But
probably this ambiguity would not be regarded as dangerous and
calling for clarification unless there were pragmatic reasons also: that
these animals were actually eaten by some people (cf. Chapter 4).
The clarifying passage deals with four animals said to possess one
but not both of the qualifying features. But the statements made about
the first three appear to be inaccurate. The camel does have hooves,
1. It might be considered a point against my interpretation of nons no~isa in the

preceding note that v. 4 names the second group of doubtful animals as ' t m s a
nonsn; if this just means 'hoofed', why are the ass and horse not listed among the
individual doubtful animals? However, the LXX here adds KOU ovuxiCovxoov
ovoxwmipaq, its equivalent for i>orc ru?otc . This is not necessarily the original text,
but it is at least evidence that an early student of the text felt the difficulty and so was
reading it in the way that I suggest.
indeed cloven hooves; but as I have already mentioned, there is a thick
sole under the hoof, so that the animal does not actually walk on its
hooves; and in addition the hooves are concealed in the thick hair of
the foot. To superficial observation, then, it might appear not to be a
hoofed animal. But was the observation implied as superficial as all
that? We recall that the given characteristics define a taxonomic sub-
order of mammals; now camels are placed by modem taxonomists in
a different sub-order, Tylopoda (Hunn 1979: 107), possessing certain
characteristics that distinguish them from Ruminantia; those noted by
the Talmudists are the lack of horns and the possession of upper
canines (in the adult; b. Hul. 59a). And the Arabian camel is the only
member of this sub-order known in Palestine or Mesopotamia. Thus
although observation may be inaccurate, or more likely the use of the
relevant words slightly different from what we might expect, the
camel is correctly seen as a singular creature, to use Hunn's expres-
sion (1979: 109), standing apart from the recognized food animals.
The truth appears to be that observation is really secondary; it
becomes clear that the rule is derived from the characteristics of the
recognized food animals, and must be slightly bent to exclude every
animal that needs to be excluded. If the intention of the rule were to
define a priori which the food animals were, there would have been
no objection to including the camel. But the camel (for whatever
reason) had to be excluded, just as much as the pig.1
When we come in vv. 5-6 to the hyrax and hare, we are again con-
fronted with what appear to be inaccurate statements, that they chew
the cud. It is usually supposed that the rotary movement of their jaws
as they chew led to the supposition that they were ruminants (e.g.
Dillmann 1880: 486; Porter 1976: 85).2 It is obvious that if the
1. This must throw doubt on Harris's assertion (1986: 79) that the criterion of
cloven hooves is added to that of ruminance solely in order to exclude the camel (cf.
below, Chapter 3, §2.c.2), especially since it is the first-named of the criteria. Milgrom
on the other hand (1991: 646) simply asserts that the text is correct in saying that the
Camel is hOOVCd. This allows him to maintain the purely a priori character of the
application of the rules (p. 727). This may be regarded as a matter of definition; but it
remains improbable that the camel, a well-known domestic beast, was excluded
solely because of the application of rules (cf. below, Chapter 5, §l.a).
2. An improbable alternative, as far as the hyrax is concerned, is because 'it has
protrusions in its stomach, which suggest that its stomach might have compartments,
as is characteristic of the ruminants' (Levine 1989: 66, following Feliks 1971). An
presentation had not been determined by this inaccurate observation

these two creatures could not have been listed here, being without
either of the required characteristics; the text is of course correct in
the statement that they are not hoofed animals. This provokes one to
ask whether there may not have been some ulterior motive for specifi-
cally mentioning them. Hunn notes that all four of the animals men-
tioned here are taxonomically singular, the hyrax and hare being the
only representatives of their respective orders in the region, and the
camel and pig of their sub-orders; they are, further, probably the only
herbivores in the Palestinian fauna apart from the familiar ass among
beasts here defined as unclean. Most unclean beasts were carnivores:
they would form a relatively coherent group, and so, as we have seen,
do the clean beasts. The few remaining beasts might have created
uncertainty by their singularity (cf. further in Chapter 5).
There are no inaccurate statements about the pig, which is indeed, in
Mary Douglas's phrase (1975c: 283-84), 'the only non-cud-chewing
hoof-cleaver in the whole of creation', or, more prosaically, in the
Middle East (Hunn 1979: 107; Douglas of course means in creation as
the Israelites knew it; see Chapter 3, §2.d.2). As Milgrom notes (1991:
726), the ancients were unaware of the faint cleft in the hippopotamus's
hooves.
Each of these creatures is described as 'unclean' (tame'), and the
precise meaning of this is spelt out in the two clauses of v. 8a. The
first of these is what we expect, since the object of the expansion,
vv. 4-8, is to exclude possible ambiguities with respect to the definition
in v. 3. But the second comes as a slight surprise at this point, since
the main subject of this section is not ritual uncleanness. Its formula-
tion comes as a greater surprise, and caused considerable difficulty to
the Rabbinic commentators. The difficulty, and the surprise, is this.
Nothing in the second half of the chapter is formulated as a prohibi-
tion of touching the dead bodies of the animals in question, and such a
ban would be wholly impractical; there are many occasions in the
ordinary course of life when it is necessary to touch and indeed to
carry the dead bodies of 'unclean' animals, for example to bury a dead
donkey, or to remove a dead mouse from the larder. Milgrom (1991:
654) appears not to realize this. It might be said that such occasions
are unlikely to occur in the case of hyraxes, hares or pigs, assuming
improbable explanation, because it could not be deduced from ordinary external

observation.
that faithful Israelites do not keep these; but the same can hardly be
said of camels. What is more, arguing a minori ad maius, the prohibi-
tion must apply to all the animals covered by vv. 26-27, which lays it
down that the dead bodies of all unclean beasts pollute, not only the
four mentioned here; that would include, for example, the ass, the
universal beast of burden. So what is meant by the ban on touching the
dead bodies of these animals?
The solution of Sifra and Rashi is that the prohibition applies only
to the time of the festivals, when it was necessary for the ordinary
Israelite to enter the sacred courts, and it would be a serious offence
to do so in a state of uncleanness (which he would do according to
vv. 26-27). The only other possibility, it seems to me, is that the ban
is intended as a kind of 'hedging of the law'; in order to remove even
the temptation of eating the flesh of these animals, or the possibility of
doing so accidentally, it is forbidden even to touch their bodies (so
Firmage 1990: 207). But this would seem to create unnecessary prac-
tical problems, as we have already seen. It would be easier in the case
of v. 11; but it would be unnatural to interpret these two verses in
different ways, despite Milgrom (1991: 655).
The verse has created confusion among some modern writers who
have tended to assume that because this prohibition is applied explicitly
among beasts only to the four mentioned here, there must be some-
thing peculiarly unclean about them such that unusual restrictions must
be applied to them. Certainly this is the way in which Mary Douglas has
tended to argue (see below). Rabbinic arguments are not always con-
vincing, or appealing to the modern mind; but in this case they seem
eminently sensible. The passage selects for special attention one group
among those animals not freed for food according to v. 3—because
there may be possible ambiguity about which side of the line they fall
on—and removes the ambiguity. It surely stands to reason that what is
said about them must apply also to all those not picked out for special
comment because there was no ambiguity in their case.
4. Verses 9-12. The sub-section (B) on water creatures is not so com-

plex, though highly redundant in its form in Leviticus. Once again
there is a double criterion, the possession of both fins and scales. But
it seems that these are seen as going together to form a single crite-
rion. At all events nothing is said of any that possess one but not both
of the criteria, though, as the Mishnah notes (Hul. 3.7), there are fish
with fins that do not have scales, eels for example. The converse is not
true, and the Mishnah comments that this makes the requirement for
fins technically superfluous; which perhaps confirms that the two
requirements effectively form a single rule. Firmage, however (1990:
189-90), attributes the absence of a parallel to vv. 4-8 to a lack of
acquaintance with marine life. He notes (190 n. 18, following Salonen
1970: 258-59) that fish was generally marketed in forms that would
make it difficult to discover whether it conformed to the rule: before
salting, drying or pickling, the fish was scraped or skinned. This raises
a question about the application of the rules which is virtually
impossible to answer. It is doubtful, however, whether he can be right
(p. 200) in assuming that the authors were concerned only to exclude
a limited number of species found in inland waters such as eels and
catfish.
The positive rule is here balanced with its negative correlate (v. 10).
Here for the first time we find the word seqes used, which I have
translated 'an abhorrence'. It is used in sub-sections B and C against
tame' in A (in the qualifying passage only); in section III both are
used. Is there any difference in meaning?1 Verse 11 defines it in similar
words to v. 8, so it would appear that in the chapter as it stands there
is not, indeed the two are quite specifically identified; moreover, in
the Deuteronomic parallel to sub-sections B and C, tame' is used; what-
ever the literary relationship of the two texts, this implies that the
editor who effected the relationship saw the words as interchangeable
in this context. Their connotations, however, are quite different. The
noun seqes is used only with reference to forbidden flesh. The root
suggests personal disgust or abhorrence, and in this legal context is
appropriately used to enjoin rigorous avoidance. It does not have any
technical ritual connotations, but the noun siqqus is frequently used
with reference to the paraphernalia of paganism (Deut. 29.16, etc.),
and this illustrates the connotation I have just suggested for the root:
these are to be objects of abhorrence to Yahweh's people and strictly
avoided by them. Although interchanged with tame' in this specific
context, it could not have been used in the second section of the
chapter, which does not prohibit contact with the animals in question,
but details the ritual consequences of such contact, often unavoidable,
as I have pointed out.
1. For a detailed study, see Paschen 1970, esp. 27ff., and Milgrom 1991: 656ff.
The root tm' is far more frequent and has a wider range of applica-
tion. Obviously in the Old Testament, particularly in the priestly
writings where it is most used, its sphere of reference is chiefly the
ritual; as regards the adjective this is almost exclusively so; the verb
has a wider range. But this is surely the effect of the balance of interest
in the extant sources; it should not be assumed as a necessary corollary
that in general everyday use the ritual reference was determinative.
We find it used in particular in the sexual field, with reference not to
the ritually defiling effects of seminal emission and other fluxes (as in
Lev. 15), but to moral defilement by forbidden types of sexual contact.
This usage occurs not only in the priestly tradition (e.g. in Lev. 18 or
Ezek. 18) but outside it, in Gen. 34.5, 13, 271 and in Deut. 24.4.
Paschen(1970: 36) notes as something distinctive the relative character
of the defilement in the latter case: the divorced and remarried wife is
not absolutely defiled but defiled for her previous husband. But this
should not be seen as a unique conception; after all, it is found
elsewhere, in the restrictions on marriage partners for the priests
(Lev. 21.7-9, 13-15); Paschen is quite wrong in seeing this as opposed
to the usage in Deuteronomy, for the 'defiled' (halala) prostitute is not
a forbidden marriage partner for everyone, but only for the priest.
Rather, this usage should be seen as throwing light on the general
usage of tame'. Defilement occurs whenever a particular defined sphere
is invaded by something that threatens its integrity, whether the sphere
is rather narrowly defined as a particular person's sexual relation-
ships, or more broadly as the structure of sexual morality of society
as a whole, or, as most frequently, the sphere of the cult and its dis-
tinctive holiness. The title and the theme of Mary Douglas's Purity
and Danger (1966) are precisely relevant. What is seen as unclean is
either actually or symbolically dangerous to the structure and order of
society, or a particular aspect of society. The precise danger or dangers
represented by forbidden flesh is the object of our investigation.
What emerges from this discussion as regards our present passage is
this. Where the reference is to the ritual dangers of unclean animals,
as with the question of pollution by touching their carcases, then the
more natural word to use is tame'. When in v. 11 the sqs root is used
1. Conventional literary criticism asigns these verses to a redactor on the

grounds that the usage in question is foreign to J and E (Paschen 1970: 35, referring
to Procksch; cf. BDB s.v. RQ<J I). This could only be convincing if the same idea
were regularly expressed otherwise elsewhere in J and E.
in this connection, one may suspect one or both of two things: either
(1) the words have been introduced here into a context where they did
not originally belong, Deut. 14.10's use of tame' being original; or
(2) the ritual reference is an elaboration of an originally simpler
context (the Deuteronomic parallel could perhaps be quoted in this
connection also); or both (so Elliger). Now as Elliger points out, v. 11
makes the distinct impression of being an insertion: not only is there
the awkward repetition of the end of v. 10 at the beginning of the
verse, but also the resumptive repetition in v. 12 of the substance of
v. 10, which is characteristic of the priestly writings after a digression.
It therefore seems very probable that this verse has been added to
align this sub-section with the previous one (cf. v. 8), but using the
sqs vocabulary that was already found there. The supposition of the
later introduction of Sqs would leave unexplained why tame' was left
unaltered in vv. 4-8. But if sub-sections B and C had always used sqs,
it is hard to understand why vv. 4-8 should use tame', unless because
they also are a secondary expansion. And this seems the more likely in
that we have already recognized them as a qualifying expansion,
whether secondary or not. (We can account for the absence of sqs in
Deuteronomy by supposing, along with many scholars, that it is not to
be directly derived from Lev. 11.) And it fits with this that it is this
expansion that introduces the issue of corpse-pollution into section I—
the direct ritual interest and the use of tame' go together.1
5. Verses 13-23. The third sub-section (vv. 13-23) deals first with
birds, and then, in vv. 20ff., with flying insects, seres hd'op. The
passage on birds is notable in that it fails to offer any criterion of
edibility, but merely lists a number of kinds of bird that are not to be
eaten. These kinds need not of course be species in the modern
biological sense, but species, genera or even higher-order groups that
are recognized as one 'kind' by Hebrew observers (cf. Hunn). The
implication is that all other kinds may be eaten. Many of these birds
are difficult to identify, but there seems to be broad agreement that
1. Milgrom (1991) treats the distinction between tame' and Seqes in a more
absolute fashion. When the former is used in vv. 4-7, it 'connotes impurity trans-
mitted by touch and not by ingestion' (p. 654); and the command to 'abhor the dead
bodies' of water Seqes in v. 11 does not connote a prohibition of touch (p. 656). The
parallelism with v. 8 (where Milgrom supports the idea of an absolute prohibition)
makes this doubtful. He also contradicts it himself on p. 297.
most of them are in some sense carnivorous, whether birds of prey,
carrion-eaters or fish-eaters. (The biological understanding of preda-
tion is not relevant here; insects and worms don't count.) I have not
attempted above in my translation, and do not attempt here, to offer
my own identifications of most of the birds, but I do offer a table
comparing the translations given by a number of versions, along with
the identifications given by the only two scholars, as far as I am
aware, who have discussed them in any detail: Dillmann in his com-
mentary (1880: 488-95), and G.R. Driver in his influential paper in
PEQ (1955; he himself lists the translations of the LXX and Vulgate
[pp. 7-8] and the AV, RV and his own [p. 20]). Those identifications
(often imprecise) that can be regarded as reasonably certain within
broad limits I have asterisked in the RSV column.
Heb. LXX Vulgate Dillmann RSV Driver
1. aquila Adler *eagle griffon-
eagle eagle eagle vulture or
golden eagle
2. gryps Lammer- *vulture black vulture
Lammergeier? 7 geier
3. haliaeetus Geier osprey bearded
osprey? osprey? vulture vulture
4. milvus Weihe *kite kite
vulture kite kite
5 vultur Falke falcon saker falcon
kite vulture falcon or buzzard
6. [corvus] Robe *raven raven or rook
raven raven raven
7. struthio Strauss ostrich eagle owl
ostrich ostrich ostrich
8. noctua (swallow? night- short-eared
litde owl owl cuckoo?) hawk owl
9. larus Move sea gull long-eared
gull? gull? gull owl
10. accipiter Habicht *hawk kestrel or
hawk, etc. hawk, etc. hawk sparrow
hawk
11. bubo Kauz *owl tawny owl
long-eared owl horned owl screech-owl
12. mergulus Sturzpelekan cormorant fisher-owl

[seabird] [diver]
13. ibis an owl ibis screech-owl
ibis ibis (Uhul)
eagle owl?
14. cygnus an owl water hen little owl
purple coot or swan mis-
water hen placed for 16?
15. onocrotalus ? pelican scops-owl
pelican pelican
16. KUKVOq porphyrio Erdgeier (a carrion osprey
swan sultana hen vulture) or vulture
but see 14 Starch, stork
17. herodio Reiher * stork stork or
heron stork? heron heron
18. charadrios ? heron cormorant
Norfolk plover (presumably
or thick-knee? as the Greek)
19. upupa Weidehopf *hoopoe hoopoe
hoopoe hoopoe hoopoe
20. vespertilio Fledermaus *bat bat
bat bat bat
It will be seen that the Vulgate is normally aligned with the LXX,
whether because it was following it or because they were both reliant
on similar Hebrew traditions. Neither the RSV nor Dillmann diverges
very far from this tradition; Driver however does so, chiefly in sub-
stituting various species of owls for the water-birds in the middle of
the list. He is (naturally) followed by the NEB and REB, and the NRSV
has adopted one or two of his identifications. Partly, like Dillmann, he
is able to argue that the water-birds are not appropriate identifications
for birds that are elsewhere said to inhabit ruins and deserts (this is true
of nos. 13 and 15);1 but largely it is because of three very sweeping
a priori assumptions that he introduces in the course of his argument:
firstly, that 'unclean' birds will in general be raptors; secondly that the
birds will be arranged in a logical order, with similar birds next to
one another; and thirdly that the birds are arranged in order of size up
to no. 15; these are then followed by three water birds. The first
1. Isa. 34.11; Zeph. 2.14. But see below, Chapter 5, §l.c.

assumption has some basis in the Mishnaic characterisation of the

unclean birds; but it is hard to see how the others could be justified as
initial assumptions. The chief objection to his result is that the identifi-
cations are too narrow, distinguishing between birds that could well
have been known by a general term, and letting some similar birds
through the net. This does not mean that the identifications in the LXX
tradition are any more secure. Whatever identifications are adopted,
there is a certain heterogeneity about the list: although birds of prey
predominate, they are not all birds of prey: the hoopoe and the bat are
particularly striking by their difference from the majority of the list.
We find once again, however, that Talmudic tradition identifies
certain criteria for the distinction between birds, even though in this
case none are stated in the biblical text. The first, the most obvious, is
already stated in Pseudo-Aristeas (Ep. Arist. 146) and is repeated in
the Mishnah.
Any fowl which seizes prey (dores) is unclean. Any which have an extra
claw and a crop, and the skin of the stomach of which can be stripped off
is clean. R. Eleazar b. Sadoq says 'Any bird which parts its toes evenly is
unclean' (m. Hul. 3.6).
R. Eleazar's criterion could be an elucidation of the mysterious 'extra
claw': perching birds with three toes in front and one behind are gene-
rally clean, those with two in front and two behind are unclean
(b. Hul. 65a). Generally speaking the latter are raptors. An alterna-
tive explanation of the 'extra claw' is that it is the spur possessed by
many ground-walking birds (Rabinowicz 1971: 32). Pages of discus-
sion are devoted to these criteria in the Gemara (b. Hul. 61a-65a),
since they are not precisely in accord with each other. In the course of
the discussion it becomes apparent that there are traditions that certain
birds are unclean, even though they do not appear in the biblical list,
and the criteria need to be accommodated to them rather than the
other way round. They even include birds that are clearly not birds of
prey and possess at least one of the criteria for cleanness: for example
certain kinds of swallow and the starling (62a).
In this case it is evident that the criteria, which are only found in
postbiblical texts, are derived by reflection on the species that are known
to be unclean, not only from the biblical text, but also by tradition.
Does the biblical text represent such traditions, without getting as far
as deriving the criteria, or is the list governed by an unacknowledged
criterion, such as the diet of the birds (so Firmage 1990: 190-91)?
This is a question of explanation which must be left to a later stage of

our discussion. But it should be noted that all the criteria given else-
where in the text are given positively: they are criteria of cleanness,
not of uncleanness; and they are primarily morphological: they are
designed to ensure that animals can be recognized as clean or unclean
simply by looking at them. Now the clean birds belong to several
morphological groups, not to a single one, and when rules are even-
tually evolved in the Mishnah, even the Talmud is hard put to justify
them. They found it difficult to evolve a criterion, I would suggest,
because it was hard to see what criterion could cover chickens, geese
and ducks, as well as pigeons and partridges (all eaten in pre-exilic
Jerusalem; cf. Chapter 4, §2.b.5), and at the same time exclude the
unclean birds mentioned in vv. 13ff. If the fact that most of the unclean
birds are raptors is generalized into the assumption that they all are,
as is so frequently done, almost tacitly (e.g. Firmage 1990: 190), the
question is made immensely more difficult to answer, for what was to
prevent the authors adopting a simple observational criterion such as
is reported from Harran (Chapter 4, §3.b.3): 'all birds that do not
have talons'? The fact is that they do not, and we must conclude from
this that the unclean birds, like the clean, are not all of one morpho-
logical type. If criteria had been given, they would have had to be of a
form or complexity quite different from what is found elsewhere in
the text.
Moreover, there is evidence that the list has been expanded at a late
stage in its history. This is to be found in the confused state of the
Septuagint tradition, which has been studied by R.K. Yerkes (1923-
24). In the LXX versions of the list of birds, only nos. 1-5, 7-9 and 20
are in the same order in both Leviticus and Deuteronomy and in all
textual traditions. By the first hands of the Vatican and Alexandrian
MSS (B and A), the raven is omitted in both books; but it appears in
the so-called Lucianic MSS. The remaining ten birds appear in an
entirely different order in the two books in all MSS, and there are
further minor variations between the MSS, and between the LXX and
the Vulgate, which on the whole follows the LXX in order as well as in
identification. The order in Leviticus appears to be that of the Hebrew,
so far as it possible to tell from such fairly secure identifications as
nos. 11, 17 and 19. Yerkes's conclusion from these facts, which seems
hard to dispute, is that the birds whose order is uncertain are later
additions to the list. At first, ten birds (nos. 10-19) were added in
haphazard fashion, and the textual tradition represented by the LXX of
Deuteronomy has left them in this state. Later the list was rearranged,
probably with some attempt at logical classification, and this state is
represented by the LXX of Leviticus. Presumably the revising process
took longer to reach Deuteronomy than Leviticus. Last of all the raven
and all its kind were added, at first at the end of the list, squeezed in
before the bat as in the 'Lucianic' MSS of Deuteronomy, and finally at
no. 6, where we find it in the Hebrew and in the 'Lucianic' MSS of LXX
Leviticus.1 That this position was thought more appropriate suggests
that Driver may be correct in suggesting that size is an influence in the
ordering of the birds. The bat may not have been part of the original
list; its unusual character would perhaps have led to its being placed at
the end whenever it came in. If Driver's identifications are correct, the
original list would have consisted entirely of large or very large birds
of prey, and it has then been expanded to its present heterogeneous state.
Numerical symmetry also seems to have played a part. There are
twenty birds in the present list; probably eight in the original one;
four unclean beasts in vv. 4-8; four clean insects in v. 22; and eight
unclean teeming things in vv. 29-30. Thus all the lists in the chapter are
divisible by four. If Yerkes's account of the history of the bird list is
correct, there would have been a time when it contained only nineteen
names; and this is the case still in Deut. LXX B, A. But in Lev. LXX B
there are in fact twenty names, because the little owl appears between
nos. 16 and 17 as well as at no. 8. It looks as though there was a belief
that there ought to be a multiple of four places in the list, even if there
were too few names to fill them.
The section on the insects has a simple and elegant structure: a com-
prehensive announcement that they are sqs (v. 20), followed by a
qualifying clause listing four types that may be eaten (vv. 21-22),
after which the original comprehensive statement is resumed (v. 23).
In Deuteronomy only the comprehensive statement appears, leading to
the only direct clash between the two books on this subject. It is
apparent that the qualifying clause is a secondary expansion. For what
purpose? Even Milgrom (1990: 189; 1991: 666) and Firmage (1990:
192), who generally insist that the logic of the classification is prior to
the identification of species, can only account for this exception by the
1. Elliger (1966: 144) notes 'das singulare ^ in 15' as a possible sign of the
secondary addition of the raven. He does not even take note of the complexity of the
LXX evidence.
fact that locusts were commonly eaten, and consequently could not be
declared unclean. In the next chapter we shall be looking at Mary
Douglas's view that this is, on the contrary, an especially good example
of classificatory logic. That locusts formed a well-marked taxonomic
group made it easy to provide both a criterion (v. 21) and a list of
(four!) specific kinds; again further criteria are offered in the Mishnah
(Hul. 3.7). But note that the criteria are not sufficient in themselves;
R. Jose had to add to them, 'and the name of which is locust' (ibid.)',
that is (t. Hul.3[4].25), they should be distinguished from crickets,
which have the same features. Tradition takes precedence over the
logic of the classification.
That concludes the first section of the chapter in Leviticus, the only
part of it that is parallelled in Deuteronomy 14. While it clearly aims
at being a comprehensive statement of animals that may and may not
be eaten, we have already seen that one whole class of animals is
omitted: the seres of the ground. It would seem that they were simply
assumed to be inedible (Dillmann 1880: 500; Elliger 1966: 152),
'unconsciously tabooed', to use Leach's term (1964: 31). But they did
not remain so, for the final form of the chapter explicitly prohibits
them. We shall have to inquire later whether there are reasons for this
other than sheer love of system. But first we have section II, dealing
with the ritual pollution caused by the carcases of unclean animals.
6. Verses 24-40. We can fortunately deal with this section much more
briefly, since much of it is not of direct relevance to our theme. It
only deals with land animals.1 The eventualities in mind are probably
only such regular domestic problems as the death of the old donkey,
or the removal of dead dogs from the yard or dead mice from the
storeroom. Three groups of land animals are recognized: first, hoofed
beasts; only those that either do not have cloven hooves (horses and
1. Milgrom (1991:657ff.) argues that the reason why creatures of the water and
the air do not contaminate by touch is that both groups emerge from the water in the
account of creation in Gen. 1, and that sources of water, according to v. 36, cannot
be contaminated. The logic is strained, and in any case, as I have shown (Chapter 1,
§2), it cannot be assumed that because a category is not treated systematically as a
source of uncleanness it is never understood to be one. The expression 'You shall
abhor their dead bodies' in v. 11, though it does not use the technical vocabulary of
contact pollution, suggests that it would have been easy to develop the idea in con-
nection with water creatures. The limitation to land animals may be purely practical.
donkeys) or do not chew the cud (pigs) need be mentioned here, since
the others are clean. Secondly, those that go on their paws ('al
kappayw) among creatures (hahayyd)that go on all fours. The
variation here between hahayyd and behemd appears to be merely
stylistic: the groups are identified by the qualifying clauses, and we
are dealing throughout with behema as conceived in vv. 3-8.1
Milgrom (1990: 184; 1991: 726) correctly notes that 'al kappayw
cannot mean, as Porter (1976: 90) and Wenham (1979: 177) assert,
following Douglas (1966: 56), that they use their hands for walking
on, even if that made any sense in relation to four-footed animals.
(Douglas, mentioning the hand-like foot of the lizard at this point,
appears to have confused this group with the quite separate one intro-
duced in v. 29.) kap regel means the sole of the (human) foot; there-
fore kap cannot mean 'hand' in opposition to 'foot'; yad would be
required for that meaning, and Wenham in fact gives yad as the word
used here. Rather, kap must mean here the flat of the foot, that is
(ignoring homology), a paw. In other words, it simply distinguishes
all quadrupeds without hooves from those with hooves (at least the
larger ones; the smaller ones follow in v. 29).
The third group is 'the teeming creatures that teem on the ground'.
Rather than declaring all these unclean, the text selects eight salient
kinds—once again we find a multiple of four—and declares them
capable of conveying uncleanness when dead not only to persons, as
1. It is unsatisfactory to take rm as indicating here a separate classification from

nnro (for example wild animals as against domestic or small animals against large:
Eilberg-Schwartz 1990: 256 n.9); for the groups are defined by the qualifying
phrases, and certain animals are then not covered. Firmage asserts (1990: 205) that
w. 24ff. does not cover the four creatures of vv. 4-7, and deduces that w. 24-31
was added in order to 'anticipate a possible misunderstanding in the earlier text...
that from v. 8 one could perhaps have concluded that only contact with the carcasses
of the four animals specified in vv. 4-7 conveyed impurity'. But this evidently
assumes that the phrases 'that do not have cloven hooves' and 'that do not chew the
cud' are cumulative, so that v. 26 refers only to equids. It is surely easier to take
them, with most, as alternatives, so that pigs are included, for in reference to equids,
'that do not chew the cud' is redundant. The three other creatures of vv. 4-6 are of
course covered in v. 27, since they are stated in the earlier passage not to have
hooves, and the only alternative is paws. Thus the identification of beasts conveying
impurity here is the same as that of those forbidden as food in vv. 2-8. (So Milgrom
1991: 668). Failure to perceive the main division of the chapter by subject at v. 24
has led to much confusion, of which these views are examples.
do the two previous groups, but also to objects, and especially to con-
tainers that might be used for foodstuffs. The logic of the passage
suggests that we are dealing here with creatures that tend to infest the
house or storeroom, and almost certainly with larger ones.1 But once
again they are very uncertain of identification, except for the mouse
('akbdr). Most moderns tend to find that the majority of them are
types of lizard (e.g. RSV, REB, Wenham 1979: 163), following a ten-
dency already visible in the LXX, where four of them are lizards.
Dillmann in 1880 (p. 502) had already expressed some scepticism
about so many of them being lizards, and I tend to share this. But the
truth is that we do not really know and cannot now find out. What can
safely be asserted, and is sufficient for our purpose, is that both rep-
tiles and small mammals are included. This indicates the upper size
limits of the whole class of teeming things of the ground, which of
course goes down to include all creeping insects, spiders, worms and
other invertebrates (cf. v. 42).
We are not concerned with the details of ritual pollution in this pas-
sage, but two general points should be made. First, it is only dead
bodies that pollute. Although this is obvious from the text (as well as
from the common-sense consideration that if the touch of live unclean
animals polluted, it would be defiling for example to ride an ass or a
camel), some writers still seem to be under the impression that 'the
Jews' believed that to brush against a pig, for example, was to become
defiled.2 Secondly, we are dealing with a purely ritual interest, which
must not be confused with the much more significant issue for daily
life of diet. Douglas is misled by a note of Danby's into supposing that
frogs were 'clean' in the same sense as locusts (Douglas 1966: 56).
They are of course forbidden for food by vv. 41-42, and are clean
only in the ritual sense. We may suspect that this law was of practical
1. Hirsch (1958:283-84) cites b. Hul. 128b to show that they are all vertebrates
—the Talmudic passage speaks of their bones. But this is hardly conclusive; it does
not explicitly say this of all eight. Sanders (1990: passim) is of course quite incorrect
in referring to dietary pollution conveyed under this law as 'fly-impurity'. Flies,
which were not 'swarming things that swarm on the ground' but swarming things of
the air, could not convey ritual impurity. They are of course forbidden as food under
vv. 20, 23 (hence no doubt Matt. 23.24), but that is a different issue.
2. Perhaps mere carelessness has led Douglas (1975b: 266) to write 'Any living
being [my italics] which falls outside this classification is not to be touched or eaten',
though Firmage (1990: 180) considers that this would arise from the logic of her
position.
effect in daily life only for the priests and for those groups in Second
Temple Judaism who adopted ritual purity as a mark of communal
identification: the haberim and the Qumran sectaries. It is no accident
that this part of the Leviticus text is not found in Deuteronomy, which
is torah for the man in the street (and the woman; cf. Weinfeld 1972:
291-92). The basis of the torah on this subject is a combination of the
law of forbidden flesh with the law of corpse pollution (Num. 19).
Verses 39-40 concern beasts that are clean so far as their species is
concerned, but have not been slaughtered but have died naturally and
are unclean for that reason. They appear to have been added here for
the sake of completeness in the law about ritual pollution arising from
carcases, since unlike everything else in the chapter they are not con-
cerned with the distinction between clean and unclean animals.
According to v. 39, the same degree of pollution is incurred by the
handling of such carcases as by those of unclean beasts, while v. 40
allows for their use as food, but only at the cost again of ritual im-
purity. This latter rule is met with again at Lev. 17.15-16, in a
chapter (generally assigned to the Holiness Code) that deals with the
whole subject of the slaughter of animals for food, and to which we
shall need to return. It is evident that the dead bodies of beasts are
generally seen to be defiling; this can only be avoided in the case of
animals clean for food, and then only by slaughtering them in the cor-
rect style, ensuring the discharge of the blood (17.10-14). But
Milgrom points out (1991: 681-82) that the carcases of clean animals
do not defile by touch in P generally; this is a late harmonization.
Is there any inherent connection between the two distinct subjects of
the chapter, or have they merely been placed together for conveni-
ence?1 Firmage (1990: 183-84) sharply distinguishes the dietary law
from the system of impurity proper, and identifies as many as six
points of fundamental difference between them. The first is that
whereas notions of contact impurity are 'part of Israel's pagan legacy,
and...are referred to in historical texts' (e.g. 2 Sam. 11.4; 2 Kgs 5;
7.3ff.; 1 Sam. 20.26; 21.5), there is no evidence for the existence of
1. It will be noted that vv. 39 and 40b virtually render vv. 24-28 superfluous; if
the dead bodies of all animals pollute, unless correctly slaughtered for food, which
unclean animals cannot be, there is nothing distinctive to be said about unclean
animals in this connection and hence no connection between the subjects of diet and
contact pollution. But it seems likely that vv. 39-40 is secondary in relation to
w. 24ff., adding a reference to a subject dealt with at greater length in ch. 17.
any dietary taboos, 'with the possible exception of the pig', before the
publication of the present law. We shall deal with this argument later
(Chapter 3, §2.e.2). Briefly summarized, the others are as follows. As
regards the source of impurity, in the impurity system proper (Lev.
12-15; Num. 19), the source is always human, and contingent rather
than inherent; in the dietary law it is non-human and inherent in the
animal. As regards the effect, the pollutions dealt with in the following
chapters and in the second half of this one are not prohibited, being in
most cases either inescapable (childbirth, leprosy) or the result of
necessary or socially required action (corpse pollution); consequently,
means of purification are provided for them; dietary pollution, on the
other hand, is prohibited and not purifiable. As regards the extent of
the law, the purity system proper applies to the ger, the stranger in
Israel, as well as to native Israelites, because the danger guarded
against is the pollution of the sanctuary (here Firmage follows Milgrom
[1976, etc.]), but the dietary law applies only to Israel because it is a
way of holiness (vv. 44-45).
Broadly speaking, these points can be accepted, but it should be noted
that the distinction is not as precise as Firmage claims (see now Wright
1991: 165ff.). For example, the subject of Lev. 11.40a, the pollution
incurred from eating from the carcases of clean animals that have not
been slaughtered is a purifiable pollution which in Leviticus 17 applies
to both Israelites and gerim; but in Exod. 22.30 (Eng. 31) and Deut.
14.21 it is a prohibition and does not apply to gerim. Again, inter-
course with a menstruant is treated as a temporary pollution in Lev.
15.24, but is strictly forbidden in Lev. 18.19 and 20.18. Moreover, it is
far from clear that all the laws of purifiable impurity apply to the ger;
he is not referred to in Leviticus 11-15, and 15.31 explicitly says, 'you
shall warn the Israelites against their uncleanness, that they may not
die in their uncleanness, by defiling my dwelling-place which is among
them'. Indeed, the mere existence of the law of Lev. 11.24-28 suggests
that there was no Berlin Wall between the two systems; the fact that
certain animals were forbidden food makes them appropriate subjects
of a law about corpse pollution. Verses 8b and lib are even stronger
evidence of the inherent connection there was felt to be between the
two ideas. It may reasonably be said, however, that the prohibitive
laws are typical of the Holiness Code and Deuteronomy, and those
about purifiable uncleanness of P, and that this means that sometimes
the same topic may be treated in different ways in the different strata.
1. Verses 41-45. Verses 41-42 begin to tie together the two halves of
the chapter; for they plug the gap that we have noticed in the first half
by forbidding as food all the teeming things of the ground, which
have been mentioned in this chapter for the first time in connection
with the latter theme of ritual pollution. The shift in terminology back
from tame to sqs (cf. vv. 10-23) is striking; but vv. 43ff. use both
roots, and cannot be detached from vv. 41-42, being in effect a mini-
sermon on that text. Unlike vv. 29-30, the teeming things are here dealt
with en bloc', v. 41 simply says 'all', and v. 42aa expands this by
using a type of classification similar to those used earlier in the chap-
ter, based on how the animal 'goes'—on its belly, on four legs or on
many. However, the classification is of no practical significance; all
alike are abhorrent and forbidden; v. 42a0b resumes the general state-
ment of v. 41. These verses promote the rejection of the teeming
things of the ground from unconscious or at least implicit status to
explicit prohibition. In a later chapter (6, §2.d) we shall have to
inquire what made this necessary.
The chapter moves on without a break to its homiletic finale. One
sign that the prohibition of the 'teeming things' has real practices in
view is the fact that the homiletic conclusion is based on it. It is one
thing to say as a matter of form 'you shall not eat them'; it is another
to say 'Do not defile yourselves by them...for I am your God'. The
conclusion is brief, and its structure simple: twice repeated (cf.
Elliger), the sequence 'Do not defile [etc.] yourselves...! am Yahweh
your God...you shall be holy...I am holy'. The four times repeated
switch of subject from 'you' to T underlines that the conduct of Israel
must be rooted in their status as the people of Yahweh, and in his
authority as their God, which itself is based on his deliverance of them
from Egypt.
The single theological idea that determines the presentation here is
that of holiness, 'You shall be holy, for I am holy', and the assumption
is that the eating of unclean things is incompatible with holiness. The
structure of the idea of holiness is this: it is a quality that in its abso-
lute degree is possessed by the deity, and relatively may and must be
shared in by all that is dedicated to him. What would be incompatible
with God's holiness will threaten the holiness of anything dedicated to
him. It is an idea that is at home first of all in the ritual sphere. The
priests must take care that the holy vessels do not become defiled, for
example by unclean teeming things, and they must take the same care
for themselves, since they are continually in God's service. But here,
and in the Holiness Code, the idea has moved out of the strictly ritual
sphere. The original reason why diet was a concern of the priests may
have been (cf. Chapter 5, §3, Chapter 6, §2.a.l) that the purity of the
congregation at the festivals had to be preserved, and, as we have
seen, there are still some traces of that concern in the chapter. But
abstinence from unclean flesh is for Israel, according to these verses,
not a temporary requirement for a particular festival, but a lifelong
demand. Yahweh demands continual sanctification to himself, not of
course in the same degree as those who are dedicated to his cultic
service, but essentially of the same kind. Hence the distinction of
kinds, whatever its origin, is in Leviticus a mark of the dedication of
Israel to Yahweh as their sole God. Though this chapter has found a
place in the collection on purities because of its second half, its first
half, with the conclusion to the whole, would belong more appropri-
ately in the Holiness Code, which is a collection of smaller codes
rather than a through-composed unity. The conclusion may be regarded
as the work of the Holiness school (cf. Milgrom 1991: 692), but
Milgrom only includes vv. 43-45.
And of course the conclusion finds a close parallel in a passage in
the Holiness Code, the passage in ch. 20 that we looked at briefly in
the last chapter. But unlike that one, this passage does not use the idea
of 'separation', despite the ease with which it could be suggested by
the subject-matter. But both passages use the idea of holiness. Obvi-
ously, there is a close connection between the two ideas: what is holy
needs to be separated from what is not and particularly from what is
unclean, and the act of sanctification is in itself an act of separation,
mental if not physical. But, theologically, separation exists for the
sake of holiness; holiness is the prior demand, certainly in the Holiness
Code. Socially it could be that a sense of national distinction is served
by the distinction of foods, and that this is then crystallised in the
sense of holiness.1 But in H (unlike Deuteronomy) there is no such
sense of Israel's holiness as a fact rather than a demand. Here the
demand that Israel should dedicate themselves to Yahweh as their one
God comes before everything else.
1. However, my conclusion (Chapter 6, §2.d) will be against this.

8. Verses 46-47. The subscript (vv. 46-47), redactionally summa-

rizing the contents of the chapter as part of the larger collection,
requires little comment. In the light of what I have just been saying, it
is interesting that the verb lehabdil, to separate, does occur here. The
'separation' or distinction that is to be made is described in two ways.
'Between unclean and clean' is clearly the more comprehensive
expression, which covers all the sections of the chapter. The word
tahor, 'clean', occurs here and in v. 36, but not in the first part of the
chapter, whereas it appears twice in Deuteronomy 14. This seems to
be the result simply of the predominantly negative style of expression
in Leviticus 11, rather than of deliberate avoidance of the word.
2. Deuteronomy 14.3-21
a. Form and Setting
The Deuteronomic passage consists of what is clearly a borrowed
priestly torah (vv. 4-20), very similar in structure and expression and
almost identical in contents to Lev. 11.2b-23, but introduced by a
general exhortation of distinctively Deuteronomic expression, and
followed by two instructions that are again clearly Deuteronomic: the
first is different from the priestly law on the same subject in
Lev. 11.40 and 17.15, and the second is not found at all in P. It stands
in a context that is concerned with the need for Israel, as the holy
people of Yahweh, to keep itself from pagan or degrading practices.
The declaration 'you are a people holy to Yahweh your God' frames
the passage in vv. 2 and 21, and that this is a unique status is under-
lined in v. 2: 'Yahweh has chosen you to be his special possession out
of all the peoples on the face of the earth'. Thus the theological
framework is analogous to that of Leviticus 11, but marked by the
characteristically different use made of the idea of holiness in
Deuteronomy. For the Deuteronomists, Israel is the holy people of
Yahweh, a status that carries obligations with it rather than an ideal to
be striven for. This will be discussed at greater length in Chapter 6.
That it should have been thought appropriate to borrow a priestly
torah on this particular point is without parallel in Deuteronomy, but
not quite without analogy; for at 24.8, on the subject of 'leprosy', the
instruction is given 'to be very careful to do all that the Levitical
priests shall direct you'. Only there the Levitical rules are not quoted;
presumably if they had been they would have been similar to Leviticus
13-14. Unlike them, the observance of the rule of diet lay within the
responsibility of the laity. Now it is customary among modern com-
mentators on Deuteronomy (e.g. Mayes 1979: 237) to assert that 14.4-
20 is part of a later ('deuteronomistic') layer of the book, as demon-
strated for example by its formulation in the second person plural.
This seems beside the point, when not only that but every other crite-
rion of style shows that we are dealing with a priestly borrowing. The
question is whether it was borrowed by the author of v. 3 in the com-
position of his work or added at a later stage. I do not believe, despite
the confidence of such scholars as Horst (1930: 61ff.), Merendino
(1969: 83ff.) and Mayes, that this question can be answered with any
assurance. But one might ask oneself whether it is likely that the
meaning of 'anything abominable' in v. 3 could have been adequately
spelt out in the two rules of v. 21. There is no difference in principle
between this taking over of a priestly torah and the use of material
related to the Covenant Code elsewhere in the book, indeed in v. 21
here.
b. Translation and Structure

3 You [sg.1] shall not eat any abominable thing.
4 A. These are the beasts that you [pi., and so throughout 4-20] may eat:
X. ox, sheep, goat; [5] (fallow) deer, gazelle, roe deer, 'aqqo, dtSon,
f'o and zemer,
6 and every beast that:
(a) has a hoof
(a') and has the hoof cloven in two;
(b) chews the cud,
among the beasts,
you may eat it.
7 Y. However, these you may not eat
(a) among those that chew the cud
(b) and among those that have cloven hooves:2
1. All the ancient versions read the plural; but this must be assimilation to the
following passage (as in the first verb of v. 21 even in the MT).
2. The Samaritan text omits nyiotfn; it is not in Leviticus and could be a gloss,
but it probably makes sense.
[a] the camel, the hare and the hyrax,
because they chew1 the cud
but hooves they have not;
they are unclean to you;
8 [b] and the pig,
because it is hooved
<and has cloven hooves>
but does not <chew> the cud;2
Of their flesh you may not eat
and their dead bodies you may not touch.
9 B. These you may eat of all that is in the water:
X. all that has fins and scales you may eat;
10 Y. but all that does not have fins and scales you may not eat;
11C. X. Every clean bird you may eat.
12 Y. But these you may not eat of them:
the neSer, theperes, the 'ozniyyd, [13] the da'a, 3 the
'ayyd4 with its kinds, [14] every kind of crow, [15]
the daughter of ya'and, the tahmas, the Sahap, the
hawk with its kinds, [16] the kos, the yanSup, the
tinSemet, [17] the qa'at the rahamd, the Salak, [18] the
hastdd, the 'anapd with its kinds, the hoopoe and the bat.
19 Y. And all teeming winged creatures are unclean to you:
they may not be eaten;
20 X. Every clean winged creature you may eat.
21 You [singular,5 and so throughout the verse] shall not eat any carrion;
you may give it to the alien who is in your gates,
or sell it to a foreigner;
but you are a people holy to Yahweh your God.
You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk.
1. The sg. n^DD is clearly an error, possibly resulting from the shortening of a
text similar to Leviticus.
2. The MT n-u xVi is clearly defective. It should be supplemented from the
Samaritan text and the LXX.
3. MT n«nm is an obvious error for mnm, which appears in a few MSS.
4. MT mm should be deleted. It brings the number of birds up to 21, and is
probably an attempt to correct nK~ini. With these two corrections, the list of birds
becomes identical with that in Leviticus, with the exception of the different placing of
the^ ia.
5. MT and versions plural; but the rest of the verse has the singular, and it looks
as though the plural is an assimilation to the foregoing text.
c. Comment
1.Verse 3. The Deuteronomic writer in the name of Moses instructs
his readers to eat 'no abomination'—to'ebd, a common word in
Deuteronomy, but in the priestly writings confined to a sexual refer-
ence in Leviticus 18 (also 20.13). It must not be confused with Seqes,
one of the leitmotifs of Leviticus 11 (also translated 'abomination' in,
e.g., the RSV), though its meaning is similar. What exactly is implied
by it here? It is often assumed (e.g. by Mayes 1979: 239) that it has a
cultic reference: 'it is on the basis of their acceptability to the worship
of Yahweh that the animals are distinguished'. The grounds for this
are that elsewhere in the book the word refers to objects and practices
associated with paganism: 7.26; 13.15; 17.4; 18.9, 12; 20.18 (in all
these cases, as here, in the absolute, without yhwh). But the conclusion
does not necessarily follow from this evidence. In itself to'eba means
no more than 'that which disgusts one' (cf., e.g., Prov. 8.7; 24.9;
29.27). A noun following indicates the person who is disgusted—for
example in Gen. 43.32 and Exod. 8.26 the Egyptians; and frequently
in Deuteronomy and Proverbs Yahweh—of what is morally (Deut.
25.16) or cultically (7.25) displeasing. Where there is no such noun it
is incautious to assume that 'Yahweh' is nevertheless implied. True,
the customs of the Canaanites are so described in most of the above
texts, and magical practices in 18.9, 12. Does it not then in every case
refer to objects and practices specifically obnoxious to Yahweh, that
is, to monolatrous Yahwism? Yes, but care is needed in asking just
why they are obnoxious. It is by no means always simply because they
are idolatrous or involve the worship of other gods. We know little
about magical practices, but this is not necessarily true of them. What
about the Canaanite practices? It is true that they are characterized as
idolatrous and therefore abominable in 7.25-26, but in at least one
other place it is clear that their abominable character is being argued
for on other grounds, as in 12.31, where the burning of their children
is the rhetorical climax: morally abominable and suffusing the
Canaanite cult, idolatry and all, with its abomination. That, however,
would imply that such cults should be disgusting to Israel as much as
to Yahweh. And that the word refers elsewhere to customs unac-
ceptable to the worship of Yahweh does not make that part of its
sense. That is to confuse sense and reference (cf. Chapter 6, §2.b).
A conclusion entirely in accord with Deuteronomy's concern for
the integrity of Israel as the exclusive possession of Yahweh, to be
preserved from all taint, is that to'eba here means that which is dis-
gusting in itself, as a matter of ordinary understanding; this is Moshe
Weinfeld's interpretation: 'that category of things which the delicate
find odious or abhorrent' (Weinfeld 1972: 226). Israel's holiness, their
dedication to Yahweh, demands abstinence from disgusting things,
things that self-respecting people do not eat. However, the definition
of these things cannot necessarily be taken for granted, and so first the
priestly torah on the forbidden kinds is inserted, whether by the
author or another, and then the rule on carrion in v. 21a, derived from
something like the Covenant Code law in Exod. 22.30 (Eng. 31), but
differing from the priestly rule in Lev. 11.39-40; 17.15-16.
2. Verses 4-20. The law of clean and unclean kinds presented here
clearly has a literary relationship to that in Lev. 11.2b-23. But it dif-
fers in several respects. It is more concise, without the repetitiveness
of the Leviticus version. Each of the three sections is constructed in
the same way, beginning with a statement of what is permitted (X),
and proceeding to what is forbidden (Y); whereas in Leviticus the
third section begins with what is forbidden. Of course, since there are
no criteria for cleanness in birds, the opening statement of the third
section (v. 11) is vacuous, and it could have been constructed by the
Deuteronomic editor (so Mayes); it uses the term sippor, 'birds',
which does not appear in Leviticus 11. But it is resumed in v. 20, after
the reference to the insects, with the general and priestly expression 'dp
'flying things'; and since resumptive repetition is a feature of priestly
style, it is perhaps more probable that both the initial statement and its
repetition are the work of the original priestly writer. However,
Merendino (1969: 92-93) notes that as against Leviticus 11 negative
declarations are at a minimum and the positive aspect emphasized, and
Firmage observes (1990: 208), 'the degree to which it goes out of its
way to make the law easily applicable'. These points may well be
thought to suggest that the priestly text has been subject to distinc-
tively Deuteronomic editing.
Another general difference is the lack of the term seqes and its
cognates; tame' is used throughout. However, the topic of ritual pol-
lution is almost absent from the text, though not quite (see v. 8), and
in general tame' has here the sense 'forbidden for food'. Either the
vocabulary has been assimilated throughout to that of vv. 7-8, or
from the first the torah existed in two recensions using Sqs and tm'
respectively; I have above (§l.c.4) dismissed Elliger's belief that the
editor of the Leviticus text has introduced sqs where tm' stood before.
The first of the two alternatives is perhaps more probable, implying
that for this editor the term tame' did not involve the notion of
communicable impurity: 'it is rather a term of opprobrium' (Firmage
1990: 208), not dissimilar in meaning from to'eba (similarly Milgrom
1991:700).
The first section has a list of permitted beasts preceding the general
statement of criteria for cleanness, which is formulated in almost the
same terms as in Leviticus. This lists the obvious domestic kinds, and
follows with seven wild animals. According to Hunn (1979: 106), who
is dependent on S.R. Driver (1902: 159-60) for the identifications,
'these ten folk species constitute an exclusive and exhaustive listing of
the species of the artiodactyl sub-order Ruminantia known from the
home range of the Hebrews'. Driver's identifications are: hart (is this
the red deer, the fallow deer or both?), gazelle, roebuck, wild goat
(ibex), addax, antelope (oryx), mountain-sheep. Hunn lists as the wild
members of the sub-order in the relevant region: red deer, roe deer,
fallow deer, the antelope Addax nasomaculatus, ibex, three species of
gazelles, oryx and mouflon (wild sheep).1 Presumably, therefore, he
assumes that 'hart' can cover both red and fallow deer, and that
'gazelle' covers all three species. And he is probably right that all
these wild species are covered. But as far as the last four names in the
Hebrew are concerned there is no way of knowing which is which: the
versions, ancient and modern, are at variance, and Driver's evidence
is insufficient. However, there is no question that the first name,
'ayyal, means a deer; the only question is whether it covers one
species, and if so which one, or more than one; sebi certainly means
'gazelle', and the evidence quoted by Driver that the roe deer is called
yahmur in modern Palestinian Arabic is reasonably decisive for the
third name. There is little doubt that 'ayyal means the fallow deer; it
is much the commonest word for a deer in biblical Hebrew, it is the
first wild animal in this list, and it appears alongside sebi alone in
12.15 as types of wild game; now in the archaeological record (see
Chapter 4, §2.b), much the commonest wild animals found used for
1. According to Hope (1991), the red deer and addax were not found in Palestine
in biblical times; but the kobus antelope and bubale hartebeest were. He identifies
yahmfir as the bubale hartebeest and diSon as the kobus.
food are gazelle and fallow deer (the Dama species), which therefore
seem likely to be represented by these first two names of wild kinds.
But of course it could include also the rarer red deer if it was known.
The other main difference from the Leviticus version is the failure
to mention the locusts as permitted teeming things of the air.1 It is in
any case clear that they are inserted as an afterthought in the Leviticus
version, so that in this respect the version here may simply represent
the older form of the law. It is not probable that locusts were
commonly eaten in Jerusalem; it may have been pressure from the
provinces that compelled their insertion.
Moran has argued (1966; followed by Mayes 1979: 238) that the list
of birds in Deuteronomy originally consisted of the ten that are men-
tioned in the Hebrew without the object marker; later it was expanded
directly from Leviticus, where the object marker is used throughout,
and the other ten added, each of them complete with 'et. It is an inge-
nious argument, but its conclusion does not seem compatible with that
of Yerkes which I accepted above, and which is dependent on evidence
that I cannot explain in any other way, whereas the random scattering
of the object marker here may simply be due to loose style (so Elliger
1966: 145).
3. Verse 21. In v. 21 a we should note the changes made in the earlier

law, and the difference from the priestly rule. The Deuteronomic law
concerns nebeld, strictly an animal that has died of itself, whereas the
earlier law concerns an animal that has been mauled by a wild beast. It
seems likely that the change is simply intended to make the law more
comprehensive: nebeld would include frepd. It is only in Lev. 17.15
that the two terms are placed side by side. The more striking change is
that which replaces 'the dogs' by the ger and the foreigner. I comment
below (Chapter 5, §l.b) on the structure of meaning that associates
dogs with unclean flesh; that Deuteronomy should thus align the alien
and the foreigner with dogs is understandable in terms of its ideology,
if rather uncomplimentary to the ger, who is commended throughout
the book as an object of charity. The motivation of the change is
surely the rational ethical spirit of Deuteronomy—to throw away meat
that could at least be eaten would be wasteful, and it would be an act
1. Milgrom (1991: 665, 692) argues that v. 20 allows for the existence of clean
winged insects, despite the clear exclusion of any such thing by v. 19. This is
unintelligible.
of charity to give it to someone not committed to Israel's religiously

motivated self-respect. The difference from the priestly rule is
extremely instructive on the difference between the priestly and
Deuteronomic ideologies. The priestly authors see the eating of meat
not properly slaughtered as of significance only in relation to their
major concern—ritual purity—and therefore permit it provided that
steps are taken to restore such purity (emphasized in Lev. 17.16; the
law applies to both native and alien perhaps because of the threat to
the purity of the land, the focus of interest in the following chapter).
People who needed to preserve their ritual purity continuously would
avoid such meat as a matter of course, as Ezekiel, we recall, told the
Lord that he did. But the Deuteronomists, who are not generally
interested in ritual purity for the sake of the cult or the land,1 nor in
any special ritual position for the priests, are interested in the holiness
of the people; that must be preserved by the avoidance of such doubt-
ful sources of nourishment, but since the gerim (resident aliens) and
foreigners are not part of the holy people, there is no objection to
their eating it; indeed it would count as an act of charity to a ger to
offer such meat without charge.
I have decided not to comment on v. 21b, which offers another
most complex field of investigation and would take us too far from
our main theme; it has in any case been the subject of a recent mono-
graph by Othmar Keel (1980), and an article by E.A. Knauf (1988).
(But see Chapter 5, §2.c.)
3. Redactional History
a. The Relationship between the Levitical and Deuteronomic Texts
The literary relationship between Leviticus 11.2b-23 and Deuteronomy
14.4-20 has been variously estimated. Rendtorff for example holds
that the Deuteronomic text has been derived from that in Leviticus, in
its present form (1954: 45 n. 34), and Firmage regards this as not un-
likely (1990: 208). Eilberg-Schwartz, on the other hand (1986-87:
360-61; 1990: 219-20; followed by Milgrom 1991: 698ff.), argues
that in the latter something like the former has been reworked to bring
it into closer conformity with the classifications in Genesis 1. But it is
too obviously improbable that one of these texts has been derived from
the other in substantially its present form—that, for example, the per-
1. Deut. 24.4 may be an exception.

mission to eat locusts has been deliberately omitted in Deuteronomy,
or the concise but clear passage on the unclean beasts there expanded
in Leviticus with stately repetition but without the addition of any
substance whatsoever. Most critics therefore conclude that both texts
have been independently derived from an earlier form. It should be
added, however, that as priestly torah was originally given orally, it
could have been written down in a number of different forms closely
related to each other; there may not have been any one Vorlage.
Merendino (1969: 92-93) considers that the Vorlage was not itself a
literary unity, but that the two editors took what material suited their
purpose from a variety available. This surely underestimates the degree
of correspondence in order and subject matter between the two texts.
However, it is worthwhile estimating, in relation to each of the dif-
ferences between the two texts listed above, whether the formulation
in Leviticus or Deuteronomy is likely to be more original. As I have
just suggested, the concision of the Deuteronomic form is rather more
likely to be the result of the editing of something like Leviticus 11
with its characteristically priestly fulness of expression, than that the
redundancies of Leviticus should be the result of deliberate expansion
of the more concise form. Above, I noted an error in the text of
Deut. 14.7 which could be due to compression. Likewise the consis-
tency of construction in Deuteronomy, with the use of the positive
statement in v. 11, looks like a development from the raw, but logical,
inconsistency found in Leviticus. And I have already argued (above,
§l.c.4) for the originality of seqes in Leviticus; however, a recension
with tame' could have existed alongside it. Finally, the list of clean
beasts seems likely to be a development from the simple statement of
the criteria as in Leviticus. It is hard to think of convincing reasons
for its omission. That given by Elliger, that the author of Leviticus 11
would have noticed the partial contradiction between the list of a mere
ten names and the general formulation, is not even based on fact, if
Hunn's argument is accepted, and if not, is much more likely to have
led to the list's expansion than its omission. Eilberg-Schwartz's sug-
gestion (1990: 256 n. 9), that the list was omitted because it confused
domestic and wild animals contrary to the model of Genesis 1, is
especially unconvincing, since nothing else in the chapter distinguishes
them.
On the other hand, as I have already observed, the permission of the
locusts bears all the hallmarks of a qualifying expansion. And of
course, the law in Deuteronomy owes nothing to the full form of

Leviticus 11 as we now have it, and significantly not to the prohibition
of the teeming things of the ground in vv. 41-42. In this respect the
law remains in its earlier uncomprehensive state, and it would not be
too rash to conclude that the Deuteronomic form of the text is earlier
than the final redaction of Leviticus 11, with which that prohibition is
closely associated.
I conclude that we have in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14 two
distinct developments of a set of toroth approximately corresponding
to what we now find in Lev. 11.2b-14, 16a, 20.
b. The Growth of the Text

As we have gone through the texts, we have noted those elements that
are likely to be secondary developments: the passage on unclean beasts
possessing one of the criteria of cleanness; the twelve new unclean
birds; the permission for the eating of locusts; the addition (after the
section on ritual pollution) of the passage formally prohibiting the
consumption of any 'teeming things that teem on the ground'. Along
with this in Leviticus came the theological and homiletic motivation
of the law in line with priestly theology. On the other hand, in
Deuteronomy the theological motivation was given to it with its in-
corporation into the Deuteronomic context with its 'holy people'
motif. The basic form of the torah would simply have given the cri-
teria for beasts and for water animals, listing eight unclean birds, all
without motivation. Clearly the two texts diverged after the first of
these expansions had occurred, but the addition of the extra birds was
done in both.
4. Conclusion
The initial question of explanation raised by these texts is simply
expressed by Milgrom (1990: 184): 'Which came first, the taboos or
the criteria?' Is it the object of the texts to discover convenient ways
of identifying animals believed on quite other grounds to be unclean,
as has generally been believed (cf. Firmage 1990: 197ff.), or are ani-
mals made unclean by criteria arrived at a priori, as Douglas argues,
and as Milgrom and Firmage also argue while rejecting her account of
the origin of the criteria? These are not in fact mutually exclusive
alternatives, as in effect Milgrom and Firmage acknowledge by setting
the pig apart as an already existing taboo. Criteria that had been
developed in reference to a small group of animals could then have
been applied to all animals.
A thorough answer to this question must await the next chapter, but
our examination of the texts has enabled us to make some initial
observations. Most obviously, the section on the birds offers no crite-
ria at all, and here it is a matter of simple reportage that the 'taboos'
precede the criteria that are found in postbiblical texts. Of course, one
may say, as Firmage does, that the prohibitions in the text are derived
from unstated criteria, but that must be argued on the evidence.
Secondly, we have discovered a number of points where individual
prohibitions or concessions make a bad fit with the stated criteria—for
example, the inaccurate statements about the hyrax, hare and camel,
and the fact that there are more insects that conform to the criterion
in Lev. 11.21 than are actually permitted. In the cases of the camel
and the locusts, at least, it seems safe to conclude that the criterion has
been respectively bent and constructed to fit them. On the other hand,
it seems fairly plain that the double criterion for beasts has been
derived from the characteristics of the common food animals, and is
therefore itself the source of the comprehensive prohibition of all
others, even if some restrictions existed already; moreover, the
equally sweeping prohibitions of all water creatures without fins and
scales, and of all the creeping things of the ground, must be derived
from the general formulations of the text, even if it was not in fact
customary to eat any such creatures.
It seems that two different cultural currents merge in our texts:
(1) a formal, organizing thrust, whether expressed in classification
and systematization and the development of the criteria, or in theology
and exhortation, and (2) common dietary customs that at several
points appear to be independent of the formal aspect. The system is
imperfect, as with the camel, or absent, as in the case of the birds,
because even if it can itself create custom, it is often only in a position
to shape it. The theology on the other hand appears to take for granted
a division in the cosmos between the clean and the unclean, and uses it
to model the oppositions that define its own world, above all that
between the holy people and the nations. It is clear that a job of
explanation remains to be done, both in respect of the general criteria
and in respect of the custom and practice and possible individual taboos
that may have determined the criteria and affected their operation.
After attempting this explanatory task, I shall eventually return to the

descriptive work of showing how these diverse formative currents, in
their cultural setting, come together to create the texts that now lie
before us.
Chapter 3
A REVIEW OF EXPLANATIONS
The theories that have been offered to explain the forbidden animals
are many and various. Chan (1985) offers a brief survey and evalua-
tion, as do Kornfeld (1965) and Levine (1989: 243-48). In the first
part of the chapter I deal with the main kinds of theory that have been
widespread both among earlier interpreters and today, classifying
them into four main types. In the second part I deal in greater detail
with the proposals of a number of individual thinkers of recent times.
The theories in §1 are developed with reference to the biblical (and
other Jewish) prohibitions alone. Most of them are in essence very
ancient, arising from the desire for intellectual explanation of the
divine commands among Jewish and Christian thinkers. Since they
display no awareness that other peoples have dietary restrictions, or at
least no reflection on what this might mean for the interpretation of
the biblical ones, they necessarily depend on a priori ideas of the prin-
ciple that might be involved. Most of the ideas in §2, on the other
hand, do not arise from reflection on the biblical restrictions alone;
each represents a general understanding of human culture based on the
study of societies either throughout the world or especially in Israel's
neighbourhood in space and time, usually including comparison with
other systems of dietary restriction. The first two writers reviewed,
Robertson Smith and FJ. Simoons, do not in fact give any detailed
explanation of the Old Testament prohibitions, but their work suggests
at least partial explanations that may be of importance. The last,
Firmage, does not use a comparative method, but is placed at that
point as offering the most significant response to Douglas among Old
Testament scholars.
3. A Review of Explanations 69
1. Traditional Theories
Four entirely different principles are invoked in these long-held and
widespread theories, though sometimes more than one of them are
combined in one explanation: the moral-symbolic, the cultic, the aes-
thetic and the hygienic. The hygienic may be dealt with first and laid
to rest, since unlike the others its basis is strictly materialist. It may be
considered a typical product of a certain phase of modern thought,
and is probably most commonly to be met with among lay people who
have thought about the topic, as well as having the support of so
distinguished a scholar as Albright (1968: 154-55). Yet in other forms
it is as old as Maimonides and Nahmanides, though they did not rely
upon it exclusively.
a. Hygienic Theories
Maimonides maintains
that the food which is forbidden by the Law is unwholesome. There is
nothing among the forbidden kinds of food whose injurious character is
doubted, except pork and fat. But also in these cases the doubt is not
justified. For pork contains more moisture than necessary [for human
food], and too much of superfluous matter.. .The fat of the intestines
makes us full, interrupts our digestion, and produces cold and thick blood
(Guide for the Perplexed, 3.48 [p. 370]).
It is true that that the main reason he alleges for the forbidding of
pork is slightly different (see below, §l.b). But similarly, and with
more explicit reliance on medieval medical theory, Nahmanides tells
us that fish without fins and scales 'always dwell in the lower turbid
waters...they are creatures of cold fluid, which cleaves to them and is
therefore more easily able to cause death', that the blood of birds of
prey 'is dark and thick, which gives rise to that bitter [fluid in the
body] which is mostly black and tends to make the heart cruel', and
that the unfit animals 'harm the procreative organs, so that the seed
which gathers from their moisture is cold and extra-moist and will not
beget at all, or not in the best and proper way' (Leviticus, on Chapter
11 [pp.136, 140-41]).
Just as Nahmanides relies on the theory of the humours, so modern
theorists have relied on microbiology, and particularly on the discov-
ery, made in the mid-nineteenth century (Simoons 1961: 39), that pigs
frequently harbour in their muscles the cysts of the organism
Trichinella spiralis, which may, if not killed by thorough cooking,

invade human muscle and cause the frequently fatal disease trichinosis.
This fact of course only relates to swine's flesh and not to the many
other forbidden species, a fact that does not seem to deter those who
advance it as an explanation of the prohibition. A Viennese doctor
named Macht, however, was more ambitious, and tested the flesh of a
wide range of animals mentioned in the two relevant texts for a cer-
tain kind of toxicity measured by the reaction of plants to an extract
of the muscle. He reported that the 'clean' animals were all less phyto-
toxic than the 'unclean', yet admits himself that no decisive conclusion
could be derived from this result in relation to human consumption
(Macht 1953).
The obvious reply to this kind of theory is that the ancient Israelites
could not possibly have known of the microbiological dangers of
undercooked pork, seeing that even modem medicine took some time
to become convinced of them (Simoons, 1961: 39), let alone of the
more hypothetical qualities alleged by Macht. There are two categories
of people whom this refutation would not necessarily convince: the
biblical fundamentalist, for whom the true author of Scripture is God,
who is omniscient, and the Harrisian cultural materialist (though Harris
himself rejects the theory), who sees human societies as acquiring
adaptive behaviour by an unconscious process similar (it seems) to
Darwinian natural selection. Would it have been possible for people to
have arrived at the conclusion of the undesirability of particular meats
by observation of the physical effects? Certainly it is possible, and it
might be argued, as Roger Tomes has pointed out to me, that the rule
of Lev. 19.5-8 arises from just such an observation. However, on the
one hand, as Simoons (and Harris) point out, all food animals, includ-
ing those accounted clean in the Bible, have their parasites, some of
which are dangerous to human consumers. Anthrax is a more danger-
ous disease than trichinosis. And on the other hand, all diseases of this
kind, whether from pork or any other meat, can be avoided by
thorough cooking.1 Hence the idea carries no explanatory power, and
ought to be laid to rest.
1. Spongiform encephalopathy is said to be an exception, but it is not yet even

clear whether it is in normal circumstances transmissible to human beings.
b. Aesthetic Theories
'The principal reason', according to Maimonides,
why the Law forbids swine's flesh is to be found in the circumstance that
its habits and food are very dirty and loathsome... If it were allowed to eat
swine's flesh, the streets and houses would be more dirty than any
cesspool, as may be seen at present in the country of the Franks (Guide
for the Perplexed, 3.48 [p. 370])
(i.e. in Christian Europe). This is not a hygienic argument, as it might
be from the pen of a modem writer: it is supported by the principle
that 'the Law enjoins the removal of the sight of loathsome objects'.
Certainly modern writers, including critical ones, have also suggested
that the aesthetically unclean habits of such animals as the pig, the dog
or the mouse may have been a factor in their prohibition, though I
know of none who has used it as the main explanation. Where this is
supported by an understanding that symbolic significance is seen in
such habits (as in Goodman [1986: 50]), we should not speak of an
aesthetic theory as such. Nevertheless, even in such cases, one should
heed the observation of Chan (1985: 98), who speaks as an East Asian
surveying a largely Western literature, that
the modern Western conception of aesthetic cannot be generalized to all
cultures for all ages. What is loathsome for the modern European can be a
thing of beauty in other cultures.
However, it is possible to guard against such cultural subjectivity. We
are not altogether without evidence for what ancient Israelites found
repulsive, as my discussion of Ezekiel 4 above (Chapter 1, §2) should
suggest; and as I suggested in Chapter 1, §3, the aesthetic attitudes of a
mediaeval Jew are not irrelevant to the interpretation of the law that
he observed. But such evidence is quite inadequate to suggest why
Jews would not eat the flesh of the donkeys who worked for them
every day, or why they found the eating of molluscs repulsive. It
cannot support a comprehensive theory on its own, though it may be
legitimately used as one element in such a theory. But even if we
assert, for example, that Israelites found pigs repulsive because they
ate excrement, which is itself repulsive, we are bound to invite the
question, 'why so?' It is notorious that goats will eat anything,
including carrion and excrement; yet this feature fails to result in
their prohibition along with pigs. One might put it that so far from
pigs being unclean because they eat excrement, they eat excrement
because they are unclean. The variation of aesthetic responses from
culture to culture, to which Chan draws our attention, demands
explanation in terms of more fundamental features of each individual
culture. Hence we are inevitably driven towards theories of a more
critical character.
c. Cultic Theories
Among modern Old Testament scholars it is most common to find
theories that see the forbidden animals to be in some way opposed to
the requirements of the cult of Yahweh, either because they were
important in pagan, particularly Canaanite, cults (so, e.g., Noth), or
because they were associated with the sphere of death (so, e.g.,
Kornfeld 1965; 1983: 44). But these too have their antecedents in more
ancient scholarship. Origen, for example, asserts that Moses 'declared
all those animals to be unclean that were considered by the Egyptians
and others to be oracular (mantikd), and in general those that were not
so to be clean', with the object of excluding from Israel's use those
animals associated with demons (Contra Celswn 4.93 [PG, XI, 1171]).
The inadequacy of theories of this type is easily demonstrated, though
Kornfeld's approach is rather better supported than Noth's. Indeed,
Kornfeld himself (1965:135-36; 1983: 44) most effectively demolishes
Noth's. Although the associations of the pig (see Chapter 4, §3.d), the
hare (see Oesterley 1904) or the camel may give some colour to Noth's
theory, it is precisely the clean animals that are most frequently sacred
to strange gods—the cow to Hathor, the ram to Amon, the bull to Baal,
and even the fish to Atargatis (perhaps originally to Asherah [Oden
1977: 55ff., 88ff.]); Kornfeld could have added the dove to Astarte
(Philo in Eusebius, Praep. Ev. 8.14.64). So far as sacrificial animals
are concerned, as has frequently been pointed out (Albright 1968: 154;
Douglas 1966: 48-49; Wenham 1979: 167), and as I shall discuss in
detail in Chapter 4, the normal practice of all peoples in the area was
the same as the Israelites': the common sacrificial animals were cattle,
sheep and goats. No basis exists here for the assertion that the animals
prohibited were those associated with the idolatrous rites of the
heathen; and, once again, even though the associations of a limited
number of the unclean species may be of significance, it is impossible
to make the theory stretch to cover the dozens of forbidden beasts or
the twenty forbidden birds, or all the teeming things.
However, this is not quite all that could be said. Roland de Vaux, in
an important article on 'The Sacrifice of Pigs in Palestine and in the
Ancient Near East' (1972; cf. Stendebach 1974), has shown that though
the pig was not used in normal everyday sacrifices among the peoples
of the region, nor normally eaten,1 it was used in certain mystical,
apotropaic or annual rites, such as those referred to in Isaiah 65-66.
(I go into this in greater detail in Chapter 4, §3.d). Therefore, he
concludes, though it was not the use of the animal in Canaanite rites as
such that determined its character as unclean, its use in a type of rite
particularly repugnant to Yahwism may have done so. Obviously this
observation on a single species is still open to the objection that it is
unable to explain the system of prohibitions as a whole. But in my
mind it gave rise to the reflection that was the original nucleus of this
study: was it the pig's use in mystic rites that made it unclean, or was
it rather used in mystic rites because (to 'Canaanites' as well as
'Israelites'2) it was unclean? A similar reflection is aroused by Ezekiel's
vision of the 'room of pictures' (Ezek. 8.7-13). Is this simultaneous
worship of a whole mass of animals3 apparently described collectively
as 'abominable' (seqes, v. 10) really a living traditional cult taken over
by the 'elders of the house of Israel', a cult whose existence justified
the prohibition as unclean of the animals involved? or is Ezekiel rather
portraying indulgence in the forbidden for its own sake?4 or, perhaps
better, the deliberate exaggeration of some probably Egyptian cult,5
or conflation of several such, in which the deity was represented by an
animal? The first alternative seems to me to be improbable—there are
no known parallels; to accept the second or third implies, I think, that
the use of the term seqes is independent of the existence of such a cult.
I have said that the view that the unclean animals are associated with
the realm of death can be given rather greater support than the view
that they are associated with pagan cults. However, to make it suffici-
ently extensive, Kornfeld is compelled to adopt a very broad definition
1. This latter judgment must be qualified in the light of further archaeological

evidence; see Chapter 4, §2.b.2.
2. Inverted commas have been used because the assumption of an ethnic
distinction is not always unproblematic (see further at §2.e.3).
3. tan nnna man (see Zimmerli 1979: 219) is not represented in the LXX text,
and is probably a gloss (so Zimmerli). But since pptf invariably refers to animals,
there can be no doubt that that is what is intended.
4. Zimmerli (1979: 241) considers that the images may not have been intended
originally as objects of worship. If this is true, it would conform with this alternative.
5. Schroer (1987: 7 Iff.) advances several points in support of the view that an
Egyptian origin is intended.
of what may associate an animal with the realm of death: predatory

habits; living underground (which makes it 'chthonic'); living in deso-
late places or ruins, or in the wilderness; or mythical association with
demons. By such tactical definitions, it proves possible in the end to
drag in most of the unclean animals by hook or by crook. But what is
the value of the exercise if every extension of the principle is accom-
plished at the cost of its dilution? The 'sphere of death' has become a
hold-all into which any species whatever, if necessary, can be stuffed.
This is not to deny that features such as predation or underground life
may be factors in the perception of creatures as unclean; but it is
unconvincing to make them aspects of a single all-embracing principle.
Nor do I wish to deny, turning from individual interpretations to
the principle in general, that cultic considerations must play a signifi-
cant part in the interpretation of the system. But as these attempts
illustrate, to seize on a single narrow point not explicit in the text and
try to balance the whole system on it is bound to fail. Any successful
interpretation must be based on a much broader range of considera-
tions and must be far more closely tied to the text.
d. Moral-Symbolic Theories
It would naturally be expected, and is in fact the case, that the most
widespread type of theory among practising Jewish interpreters (but
not only them) is that which reveals the underlying meaning of the
ritual commands as ethical. For the Law is 'holy and just and good'. It
was given by God whose fundamental nature is moral, and even if it
sometimes conceals its moral meaning from the idle inquirer, it is to
be taken for granted that the ultimate significance of every command
is moral.
Every one of the six hundred and thirteen precepts serves to inculcate some
truth, to remove some erroneous opinion, to establish proper relations in
society, to diminish evil, to train in good manners, or to warn against bad
habits (Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed, 3.31 [p. 322]).
Or, as L.E. Goodman expresses it in our own day:

Since these laws are addressed to Israelites, I take it as given that their
general intension [sic] is the articulation of a cultural ethos, that they are
educational in Plato's sense, of seeking to promote a specific type of
human character through establishment of a certain tone or quality in
human behavior and relations (1986: 17).
In the case of the dietary laws, it would be expected that such an

intention could be achieved in detail only through their associations

and implications—through a process of symbolization, in other words;
that is why I have termed this category of explanations the 'moral-
symbolic'.
However, it is possible to assert a direct, non-symbolic moral inten-
tion in the dietary laws taken in general. Maimonides does this:
The object of all these laws is to restrain the growth of desire, the indul-
gence in seeking that which is pleasant, and the disposition to consider the
appetite for eating and drinking as the end [of humanity's existence]
(Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed, 3.35 [p. 330]).
But as we have seen, Maimonides does not attempt to demonstrate a

specifically moral intention in every one of the dietary precepts. In his
Code (Mishneh Torah) he classifies the dietary precepts along with
those of forbidden sexual unions in Book 5, Qedusa or 'Holiness',
because 'in these two regards God sanctified us and separated us from
the nations';1 and Maimonides' conception of holiness is essentially
ethical: 'restraint, withdrawal, separation, moderation in action, thought
and feeling' (Twersky 1980: 287). Philo, whose view of the general
purpose of the dietary laws is very similar (Spec. Leg. 4.95ff.), of
course does so, by various and by no means always allegorical methods.
Pork and scaleless water-creatures he alleges to be the most delicious
of all flesh meats—Moses forbad these in order to restrain gluttony
(Spec. Leg. 4.100-101). Wild beasts that eat human flesh are forbidden
because the indulgence of the passion of vengeance may turn human
beings themselves into beasts; and by extension all other carnivores
are also forbidden (Spec. Leg. 4.103-104). It is only after these points
have been established that he goes on to allegorize the criteria for
cleanness, always in a moral sense.
Modern exponents of this approach add little that is radically new to
it. S.R. Hirsch's commentary on Leviticus (1954 [original 1867-78]),
however, is notable for his insistence on the concrete reality of the
turn 'a caused by the ingestion of unclean food (in contrast, he treats
contact uncleanness as purely symbolic). Yet its significance is purely
moral. The fundamental condition of becoming holy 'is the necessity
for keeping our material body in that state of receptive purity which
1. The connection of these two themes goes back to the Holiness Code itself
(Lev. 20.24ff.), though not necessarily with quite the same emphasis; cf. Chapter 6,
§2.d.
makes it the ready instrument by which we can carry out the dictates
of the higher and nobler part of our being' (p. 306). In explaining
why it is just the food permitted by the Law that secures this, he takes
advantage of the double sense of behema: 'beasts' in general, or
'domestic beasts'. A food animal that is suitable to secure holiness
'must have the nature of a behemd' (p. 268), i.e. it must be one which
yields to man; whereas eating anything that is described as seqes, a
word that only otherwise occurs in reference to idolatry, 'must be in
sharpest contrary opposition to that condition of spiritual mentality
which should form the fundamental character of our being' (p. 276).
Milgrom (1963; 1990; 1991: 704-42) and Goodman (1986) stand
very much in the tradition of Philo and Maimonides with their con-
viction that the purpose of the dietary laws in general is to discipline
the appetite and to prevent human beings becoming dehumanized by
the violence involved in the killing of meat. Both draw attention to the
connection set up between forbidden food, illicit sex and apostasy in
Leviticus 20 and Ep. Arist. 151-52 (specifically Milgrom [1990: 182-
83; 1991: 725]; on this important Jewish theme see further Chapter 6,
§2.d; Chapter 7, §2). As for the particular prohibitions, Milgrom
considers (1990: 189; with Firmage) that they arise in part out of the
use of the recognized domestic food animals as the model of cleanness,
and he also emphasizes their general effect of vastly reducing the
number of species allowed for food. The object of this, as of the pro-
hibition of blood, is to inculcate reverence for life. And this is the
ethical meaning to be found in the demand for holiness that is expli-
citly offered as the reason for the rules in Lev. 11.44-45 and 20.24-6.
Holiness in the Old Testament means imitatio del (p. 188) and there-
fore implies a moral demand; reverence for life is the specific demand
of this law of holiness.
Goodman, on the other hand, finds moral danger in the character
and associations of the forbidden species as seen in the Bible itself
(many of them predators or scavengers), a danger of 'emotive partici-
pation in the violence or verminous pestilence of the victim through
its violation and gustatory enjoyment', involving a perversion of
natural repulsion into appetite, which pagan religions 'may elevate to
the status of an encounter with deity' (p. 51).
There is, I believe, good reason to accept that in their present con-
text in the Torah there is indeed a moral purpose in the dietary laws.
In Deuteronomy we have seen the key role played by the expression
to'ebd and its essentially ethical meaning: 'what self-respecting people

do not touch'. In P there is weightier evidence, to which Milgrom
draws attention: 'the biblical assumption that man was originally a
vegetarian' (1967: 289; cf. Gen. 1.29-30; 9.3, and further Chapter 6,
§2.e). Between the Utopian vegetarianism of the original creation inten-
tion (there is nothing to suggest that the command was actually obeyed)
and the unrestrained violence of the Flood period, the restricted diet
laid down for Israel in the Torah can be seen as a mediating line
accepting the human craving for flesh but restraining it sufficiently to
enable God to dwell in the midst of his people. If it is legitimate to
interpret the laws in this context, the motive of holiness for Israel that
is so much stressed in both documents can be given the moral aspect
that it possesses so frequently elsewhere. The people dedicated to
Yahweh must be a people whose appetite is disciplined and whose
violence tamed, so that they are fit for the tabernacling of Yahweh's
glory (or his name) among them.
But what these interpreters have entirely failed to show in any con-
vincing way is that this moral purpose is directly visible in the par-
ticularities of the law of unclean flesh. Both Firmage (1990: 195 n. 24)
and Wright (1990) point out the obvious weaknesses of Milgrom's pro-
posal: (1) that the mere restriction of species without any restriction
on the quantity eaten does not clearly teach restraint;1 and (2) that the
designation of the forbidden species as 'unclean', 'abhorrent',
'abominable' is not the most obvious way of teaching reverence for
life. Firmage suggests that if Milgrom were right, one would have
expected the forbidden creatures rather to have been designated as
holy, i.e. reserved for God.2 In fact, it is clear that holiness is the
character expected of Israel in its obedience to this law, and it is
achieved by not ingesting what is unclean. The structure of the law is
all against Milgrom's theory. As for the detail of the prohibitions, the
derivation from the characteristics of the recognized food animals is
1. It is clearly not enough to reply, as Milgrom does (1991: 735), that the average
Israelite could not afford to eat meat often; for in that case the average Israelite did
not need the lesson taught by the law, but the rich did!
2. The question is sharpened by the discussion in Milgrom's commentary on
Leviticus, in which he offers the view (1991: 733) that in general the unclean repre-
sents the forces of death as against the forces of life represented by the holy. This
idea is placed alongside that of reverence for life without any apparent consciousness
of the incongruity.
not a complete explanation, for it does not explain why precisely these
characteristics should have been chosen. I shall be dealing with this
proposal, which is also Firmage's, in more detail in §2.e.
Goodman comes nearer to explaining the details, yet he can impart
only a spurious impression of conviction to his account by studiously
ignoring the herbivorous innocence of the hyrax, hare and camel, and
the notorious omnivorousness of the 'clean' goat. Moreover, there is a
large element of the cultural subjectivity warned against by Chan in
his assumption of a natural repulsion for scavengers, slime or creeping
things. If there is, as I have suggested, a moral purpose in the texts, it
must be one that is drawn out of the individual prohibitions rather than
being their source, and we must look elsewhere for their explanation.
2. Comparative Theories
The majority of social anthropologists in recent years have tended to
aim at offering emic accounts of cultural features, in particular
explaining a feature like dietary restrictions as a symbolic system, or
rather as a particular expression of the symbolic system formed by the
entire culture of a people.
A symbolic system consists... of rules of behaviour, actions and expecta-
tions which constitute society itself. The rules which generate and sustain
society allow meanings to be realised which otherwise would be
undefined and ungraspable (so Mary Douglas [1973b: 138]).
While this kind of understanding, in which the observer seeks for the
systematic expression of meaning in a culture and all its features, is
widespread, it is Douglas especially who is associated with its applica-
tion to the dietary laws of the Old Testament.
But as John Rogerson has pointed out (1986: 90ff.), the dominance
of the emic approach is of fairly recent origin. A scholar like
Robertson Smith, in the late nineteenth century, took as his aim,
almost without argument, to explain the religion of Israel historically,
as a development from an earlier and more primitive set of practices
and beliefs. In such an explanation the beliefs of the Israelites them-
selves could play but a small part, for in religion practice was prior to
belief: myths grew up to explain rites, were subject to frequent
change, and could scarcely be said to embody meaning; rites were
more stable, and persisted long after their original basis, or meaning,
had vanished into the mists of time (W.R. Smith 1894: 16ff.). And of
course this primarily historical understanding of the task of cultural
explanation was shared by nineteenth-century scholarship in general.
In the terms of the jargon, it is certainly an 'etic' understanding: it
aims to produce 'scientifically productive theories' about the develop-
ment of culture, not accounts that natives might recognize as express-
ing the meaning of their beliefs and rites.
More recently, as Rogerson again points out, strong minority voices
have been heard within the community of anthropological scholarship
urging a return to a supposedly more objective understanding of cul-
ture on the basis of its material infrastructure: that is to say, its modes
of production and reproduction. Some of these voices are of course
Marxist; others, among whom Marvin Harris is clearly the leader,
label themselves 'cultural materialists'. To explain: Harris acknowl-
edges a debt to Marxism in that he finds that the material means of
subsistence are
the foundation upon which state institutions, the legal concepts, the art
and even the religious ideas of the people concerned have evolved, and in
the light of which these things must therefore be explained instead of vice
versa... (Engels, quoted by Harris 1979: 41-42).
Nonetheless, on the epistemological side he rejects Marxist dialectics
as too subjective, in favour of Hume's empiricism. A more concrete
distinction between them is that Harris attributes motivating power
solely to the ecological and demographic aspects of human society,
whereas Marxists treat society as an economic system, in which
production and social relationships are inseparably bound together. By
materialists, whether Marxist or Harrisian, the dominant schools in
Anglo-Saxon and French anthropology are condemned as 'idealist',
blowing up a balloon of ideas which are pretended to control the
material arrangements of society from which in reality they emerged
as relatively unimportant by-products.1
I do not believe it necessary to take sides in this dispute. I have
already suggested that historical, material and symbolic considerations
must all be taken into account, and I should like to add here that the
contribution of cultural geography, as exemplified by Frederick
Simoons (1961), should not be ignored. 'Idealist' or 'structuralist'
anthropology tends to view each culture as a self-contained symbolic
1. For a discussion of the dispute (in relation to Marxist rather than cultural
materialism), see Sahlins 1976.
system, drawing external analogies with similar systems; the material-

ist points to its connection with the material infrastructure of society;
the historian attempts to explain its features as the development of an
earlier state of affairs; but the cultural geographer shows how cultures
in geographical contiguity tend to adopt similar features.
a. Robertson Smith
It is no doubt scarcely possible in these days to take seriously as a con-
tribution to religious history Smith's basic thesis, that the sacrificial
and dietary usages of Semitic culture originated in a totemistic system
in which god, victim and worshippers belonged together as fellow-
members of a clan. It depends more upon audacious speculation than
upon solid evidence. Smith makes no direct and coherent statement in
The Religion of the Semites on how the food restrictions of Israelite
culture emerged, but from his scattered observations on the subject
(cf. 1894: 153, 289-96, 446-49, and other places) it is clear that he
believed that in origin there was no distinction between clean and
unclean animals. All alike were subject to stringent taboos; to kill and
eat them was an act fraught with danger, which could only be evaded
in the religious act of sacrifice, when they and the worshippers were
consecrated to the god whose family they were. It is still the case in
the rule of Lev. 17.3-4 that slaughter of domestic animals is not per-
mitted apart from sacrifice; and the fact that examples of the sacrifice
of ordinarily unclean animals can be found in Semitic paganism
(pp. 290-94) shows that they too were sacred to their own respective
deities. But just as the holy and the unclean, both originating in the
fear of demonic powers, become distinguished as the influence respec-
tively of friendly gods and unknown hostile powers (p. 154), so in
Israelite monotheism (one must assume) the unclean animals became
absolutely prohibited because they are associated with strange gods.
Apart from its shaky foundation, there are loose ends in this account
that are surely fatal to it. Most obviously, Smith must (with good
reason, be it said—see my next chapter) assume that the distinction of
clean (i.e. ordinarily sacrificed and eaten) and unclean (extraordinarily
sacrificed and eaten) animals was the same among Semitic pagans as in
Israel; but what basis for this distinction existed in that religious
system remains unclear. Even more seriously, the assertion of the
original identity of the holy and the unclean, as Douglas points out
(1966: 7ff.), overlooks their fundamentally different social meaning.
Nevertheless, there are great virtues in Smith's approach which we
should be foolish to abandon simply because synchronic approaches
happen to be more fashionable. Chief among these is the use of every
scrap of evidence to build up a picture of the world out of which, he
believed, the religion of Israel grew. True, much of the evidence that
he used was comparative evidence that was not truly comparable; and
he was doubtless mistaken in his belief that ancient Arab paganism
gave an accurate impression of the primitive religion of Israel's ances-
tors. But it behoves us, I believe, not to reject his entire method, but
to see if we can do better with our better sources of evidence for the
history of Israel's culture, perhaps avoiding his mistakes. Also, some
of his actual results were surely correct, for example, that the con-
nection between the table and the altar was closer in early Israel than
in post-Deuteronomic times. Just how close—for example, whether
secular slaughter existed at all, and whether game as well as domestic
animals were sacrificed—is a matter for further discussion (see Chapter
4, §§3.b, 3.c; and Chapter 6, §l.d). But it is unlikely that we can solve
our problem without reference to the law and custom of sacrifice.
b. FJ. Simoons
Simoons's book, Eat not This Flesh: Food Avoidances in the Old
World (1961), is unique; no other, so far as I know, has its object of
surveying food avoidances, and nothing but food avoidances, over a
large area of the world in the past and the present. It has certain self-
imposed limitations: the title indicates that it omits the Americas; it is
organized according to particular animals rather than according to
cultures or geographical areas, and it deals only with the commoner
domestic species, so that hunter-gatherer peoples escape its net alto-
gether, and the often very elaborate restrictions on game by settled
peoples are also not dealt with. But within these limitations it is highly
informative; and Simoons aims not only to collect information but
also to attempt to explain the phenomena he discovers.
The limitation to domestic animals means that only four of the
'unclean' animals of our texts are dealt with: the pig, dog, horse and
camel (there is no chapter on the ass, perhaps because it is almost uni-
versally avoided as food). The pig is the most important of these, of
course. Simoons sets out the evidence which I shall give in a more up-
to-date form in my next chapter to show that pigs, both wild and
domestic, were common food animals in the Middle East in the
Neolithic, but decline in importance fairly rapidly thereafter, until in

late antiquity we find the explicit avoidance of pork very widespread;
thereafter the prohibition is adopted by Islam and spread to the entire
region, apart from the Christians and Druzes, who seem to eat pork
deliberately in order to signal their difference from Islam. But the
notable difference between this region on the one hand, and Europe
and East Asia and Melanesia on the other, where the keeping and
eating of pigs is almost universal, long antedates the rise of Islam, and
is not confined to particular peoples such as the Jews.
Simoons suggests that the origin of the prejudice against pig meat
may have lain with the pastoral peoples of the semi-arid areas, who
were not only widespread but politically influential. The pig is not
suited to the pastoral way of life; it requires shade and moisture, and
is not easy to drive over long distances; further, pastoralists fre-
quently despise settled peoples. They could have 'developed contempt
for the pig as an animal alien to their way of life and symbolic of the
despised sedentary folk' (1961: 41). This is actually the case with the
Mongols, who identify the pig with the Chinese. Where pastoralists
gained power over settled peoples, this sort of prejudice would grad-
ually have spread to the latter, probably 'some time after 1400 BC, at
a time associated with a notable rise in the strength of the pastoral
groups living on the fringes of the great civilizations' (p. 42). By
contrast, in the areas where no prejudice against pork-eating exists,
pastoralists have had little influence.
Simoons also invokes the pastoralists to explain the equally wide-
spread avoidance of dog meat; their 'strong functional intimacy' with
dogs would have led them to avoid using them as food, just as people
who use the ass as a pack and draught animal rarely eat its flesh.
However, the literature generally views the dog in a very negative
light (see Chapter 5, §l.b), which scarcely seems compatible with a
sense of intimacy.
The camel is a different problem again. At the present day the
avoidance of camel flesh is a badge of non-Muslim identity throughout
the Middle East; not only Jews, but Christians, Parsees, Mandaeans
and Nosairis all avoid it. Simoons sees clearly, however, that the
avoidance is older than Islam, but has no suggestion to make as to its
origin. He says nothing about the horse relevant to Judaism, but there
is no problem here; few private persons owned horses in ancient
Israel, and the question of eating their flesh could scarcely have arisen.
There is some plausibility in Simoons's case about the pig; but he
makes the fundamental error of identifying pastoralism with nomadism.
It is now well recognized that no hard and fast line can be drawn
between nomad pastoralists and settled agriculturalists; pastoralism is
engaged in by many settled farmers either exclusively or in addition
to other activities, as one of the best means of exploiting the resources
of a relatively arid terrain, and there are also semi-nomads who spend
part of the year following their flocks and part in agriculture. In fact,
his case would probably be strengthened by recognizing this. A high
proportion of the population of the ancient Near East was engaged in
a type of husbandry that would leave little room for pigs, on land that
was arid and unforested and so not very suitable for them in any case.
If there were those among them who positively despised the pig as
typical of farming peoples in forest areas, the prejudice could easily
have spread. (I should not, by the way, leave the impression that I
think the wooded and unwooded areas of the Near East are entirely
dispensations of nature; the relation between deforestation and the
decline of the pig will be occupying us in our next section.)
One thing Simoons has made abundantly clear, whether his explana-
tion be accepted or not, is the pronounced regional character of food
avoidances, even before the rise of the great world religions, which
has emphasized this still further. It is not reasonable in the light of his
evidence to attempt to explain such things solely by looking at a culture
such as Israel's in isolation, and making purely comparative links with
other cultures. It may be true, as Douglas maintains, that only the
patterning of Israel's own culture will explain the whole system of
Israel's food avoidances, that it explains nothing to appeal to external
influences which Israel may arbitrarily accept or react against. But
when we are speaking of general regional tendencies, we are not really
dealing with external influences, and such regional tendencies are
among the raw materials of the ultimately distinctive pattern of culture
that we find in the Old Testament. This does not mean that the compa-
rative method (in the narrow sense) is to be avoided. Eilberg-Schwartz
(1990: 4ff.) has rightly insisted on its importance, and I shall be using
it in Chapter 5. But it needs to be complemented by regional studies.
c. Marvin Harris
1. Cultural Materialism. Harris, besides his passionate advocacy of a
particular type of anthropological theory, has always had an interest
in dietary customs, which he has discussed in his lively and frequently

satirical style, and with a rich vein of indignant and compassionate
humanity, in a whole series of highly readable publications. These
include Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches and Cannibals and Kings (1978);
but his later book, Good to Eat (1986) is, obviously, devoted entirely
to the subject, and goes some way to answering his critics, though one
has to turn to his more theoretical Cultural Materialism (1979) for
detailed arguments against Douglas and other symbolists. The subject
is of course ideally suited as a battleground between their respective
approaches:
The theory that foods are selected primarily because they are good to think
rather than because they are good to eat... mocks the hungry living and
dead by transforming the struggle for subsistence into a game of mental
imagery. The idea that cooking is primarily a language is food for thought
only among those who have never had to worry about having enough to
eat (Harris 1979: 189).1
For Harris, then, the selection and rejection of foods are aspects
strictly of the struggle for subsistence; religious prohibitions are simply
an effective means of enforcement of that which is dictated by econo-
mic necessity, and the variations between different societies primarily
reflect differences in their ecological settings, and especially the
balance of costs and benefits in the provision of animal protein. So the
Aztec elite sacrificed and ate their prisoners of war because the lack of
other suitable animal protein outweighed the advantages of stopping a
practice widespread among tribal peoples (1986: 232-33). Cattle are
sacred in India because in the overpopulated, intensively farmed Ganges
valley, subject to severe droughts very often, they are essential as
draught animals to the maintenance of agriculture and too costly in
resources to use as meat: To this day, monsoon farmers who yield to
temptation and slaughter their cattle seal their doom. They can never
plow again even when the rains fall' (1978: 147). In India the draught
animal must also act as a scavenger, but in China, with much more
grazing land, the draught animals could be put to graze while families
kept pigs fed on refuse to use as meat (1978: 150-51).
1. Regrettably, one has to add that Harris's writing is distinguished also by fre-
quent carelessness: in Good to Eat we have to endure the 'Garadine' swine, a Middle
Eastern Bronze Age beginning in 2000 BC, and the assertion that the Lord of the
ancient Israelites forbade his people 'even to touch a pig alive or dead' (followed by
the quotation of Lev. 11.1, 24!) (Harris 1986: 67).
2. Cultural Materialism and Leviticus. What then of Israel? For many

purposes Harris treats it as simply part of the wider region of the
Near East.1 But he begins in Good to Eat with the text of Leviticus 11,
and notes that it says nothing of dirt, hygiene or the eating of excre-
ment, but rather requires that the animal that is 'good to eat' must have
cloven hooves and chew the cud. He argues, against Mary Douglas and
others, that this formula is 'the outcome of the way the Israelites used
domestic animals', and not the converse. Leaving the requirement of
cloven hooves aside for the moment, he has no difficulty in showing
(pp. 72ff.) that ruminants are precisely those animals that are most
suited to the production of meat (and milk) in the conditions generally
prevailing in the Near East. They can digest grass and other plant
foods that cannot be absorbed directly by human beings because of
their high content of cellulose, and convert them into meat, and hence
make it possible to use the vast areas of grasslands that would other-
wise be of very little use. Thus the Israelites raised cattle, sheep and
goats, and did not raise pigs. But this is not only because pigs, like
human beings, cannot efficiently digest cellulose, and are therefore in
direct competition with them for food, but also because they are ill-
suited to the climate and ecology of the Near East.
The pig is naturally a creature of forests and riverbanks; in order to
maintain its body temperature in a hot climate it requires shade and
moisture, because it cannot sweat; and it lives naturally on roots and
tubers and fruits. But in early Israel (as over a longer timespan in the
Near East as a whole), its natural woodland habitat was rapidly cut
down and replaced by dry farmland. Pig-raising could only be achieved
at the cost of grain to supplement the pig's feed, making it a direct
competitor of human beings, and of the provision of artificial shade
and moisture (if indeed the latter could be provided at all in summer
in places where the only source of water was rain-filled cisterns—a
point not touched on by Harris).2 It could still be raised as a meat
source by an enterprising individual, but only at high cost to the
1. He rather misstates the position in Egypt and Mesopotamia, asserting the

development of taboos on the eating of pork in the course of time: 1978:135ff.; 1986:
83-84. For this there is no clear evidence before late antiquity. But see further
Chapter 4, §3.b.4, Chapter 5, §l.b.
2. But see Finkelstein 1988, whose survey of sites in the hill-country of
Ephraim includes in each case the distance of the nearest water source; few are at any
great distance.
community. As Carleton S. Coon put it, who anticipated Harris's
argument by some twenty years:
Any man who [keeps pigs] now will be making a show of his wealth; he
will be disturbing the equilibrium of the group among whom he lives and
preventing an equable distribution of foodstuffs. The pig must go. It went
(Coon 1951: 346).
Even if it is true, as Harris acknowledges, that some marginal areas
remained where the raising of swine continued to have low costs, that
would not in his opinion contradict the ecological basis of the taboo.
If there had not been some minimum possibility of raising pigs, there would
have been no reason to taboo the practice... religions gain strength when
they help people make decisions which are in accord with pre-existing
useful practices, but which are not so completely self-evident as to
preclude doubts or temptations (Harris 1986: 77).
Earlier (1978: 131ff., with a reference to Ross 1976) he had enunciated
the general principle that supernatural sanctions are most likely to be
invoked against the consumption of a particular species where the
ratio of benefits to costs in raising it has deteriorated over time for the
community as a whole, while it may still remain a tempting resource
for the individual. This would be true in a high degree of the pig, if
his account is correct.
The question remains, however, why Leviticus should specify cloven
hooves as well as chewing the cud as criteria of edibility. Harris
explains this (1986: 79ff.) as aimed at the camel; like others he regards
the mention of the hare and hyrax as the result of inadequate zoological
knowledge.
Had the Levites possessed a better knowledge of zoology, they could have
used the criterion of cud-chewing alone and simply added the proviso
'except for the camel'... But given their shaky knowledge of zoology, the
codifiers could not be sure that the camel was the only undesirable species
which was a cud-chewer. So they added the criterion of the split hooves
(p. 79).
But why was the camel undesirable? Harris has no difficulty in
showing that it is a poor resource for regular meat-raising, with its
slow reproductive cycle, and that, as an essentially desert-adapted
animal, it could never have provided a significant amount of meat or
milk for an Israelite farming community. And in Cannibals and Kings
he had pointed out that horses, donkeys and camels were kept for
transport and traction, and 'could not have supplied significant amounts
of animal protein without interfering with their primary function'.

They were too valuable to be eaten (1978: 135). But if that is so, it is
hard to see what kind of a temptation the regular eating of camel-meat
(or donkey-meat) offered. Its irregular use, as is perforce practised
by Beduin communities, at least as a way of dealing with old and sick
animals, can hardly be seen as any kind of economic or ecological
danger. Harris's arguments do not reveal why it was unsound from a
cost-benefit point of view for camel-owners to eat their unfit animals
or at least put their meat on the market (cf. Wapnish 1984).
Similar problems attend Harris's discussion of the remaining pro-
hibitions. In Cannibals and Kings he had attempted to explain the
entire range of prohibitions in cost-benefit terms, and signally failed—
not that any of the forbidden species are better bargains than the
ruminants, but it is unclear what temptations they offered that made it
necessary to taboo them. In the later work he wisely refrains from
this attempt, and is ready to regard the 'flamboyant lists of interdicted
species' as the result of 'abstract theological principles'. Specifically,
the taxonomic principle that excludes carnivores 'has been somewhat
overextended' (1986: 82); with remarkable intuition (cf. Chapter 2,
§l.c.5), he speculates
that this list [of unclean birds] was primarily the result of a priestly attempt
to enlarge on a smaller set of prohibited flying creatures... as a validation
of the codifiers' claim to special knowledge of the natural and supernatural
worlds (p. 82).
He is here content to argue that none of the restrictions were ecologi-

cally or nutritionally unsound: none deprived the people of a good
source of meat available at reasonable cost compared with their
normal stock. With this we may agree. But it should be observed that
he has thereby failed to explain the origin of the restrictions on crea-
tures of the water and the air in the terms of his theory.
3. The Problem of the Pig. But has he in fact succeeded in doing so

even in the paradigm case of the pig? 'The pig must go' after the
clearance of the forests. The forests went; so did the pig. There may
be a connection between those two facts (but see Chapter 4, §2.b.2).
But did that connection go in the direction required by Harris's
theory? Did the pig go because the forests had been swept away, or
were the forests cleared because there were no longer any pigs to go
in them? This is the question raised by Simoons (1961: 40) in relation
to Coon's opinion quoted above. It is given point by a reference to
Xavier de Flannel's Le monde islamique (1957: 62). De Planhol notes
that in Albania, where Christian and Muslim communities occupy
small stretches of territory adjacent to each other, the Christian areas
are better wooded than the Muslim ones. The Christians of course
graze their pigs in the woods, whereas among the Muslims the ban on
pork has meant that the woods have been cleared to provide pasture
for sheep and goats. Is it not likely that much the same could have
happened throughout the region, often as a result of the dominance of
Islam, but in some areas before that?
Now Harris is quite ready to acknowledge this, but gives it an inter-
pretation of his own (1986: 86).
Religiously sanctioned foodways that have become established as the
mark of conversion and as a measure of piety can also exert a force of
their own back upon the ecological and economic conditions which gave
rise to them... By giving the goat free reign [sic; to strip trees], Islam to
some degree spread the conditions of its own success.
But he denies that this is an argument against the ecological origin of

the pig taboo.
After all, a preference for cattle, sheep and goats and the rejection of pigs
in the Middle East long antedated the birth of Islam. This preference was
based on the cost/benefit advantages of ruminants over other domestic
animals as sources of milk, meat, traction, and other services and prod-
ucts in hot, arid climates.
But this is a brazen evasion of the point. That is, at the time of the
taboo's first emergence, to what extent may we speak of the environ-
ment as a whole, not merely the climate, as arid enough in every area
covered by it to make it economic common sense to abandon the pro-
duction of pigs? The irrelevance of the climate by itself may be
measured by the fact that wild pigs abound today in the marshes of the
Tigris-Euphrates delta (Young 1989: 126ff.).
Admittedly areas such as the Judaean and Samarian highlands, where
surface water is often hard to find, might still be unsuitable for the
raising of pigs, even without the deforestation (cf. Chapter 4, §2.b.2).
But this is scarcely true of the entire region. Paul Diener and Eugene
Robkin (1978: 497ff.)! subject Harris's thesis to severe criticism on
1. Diener and Robkin's own theory is considered in Chapter 4, §4.a.

the grounds, among others, that he has generalized from the problems
of particular areas to a sweeping judgment on an entire region of the
world, within which there are many areas quite suitable for the pig,
such as the Jordan valley and the coastal plain of Palestine. According
to Harris, however (1986:84), population pressure exposed pig-keepers
to hostility even in the Nile valley for their diversion of badly needed
food, and this accounts for the abomination of the pig in Egypt recorded
by Herodotus (2.47) and, according to Harris, in 'tomb paintings and
inscriptions'. However, it seems likely that he has misinterpreted these
(since he gives no references, it is difficult to tell), since native Egyptian
sources record only a rejection of the pig for sacrifice, not for food
(see LA, s.v. Schwein, and Chapter 4, §3.b.4 and Chapter 5, §l.b).
As for pigs needing to be fed grain, and so consuming resources that
would be more efficiently used directly, Harris seems to contradict
himself. He himself points out that the Chinese are able to raise four
times as many pigs as the Americans without a problem of resource
allocation, because, unlike the American pigs which are fed on corn
and soya, the pigs in China are fed on household and farm refuse:
'ground and fermented rice hulls, sweet potato and soya bean vines,
water hyacinths and so forth' (Harris 1978: 150, quoting Sprague
1975). He had earlier (pp. 131-32; cf. 1986: 73) asserted that 'hogs
cannot metabolize husks, stalks or fibrous leaves' and consequently
cannot produce meat efficiently if fed on this kind of diet. Harris
never clears up this contradiction. It can probably be resolved by
recognizing that pigs will not grow as fast on this diet as on grain, but
will perform a useful function as scavengers for people who are ready
to wait for their roast pork. (In pre-Communist China, the rural
population only gained 2.3 per cent of their calories from animal
products, despite the large number of pigs [Harris 1978: 151].) Hence
there seems no reason, even after deforestation, why pigs could not
have been kept in many parts of the ancient Near East, as they
certainly were in Egypt and Mesopotamia, and even in some parts of
Palestine (readers of the New Testament will recall the Gadarene
swine, Mk 5.11), feeding on waste products, as in China, without en-
croaching on the direct human food supply. Two pieces of evidence
immediately available to me suggest that this was the normal practice.
One is again from the New Testament: 'the husks (ta keratia, i.e.
carob pods) that the swine did eat' (Lk. 15.16), which the Prodigal
Son would have gladly eaten because there was a famine: they were
not normal human fare. The other, remarkably similar, is thousands

of years older and more precisely located, and is quoted by Harris
(1986: 84, from Darby et al. 1977: 185) to try to prove the opposite.
It is an Egyptian text from the Old Kingdom: 'food is robbed from
the mouth of the swine, without it being said as before "this is better
for thee than for me", for men are so hungry'. This certainly 'clearly
shows how during hard times humans and swine competed for subsis-
tence', but it is obviously illegitimate to go on to use another text
'boasting of a king's power over the lands', which speaks of swine
being fed on wheat, to prove that it is grain that is in question in the
Old Kingdom text. Quite the contrary: 'this is better for thee (the pig)
than for me', that is, it is the left-overs. The natural way to take the
two texts together is to suppose that pigs were normally fed on refuse,
but that a rich and powerful owner might well use grain to fatten them.
4. General Critique. Roger Keesing, in his textbook on cultural

anthropology (1981: 143ff.), subjects cultural materialism and related
theories to a searching critical review that exposes both their technical
weaknesses and their theoretical failures, and this are to some extent
parallelled by further arguments against Harris's general method in
Diener and Robkin's article (1978: 499ff.), after Hempel 1959.
The technical basis of Harris's arguments is actually quite flimsy,
despite the parade of scientific accuracy. He relies upon general under-
standings of ancient ecosystems that would need to be accurately
quantified to be useful; yet even contemporary fieldworkers who have
grounded theories upon ecological analysis carried out in detail by
themselves have turned out to be grossly in error (Keesing 1981: 155).
What chance has Harris or anyone else at this distance in time of
knowing enough about the complexities of the Palestinian ecosystem
2500 or 3000 years ago to tell whether or not pig-keeping was ecologi-
cally adaptive? Further, central to Harris's arguments is the idea that
animal protein is essential to the healthy maintenance of human socie-
ties, and that the search for it will determine much of their behaviour.
Keesing argues, against this, that provided there is a sufficient range
of vegetable proteins in the diet, and that energy needs are fully met,
human beings can be perfectly healthy on a purely vegetable diet (for
example, maize and beans in Mexico); and at least among some popula-
tions that have adapted to a low protein diet, the total protein require-
ment is less than has generally been thought (Keesing 1981: 160-61).
Harris replies at some length in the opening chapter of Good to Eat:
although it is possible to find sufficient of the right combination of
amino-acids by combining cereal and leguminous foods, people on
such a diet have a very narrow margin of safety for such crises as ill-
ness and pregnancy, in which higher amounts of protein are required,
since the bare minimum requires the stomach to be used to its full
capacity; animal foods are also a much better source of vitamins A, B
and E, and the only source of Bi2 (p. 35). But while this point is well
taken, Harris evades the point that this argument applies to animal
food in general and not specifically to meat. Yet he entitles the chapter
'Meat Hunger'. Of course, most people like eating meat, and, as we
see today, are quite willing to degrade whole ecosystems to get it. It is
arguable that this preference is to be explained in biological and not in
purely cultural terms; but it is not clear that Harris has made this case
out.
The theoretical mistake of cultural materialism is to assume that the
system of production that we actually find operating in a particular
ecological setting functions adequately in that setting, so that the ques-
tion that needs to be asked is how its cultural features adapt it to the
setting. This is not necessarily so (Diener and Robkin 1978: 499;
Keesing 1981:156ff.). Many systems operate inadequately and ineffici-
ently and have deleterious effects. Many customs are maladaptive
rather than adaptive. Many societies are in decline, or in a process of
expansion quite unsustainable except at the expense of their neigh-
bours (Keesing 1981: 156, 162-63). Indeed, it is a central feature of
Harris's own general historical argument that continuous intensifica-
tion of production leads again and again in history to crises that can
only be resolved by the adoption of new systems of production.
Consequently there does not seem to be any general social mechanism
that adapts systems of production adequately to ecological settings. And
so there is no reason to suppose, if a particular social trait happens to
be adaptive, or is thought to be adaptive, that it is there for that reason.
Harris does indeed recognize that social traits exist for other than
material reasons. Although he believes that religious ideas arise from
'the cost/benefits of ecological processes', he does not deny that reli-
gious ideas in their turn may affect customs and even systems of pro-
duction—so Jews and Muslims living in very different ecological set-
tings from the Middle East continue to observe the taboos developed
in the latter setting (1978: 137). But he refuses to believe that they
would continue to do so if it led to a sharp increase in subsistence
costs: 'no purely religious urge can run counter to fundamental ecolo-
gical and economic resistance for a long period of time' (p. 137). I
doubt whether history bears him out.
Harris in fact devotes very little attention to attempting to explain
the mechanism by which an ecological need becomes a religious pre-
scription. The best effort he makes is in discussing the Indian beef
taboo: it was, he says,
the cumulative result of the individual decisions of millions and millions
of individual farmers, some of whom were better able than others to resist
the temptation of slaughtering their livestock because they strongly
believed that the life of a cow or an ox was a holy thing. Those who held
such beliefs were much more likely to hold onto their farms, and to pass
them on to their children, than those who believed differently (1978: 147).
This explicitly characterizes the process in quasi-Darwinian terms as
one of natural selection.
But even Darwin's theory of natural selection needed to be paired
with Mendel's theory of genetics before it could be fully convincing.
Harris's theory may in certain cases explain the success and survival
of particular customs, but scarcely how they came to be accepted in
the first place. And as Keesing points out (1981: 163ff.), the survival
of even severely maladaptive customs shows that there is no natural
selection operating within cultures to weed them out.
Natural selection does not automatically eliminate customs that have harm-
ful consequences: human beings must change them. And since people
most often do not consciously perceive directly the ecological conse-
quences of their customs, the process of their consciously changing the
customs into more adaptive ones is haphazard at best (p. 165).
The truth is that Harris's invocation of ecology and demography as
universal explanatory mechanisms is reductionist in the extreme,
simplifying the complexities of human culture and selling short its
creativity. Human societies are constrained by ecology and demogra-
phy, which set limits to what is possible and create problems that soci-
eties must solve. 'But these negative constraints never create solutions,
never produce cultural forms. A protein shortage and population
explosion in the Valley of Mexico did not and could not create a reli-
gious system in which the gods demanded human sacrifice' (Keesing
1981: 166). Nor could the constraints on food production in the semi-
arid zones of the Near East create a religious system in which the
majority of animal species were forbidden to be eaten. It is human
beings who create such systems, and they do so because they perceive
their environment in terms quite other than ecological. Only 'emic'
accounts, if those terms are to be used, can explain them. I repeat my
quotation from Sahlins (1977: viii):
the decisive quality of culture—as giving each mode of life the properties
that characterize it—[is] not that this culture must conform to material
constraints but that it does so according to a definite symbolic scheme
which is never the only one possible.
It is important, however, as Keesing reminds us (1981: 169ff.), that
such symbolic schemes are not spun out of thin air. They are related
to the concrete social systems of people, they express the meanings,
values and ends that they find important; they may serve the interests
of dominant groups or reflect the tensions and conflicts within the
system.
Nevertheless, although Harris's account is ultimately inadequate, we
should consider ourselves indebted to him—and to Gottwald and
Rogerson, who have drawn attention to his importance for Old
Testament studies—for reminding us that ancient Israel lived within a
particular ecosystem and had to maintain a population within its con-
straints with technology that we should regard as primitive; and that
these are the first facts that we should consider in analysing any
feature of Israelite society, whatever religious significance might be
attached to it.
d. Mary Douglas
1. Symbols and Structures. Mary Douglas represents that majority
school of modern anthropologists so despised by Harris for their
idealism in regarding animals as good to think rather than good to eat.
But she certainly does not regard the symbolic systems of human cul-
tures as existing in their own right as creations of the human mind.
This essential point distinguishes her approach from that of the French
structuralists led by Levi-Strauss, even though it can itself with reason
be called structuralist. Her interest throughout her career has been in
working out the relationships between symbolic systems and social
structures, and her now classic Purity and Danger (1966) in general
tackled precisely the question of how 'pollution' ideas serve definable
social ends in specific societies with particular structures, tensions and
conflicts. Unfortunately, the essay on 'The Abominations of Leviticus'
in that book, which has by now acquired wide renown among Old
Testament scholars as well as anthropologists, was inadequate in that
regard; it expounded the animal classifications in Leviticus 11 as the
expression of an abstract conception of holiness, with some slight
relation to the Israelites' (supposed) mode of production, but none at
all to their social structure. But she was well aware of this inadequacy,
and sought to remedy it later in two important essays (1975b, 1975c)
after giving further attention to it in her book Natural Symbols
(1973a), first published in 1970. The account that I now give of her
theory is based on all four of these sources. Unlike most other expla-
nations, it has from the first been designed to account for the whole of
the system, rather than starting from, say, the pig taboo, and then
being extended ad hoc. It is also based firmly upon the text (even
though she makes many mistakes in her interpretation of it; cf.
Milgrom 1990: 177-78, 184), and aims at explaining primarily the
writers' understanding of clean and unclean food.
Mary Douglas's starting point is her conception of pollution ideas as
a means of dealing with the anomalies and ambiguities that arise when-
ever human beings seek to impose order on the world, to classify, to
demarcate. However, where such patterns arise purely through intellec-
tual playfulness, they do not have the profound effects on social order
exhibited by ideas of pollution. Where patterns of order applied to the
cosmos or to the human body are of importance to society, they
reflect the patterns that govern their social life and religion. True, the
weight that is placed upon such patterns varies greatly from one society
to another. This should be plain to us, living as we do in a society
where pollution ideas are of small public account, and the significance
attached to them varies from individual to individual or family to
family, according, commonly, to religious affiliation. In Natural
Symbols (1973a) Douglas attempts a typology of small-scale societies,
first according to the extent to which they impose upon the body and
the cosmos classifications derived from social experience, a category
she terms 'grid', and secondly according to the strength of community
pressure upon the individual, which she calls 'group'. She identifies a
group of societies, exemplified by the Tallensi of Ghana (pp. 86ff.),
which she tags as 'high classification'; they are characterized not only
by 'strong grid'—the high degree and consistent pattern of order that
they see and impose in every realm of experience—but also by 'strong
group'—there is no one, not even the highest, who is exempt from the
pressure to conform to the elaborate pattern of social order.1 'The

public system of rights and duties equips each man with a full identity,
prescribing for him what and when he eats, how he grooms his hair,
how he is buried or bom' (1973a: 86-87) Characteristically these two
traits go together. Ritual affords a means of expressing and imposing
on all the members of the society a narrowly defined understanding of
the universe that reinforces the narrow definitions of their social
world. 'Any...system which is sufficiently secure and insulated from
criticism will tend to think in the same way.'
Now, being a careful scholar, Douglas uses as test cases in Natural
Symbols only full accounts by reliable fieldworkers of contemporary
tribal societies. But she cannot leave the Israelites—or their animal
classifications—alone, and her observations on these (pp. 60ff., 113)
show that for her ancient Israel shares many of the features of a high
classification society, particularly in the Second Temple period.
It would be impossible for the leaders of an occupied but still resisting
nation to adopt an effervescent form of religion. To expect them to stop
preaching a stern sexual morality, vigilant control of bodily boundaries,
and a corresponding religious cult would be asking them to give up the
political struggle (p. 113).
In this case, the narrow definition of the body social and physical
expresses a society's resistance to assimilation rather than security
from encroachment.
Thus in such societies the human body serves as a model of the body
social, and what is true of the body may also be true of the external
world, and in particular the animate part of it, with which humanity is
constantly in relationship and which is particularly susceptible to
classification. The classification of the animal world may provide a
grid that can clarify and confirm, in the purportedly objective world
accessible to the senses, the relationships of the social world, which give
rise to the hidden assumptions that govern the members' way of seeing
everything. To study the system of food avoidance of any culture is to
be introduced to these assumptions, which are necessary, especially in
a situation like that of Second Temple Israel, for the preservation and
strengthening of the social order. Conversely, of course, any informa-
tion we have about their social structure and world-defining assump-
1. Cf., however, the criticism of Wuthnow et al. (1984: 124), who suggest that
group and grid are antithetical rather than reinforcing one another.
tions may help to elucidate the animal classification system.
Here and in many other ways Douglas shows herself a disciple of
Durkheim, with his doctrine that religion and ritual represent society,
and specifically that the primary categories are social categories: 'the
first classes of things were classes of men, into which things were inte-
grated... Moieties were the first general clans, the first species'
(Durkheim and Mauss 1963: 82-83).
2. The Abominations of Leviticus. In beginning her study of "The

Abominations of Leviticus' (1966: 41ff.), Douglas found highly signifi-
cant the insistence, mainly in the Holiness Code, on physical as well as
moral perfection in definitions of holiness.
To be holy is to be whole, to be one; holiness is unity, integrity, perfection
of the individual and of the kind. The dietary rules merely develop the
metaphor of holiness on the same lines (p. 54).
The underlying principle of cleanness in animals is that they should con-
form fully to their class. Those species are unclean which are imperfect
members of their class, or whose class itself confounds the general scheme
of the world (p. 55).
This is worked out through each of the three elements, the land, the
water and the air, according to which the animals are categorized, as
Douglas sees it, both in the creation story of Genesis 1 and in Leviticus
11. For each sphere a model is proposed that expresses the mode of
life (more precisely, the mode of locomotion) proper to that sphere.
Thus, land dwellers have four legs and walk or hop; within this
large group those only may be eaten that conform to the model of
Israel's own domestic animals by cleaving the hoof and chewing the
cud. The domestic stock are clean ex hypothesi, and are fit for the
altar and recipients with their masters of the blessings of the covenant
(1966: 54), while other similar animals conforming to the same model
are acceptable for the table, though not for the altar, where only
domestic animals may be sacrificed. Animals that do not possess the
appropriate criteria are not acceptable either for the table or the altar.
But particular attention is paid to three sets of creatures that Douglas
describes as 'abominable' (1975b: 265), under the impression that this
word expresses more than the simple lack of the criteria necessary for
edibility. These are (a) the borderline creatures of Lev. 11.4-8, which
possess one but not both of the criteria for edibility, and hence in a
distinctive way threaten the security of the boundaries; and two
groups that fail to show even the basic characteristics of land dwellers,
which 'have four legs and walk or hop': (b) those that appear to use
their hands for walking (Lev. 11.27 and 29-31—we have already
noted the error here); and (c) swarming and crawling animals (seres),
which are found in all three spheres and hence belong to none, but
threaten the security of the boundaries between them. These creatures
are abominable because of the threat that they all offer to the security
of the classsifications.
Similarly in the water, the possession of fins and scales is the essential
mark of the proper and therefore edible denizen. The creatures of the
air are a rather different case, since the text offers no criteria. How-
ever, among the flying creatures as a whole, the basic requirement is
two legs and wings as birds have, and most insects are excluded: they
belong to the 'abominable' swarming animals which cross the bound-
aries between the spheres. The locusts form an exception which Douglas
considers an important confirmation of her rule: if they have a pair of
jumping legs they are clean; that is, their mode of motion approxi-
mates to that of birds (1966:56). To explain the unclean birds she adopts
from the Mishnah the widely accepted view (cf. above) that they are
birds of prey or carrion eaters, and argues (1975b: 270) that, by the
analogy between the body and the temple, the eating of undrained meat
unfits them for being eaten, just as it unfits men for entry to the
sanctuary.
There is a series of Venn diagrams in 1975b: 264-66 which eluci-
dates Douglas's analysis of the classsification of the creatures of each
of the three spheres. In each of them she distinguishes very sharply
between those creatures that simply fail to meet the criteria for edibi-
lity for that sphere, represented by an outer concentric circle round
the circle representing the edible animals, and the 'abominable' crea-
tures that either fail to possess the basic qualifications of dwellers in
that sphere or threaten its inner or outer boundary; these are repre-
sented by separate, non-concentric circles. It is very hard to see any
basis for this distinction in the biblical text; but I give this point
detailed discussion below.
At all events, she asserts that the system as a whole
rejects creatures which are anomalous, whether in living between two
spheres, or having defining features of members of another sphere, or
lacking defining features... anomalous animals are unfit for altar and table
(1975b: 226).
She finds this to be a distinctive feature of the Mosaic system by com-
parison with the dietary systems of some other peoples; for example,
the Lele of Zaire (the people among whom Douglas did her fieldwork)
make the pangolin, which they regard as extremely anomalous, 'a
creature that has scales like a fish but lives in a tree', the object of a
special cult, certainly restricted for eating, but a supreme source of
blessing for his initiates when sacrificed and eaten in his cult.
The reason for this profound difference, she argues, is to be found
in the respective social and religious systems. In Israel there is an exact
correspondence between the classification of the animal world and the
structure of the social world. The sharp boundary drawn between
edible and inedible kinds corresponds to the sharp boundary demanded
between the covenant people and all others (cf. Lev. 20.24ff.), while the
boundary between animals fit for sacrifice and blemished or game
animals fit only for the table corresponds to that between Israelites
unfit at any given moment to enter the temple by reason of unclean-
ness or deformity and those sanctified for sacrifice. The same system
of concentric boundaries, the outermost always given the greatest
stress, is to be found in space, in the temple and its divisions, to which
again the human body forms an analogy, and in the holy Land. In a
whole series of symbolic structures the same pattern appears. Each
structure is interchangeable with any other and all enforce the same
message: 'the value of purity and the rejection of impurity' (1975b:
269), above all the purity of the holy people and the rejection of all
threats to its integrity. For further discussion of this concentric struc-
ture, see Chapter 6, §2.a.6. We could compare Haran's interpretation
of the temple system (Haran 1978: 158ff., 205ff.); it is indeed a
prominent feature of priestly thought. But is it a characteristic of
Israelite social structure apart from the priestly idealizations?
Of such threats to the integrity of the holy people one of the most
frequently faced and feared was that of intermarriage. The stranger
was rejected, and the most dangerous stranger was he who like the pig
in the animal world had most but not all of the requirements for
membership—such as the Samaritan.
The classification that counts abominable the beasts that either chew the
cud or cleave the hoof but not both is isomorphic with the other
classification of Israelites that does not object to intermarriage with female
captives of far distant foes (Deuteronomy, 20.14-18) but worries about
the prospect of intermarriage with half-blooded Israelites (1975c: 305).
Indeed this was true not only at the level of the nation but also (1975c:
309), at that of the lineage: marriage within the lineage (ideally to the
father's brother's daughter, as in many Arab communities today; see
e.g. Granqvist 1931-35: I, 63ff.; cf. Lemche 1985: 224) was the pre-
ference, as practised by the patriarchs,1 as recommended by Tobit to
his son (Tob. 4.12), and as required in the case of the high priest
(Lev. 21.14),2 and of heiresses (Num. 36).3
It is at this level, that of the fundamental social structures, that
Douglas finds it most illuminating to contrast the Israelite system, in
which the anomalous creature is utterly rejected, with others where it
is treated with varying degrees of interest and respect. Among the
Lele, animals that appear to cross the boundaries of their proper
spheres are all regarded favourably, though restricted for eating
(1975c: 301-302), and the supreme anomaly, the pangolin, is granted
the status of an honorary chief, which creates some embarrassment
for those required to kill and eat him in the cult (1975a: 43). This
reflects precisely their system of exogamous matrilineal clans, which
1. This seems to me to be correct. Abraham tells his servant to find a wife for
Isaac from 'my country and my kindred' (Gen. 24.4); and he finds him 'Rebekah,
who was born to Bethuel the son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham's brother'
(v. 15). When later Isaac's son marries his mother's brother's daughters it has to be
borne in mind that Laban is, therefore, a member of Isaac's patrilineage, so that Jacob
is still marrying within the patrilineage. Donaldson's attempt (1981), supported by
Oden (1983, and 1987: 122) to show that the three marriages of the patriarchs repre-
sent a progress towards the ideal exemplified by Jacob's marriage with his mother's
brother's daughters, is fatally flawed by overlooking this, as well as by assuming
that cross-cousin marriage is the ideal. This is the elementary error of supposing that
a widespread practice is a universal one.
2. rnun (plural); not 'from his people' (RSV), but 'from his father's kin' (REB).
3. It should be noted, however, that when Douglas (1975c: 316 n. 6) quotes
this chapter as if it generally required marriage within the tribe, she is relying
(indirectly) on the Vulgate text of vv. 7b-10a, which differs markedly from the MT,
to this effect:
Let all men marry wives from their own tribe and lineage; and let all wives take
husbands from the same tribe, so that inheritances may remain with families, and tribes
may not become mixed up with each other, but so remain as they have been divided by
the Lord.
The differences from the MT are more than textual; here we have a different recension,
one which would appear to be evidence of a stronger line taken in some quarters in
favour of endogamy than that seen in the MT. However, I can throw no light on its
origin.
require the stranger as a son-in-law and expect great things from him,
for the stranger is essential to the propagation of the clan. In each
case, the attitude taken up towards anomalous beings in the cosmos is
the concrete expression of the value placed in the social world on the
outsider: the strange individual, the strange clan, the strange nation,
or, in the case of Israel, the strange god.
A people who have nothing to lose by exchange and everything to gain
will be predisposed towards the hybrid being, wearing the conflicting
signs, man/god or man/beast. A people whose experience of foreigners is
disastrous will cherish perfect categories, reject exchange and refuse doc-
trines of mediation (1975c: 307).
This leads to a theological conclusion (1975c: 309-10):

If you were God, could you devise a better plan? If you wanted to choose
a people for yourself, reveal to them a monotheistic vision and give to
them a concept of holiness which they will know in their very bones,
what would you do? Promise their descendants a fertile land and beset it
with enemy empires. By itself that would be almost enough. A politically
escalating chain would insure the increasing hostility of their neighbours.
Their mistrust of outsiders would ever be validated more completely.
Faithful to your sanctuary and your law, it would be self-evident to them
that no image of an animal, even a calf, even a golden one, could portray
their god.
(It is remarkable that the totally different issue of the aniconic cult is
raised at this point; since a calf was a clean animal the connection is
precarious.)
3. Critique. Mary Douglas's approach to the problem has found

remarkably wide and even uncritical acceptance among biblical schol-
ars in the English-speaking world and even beyond: see for example
Porter's (1976) and Wenham's (1979) commentaries on Leviticus, and
Budd 1989: 282ff. Note especially Budd's concluding comment: 'Her
basic point about the fundamental importance of physical anomaly
remains firm' (1989: 290). Belo (1981), Malina (1981) and Country-
man (1989) rely heavily on her approach to ideas of purity in general.
Rogerson gave her theory of the unclean animals a cautious welcome
in 1978: 112-13, only to hail Harris's explanation as superior in 1985:
97-98 and 1989: 33. It will already be clear that I cannot agree with
him in this latter judgment. Anyone who reads further in the present
work will see that I find Mary Douglas's understanding of the
relationship of ritual and symbol to the structure and ethos of the

societies that use them immensely fruitful and rewarding in all kinds
of applications. Many of the insights that I have briefly mentioned
here will be taken up again at later points.
But at this point we have to deal with a specific and detailed appli-
cation of her general theory, and here the uncritical acclaim she has
received from many seems ill-judged to me. On the strictly exegetical
issues, a comparison with Chapter 2 above will show that she is vulner-
able on a number of counts. Milgrom (1990: 177-78, 184) gives a
detailed list of her errors; see also Carroll (1978) and Firmage (1990:
178-82). But at least it is possible to discuss her work as a serious
contribution to the exegesis of the chapter. And this is what I intend to
do first. It is only possible to assess a theory that claims to be based
strictly on the text by comparison with the text. There are also broader
issues on which her fellow anthropologists have taken her to task.
i. Anomaly and Abomination. It will be plain that Douglas's explana-

tion starts out from the assumption that the classifications in Leviticus
and the criteria on which it is based are the primary datum. This
position is at times somewhat modified, as we shall see, but it gener-
ally holds good that the pivotal concept in her discussions is that of
anomaly. Any classification system is bound to give rise to anomalies,
since it implies the imposition of an artificial scheme produced by the
human mind upon the diversity of nature. And, according to Douglas,
it is the anomalies that arise from the classifications of Leviticus 11,
the animals that will not properly fit into them, or those that lie
athwart the boundaries, that are marked down as abominable and hence
come to express the antithesis of holiness, the disapproved marriage,
the strange nation and the strange god. So although the opposition of
clean and unclean expresses a social and theological meaning, it would
appear that there is not necessarily any inherent connection between
the meaning and its expression; the latter is in principle a pure sign in
the Saussurian sense.
It will already be apparent from the discussions in Chapter 2 that I
do not think it plausible to regard the classification system that we find
in Leviticus 11 as the primary and irreducible datum. The criteria of
cleanness that are offered there are best understood as derived from
observation of those species that are generally acknowledged to be
edible. But before returning to this more general point, we should
look more closely at Douglas's concept of anomaly as it applies in

practice to the Old Testament material. Regrettably, as her thought
has developed it has become less faithful as an interpretation of the
text. This is apparent in her comments on the pig. In Purity and
Danger she says correctly of Lev. 11.4-8 and Deut. 14.7-8 that they
serve merely to remove any doubt about the classification of those
animals to which only one of the criteria of cleanness applies. 'The
legal mind has seen fit to give a ruling on some borderline cases'
(1966: 54). This is consistent with the general view of the system
given in that chapter: a model for each sphere of life is set up, and
what does not conform to it is unnatural, out of its proper sphere, or
destructive of the proper boundaries. There is no difference in this
respect between one unclean animal and another, and there is no sug-
gestion that the pig is in any special category.
But in her later essay 'Self-Evidence' (1975c [a lecture originally
given in 1972]), we find a quite different view.
The most important point to clarify is the status of the pig as monster in
the ancient Israelite classification system... By itself, seen from the
viewpoint of another pattern of classification, having some but not all of
the criteria of the class of edible animals would not make them automati-
cally unclean, revolting, abominable. But this classification system
throughout, in all its application, picks on the borderline instance and tags
it abominable.. .The pig... is the only non-cud-chewing hoof-cleaver in
the whole of creation, a monster with no other judgment possible of its
improper, law-defying existence than outright abomination (pp. 283-84).
Here the anomalous creature is no longer any that fails to meet the
criteria for its class, but the special isolable example, 'abominable' in
Douglas's special sense, that threatens the sacred boundary. The posi-
tion of the pig in the Israelite system is made to parallel that of the
pangolin among the Lele, the cassowary among the Karam of the New
Guinea Highlands, or the otter among Thai peasants: all are anomalous
in the sense of being sui generis, isolated within the respective taxo-
nomic systems.
One reason for this change of position was that critics of Purity and
Danger (e.g. Buhner 1967) had drawn attention to the prominent
position of the pig as the representative of every uncleanness in Jewish
thinking. In Natural Symbols (1973: 60ff.; first edition 1970) Douglas
had accepted that 'this one animal' is 'singled out to be the chief repre-
sentative and vanguard of all other abominations', but she accounted
for this as the effect of the persecution of Antiochus, who had forced
this particular symbol into prominence. Because of the heroic martyr-
doms over the issue of the avoidance of pork, it 'became a specially
powerful symbol of allegiance for the Jewish people... whereas this
symbol in origin owed its meaning only to its place in a total pattern
of symbols, for which it came to stand' (1973: 63). But in her two
later essays, 'Deciphering a Meal' (1975b, first published in 1972) and
'Self-Evidence', she suggests that even in that original pattern of
symbols the pig may have had a special status. It carried
the odium of multiple pollution. First, it pollutes because it defies the
classification of ungulates. Second, it pollutes because it eats carrion [and
hence falls foul of the blood-defilement rule like the birds of prey]. Third,
it pollutes because it is reared as food by non-Israelites... An Israelite
who betrothed a foreigner might have been liable to be offered a feast of
pork (1975b: 272).
But in origin the unique odium attached to this animal must be traceable
to its unique position in the taxonomic system. It is monstrous and
therefore abominable in the same way as the swarming things: that it
represents a danger to the the categories.
Douglas's general theory of anomaly has been subjected to searching
examination by Dan Sperber (1975), who points out that
Taxonomic identification is logically prior to any decision on 'normality',
and therefore such a decision cannot put the identification into question...
if the ostrich is to be an abnormal bird, it first of all has to be a bird (p. 29). *
If it is decided not to be a bird, it is something else. It may be a pecu-
liar or remarkable bird, and thereby be 'good to think' symbolically,
but it cannot defy the classification, because the classifier must and can
decide whether it is a bird or not. Nor is it clear, more specifically,
that her idea of the anomalous arises out of the biblical text. Is it true
that the classification system in Leviticus 11 'throughout...picks on
the borderline instance and tags it abominable?' Is there really in any
case a special category of abominable animals distinct from the ordi-
narily unclean? Does the pig (or any of the other borderline animals)
have a special status, distinct from all other unclean animals? The only
section of the passage that obviously deals with borderline cases is
1. 'Le jugement de normalite a 1 'identification taxinomique [sic] pour pre-condition

logique et il ne peut done pas la remettre en cause.. .Pour que 1'autruche soit un
oiseau anormal, il faut d'abord qu'elle soit un oiseau.'
Lev. 11.4-8/Deut. 14.7-8. Yet this is not the only group that Douglas
sees tagged as threatening the taxonomic boundaries. But it is easy to
show that the others are illusory, the product of faulty exegesis.
The first is the animals that are supposed according to her interpre-
tation of Lev. 11.27 (1966: 55-56; 1975b: 265) to walk unnaturally on
hands instead of feet. Her false reading here is compounded by confu-
sion with the lizards in vv. 29-30, though this is an entirely separate
section. For the correct interpretation of these passages, see Chapter
2, §l.c.6, and cf. Carroll 1978: 119-20 and Milgrom 1990: 184.
The second, and much more important, group are the teeming things.
These are apparently mentioned as a subset of the denizens of each of
the three realms (Lev. 11.10, 20ff., 29ff., 41ff.), and it is a vital part
of Douglas's case that like the other categories the word defines the
creatures by their typical movement, 'teeming, trailing, creeping,
crawling or swarming', which is 'not a mode of propulsion proper to
any particular element', and thereby 'cuts across the basic classification.
Swarming things are neither fish, flesh nor fowl...there is no order in
them' (1966: 56, and cf. the diagrams in 1975b: 264-65). Three objec-
tions may be raised here (cf. Firmage 1990: 179ff.): first, that the
word Seres does not define a group according to its 'mode of propul-
sion'; secondly, that no equation is made between seres in different
spheres; and thirdly, that in any case some seres are clean.
First, if we may make an initial etymological observation, the verb
Saras does not refer to movement of any kind; it means to 'swarm,
teem', that is, to appear in large numbers in a particular space or
medium. In Gen. 9.7 and Exod. 1.7 the subject is human, and else-
where (e.g. Gen. 1.20; see below) the subject is the medium. If the
noun is to be understood in line with the verb, the most natural refer-
ence is to animals that appear in swarms, containing large numbers of
small creatures. However, this is not entirely satisfactory for the
actual usage, where it is used in certain passages of P with seemingly
an identical sense to that of rentes in other parts (e.g. Gen. 1.25-26),
and the corresponding verb ramas does mean to creep or crawl. And
of course if the customary identification of the named species in Lev.
11.29-30 is correct, not all of these could be seen as swarming crea-
tures, but all in some sense crawl.
But this will not do to establish the sense everywhere. In v. 10 the
total body of water creatures is defined as 'all seres of the water and
all living creatures (nepe$ hayya) that are in the water'. The structure
of the sentence implies that some members of this body, whether they
are to be defined as seres or as nepes hayyd, are clean, having fins and
scales. But of course if they have fins they cannot be crawlers but
must be swimmers. The nepes of the water, then, must include some
fish, which swim and are clean. In its etymological sense it would be
the natural word to use of shoals of small fish. This conclusion is
confirmed by a glance at Gen. 1.20-21. Although Genesis 1 uses
remes of land creatures, nepes is used here of water creatures:
And God said: 'Let the water teem ytii^sA with Seres nepeS hayyd...'
And God created the great sea-monsters and all the nepeS hayyd that move
haromeSet with which the water teemed (sa^su).
Here both terms are clearly used of all water creatures indifferently
(apart from the great sea-monsters, which may be mythical), and what
is more, reversing the tendency to use Seres in the sense of rentes for
land creatures, the verb ramas is used of all water creatures whether
they crawl or swim. One must conclude that in Lev. 11.10 no serious
distinction is intended between seres and nepes hayyd; the whole
phrase quoted above is a hendiadys: all water creatures are seres,
swarming in the way they do, and all of course are living creatures.
(So more briefly Firmage 1990: 179-80).
If we then turn to the flying creatures, among which by contrast it
is clear that seres ha'dp (vv. 20-21, 23) is used to define a subset, it
seems that some of this subset jump rather than crawling when they
are on the ground, and are clean. It is no answer to say that they pos-
sess characteristics that distinguish them from seres, since the text
(v. 21) explicitly places them in that class, seres ha'dp, it is clear,
simply means small flying creatures; it has no reference to their mode
of progression on the ground.
It is not convincing to suggest that there is anything in common
between the modes of movement of a worm, a crab, a minnow, a
butterfly and a mouse. The conclusion must be that while in reference
to creatures confined to the ground seres takes the place of remes and
so has some connotation of movement, it does not in general define a
group by their 'mode of propulsion'. Indeed it does not seem to refer
to any single definable group at all. It is a word used with various
senses as qualified with reference to the element the creatures inhabit.
The seres HaSsoreset 'alha'ares, 'the teemers that teem on the ground',
are a class of animals entirely distinct from other land animals,
frhemd, and are (belatedly) declared unclean en bloc (vv. 4Iff.; see
Chapter 2, l.c.2). With reference to water creatures, seres is simply a
term for them all, viewed as a group, and it has no implications for
their ritual status. It is only among the flying creatures that seres
defines a subset of the class as a whole, but it is not a subset that can be
declared unclean as a whole (in Leviticus); it includes a further subset
that are edible. There is not the smallest basis for holding that the
word identifies a group of creatures that by their mode of movement
cross the boundaries between the elements and are therefore unclean.
Mary Douglas might still be able to defend her theory about teeming
things with reference independently to the flying insects and the teemers
of the ground, as groups that fail to conform to the proper model for
their sphere, but scarcely as groups threatening the categories by
crossing the boundaries between classes. But so far as the ground
creatures are concerned, I have already shown (Chapter 2, § l.c.2) that
seres / rentes is an entirely distinct group from behema or beasts,
inhabiting a distinct sphere of life. No more general term exists that
might be translated 'land animals', covering both these groups and no
others, and the structure of Leviticus 11 taken as a whole clearly
implies a fourfold rather than a threefold division. So it is impossible
to consider the seres of the ground as anomalous or non-conforming
land animals. There is no type with regard to which they might be
anomalous, no higher order model to which they might conform.
Thus other supposed borderline or cross-border groups vanish, and
we are left only with the four beasts of Lev. 11.4-8. It is therefore not
the case that the system 'throughout, in all its application' tags the
borderline creatures as abominable. Certainly the four beasts are un-
clean. But are they especially unclean? Are they more unclean than the
dog, or the ass? Is there a special category of 'abominable' animals
which are unclean in a higher degree than normal? The answer to all
these questions, at least so far as the text of Leviticus (and
Deuteronomy) is concerned, is no, with one minor exception not rele-
vant to Douglas's case.
Here I need only recall what emerged from our investigations in
Chapter 2. Lev. 11.4-8 is an exegetical supplement clarifying the
import of the text for possibly ambiguous cases. It would be impossi-
ble for it to introduce a principle applying distinctively to the cases
with which it deals, and it does not do so. The only doubt attaches to
the command 'you shall not touch their dead bodies', and here Rashi's
explanation appears satisfactory. Douglas's understanding of the term
'abominable' as expressing something more than simple unfitness for

eating corresponds to nothing in the text. 'Abomination' is used by the
RSV and some other English versions to render Seqes in Leviticus 11,
and to'eba in Deut. 14.3. The latter applies to everything forbidden for
food. The former is used in the same sense as tame' when the latter is
used of prohibition for food in Lev. 11.4-8 and in Deuteronomy 14.
Moreover it is not used of all the groups that Douglas identifies as
abominable, certainly not of the four beasts in Lev. 11.4-8. The one
exception I spoke of is that the eight teeming creatures of vv. 29ff.
convey uncleanness, uniquely, not only to persons, but also to things.
But if this gives them a higher degree of uncleanness, then it is a
technical ritual matter, it is expressed with tame', and it applies only
to these eight, not to the whole class of swarming animals.
ii. Classification and Cleanness. If Douglas's concept of anomaly as

that which threatens or crosses boundaries is rejected, we are still left
with her general claim that classification is the foundation of the dis-
tinction between clean and unclean: that 'the underlying principle of
cleanness in animals is that they should conform fully to their class'
(1966: 55). To test this assertion, we have to ask where the model of
conformity for each class comes from; for many of Douglas's critics
have not hesitated to assert that she is propounding a tautology: con-
sider Bulmer, Carroll, and, most trenchantly, Harris.
It would seem equally fair, on the limited evidence available, to argue that
the pig was accorded anomalous taxonomic status because it was unclean
as to argue that it was unclean because of its anomalous taxonomic status
(Bulmer 1967: 21).
Why are flying insects unclean? Because flying insects have four legs and
flying creatures should appropriately have only two legs. Why should
flying creatures appropriately have only two legs? Because all other types
of flying creatures are defined as unclean in Leviticus! (Carroll 1978: 120).
The pig is anomalous because it is anomalous in a taxonomic and ideolog-
ical system in which it is anomalous. What we want to know is why the
taxonomic system is set up in such a way as to render the pig anomalous,
since there obviously is no universal reason why pigs are not good to
think as well as to eat (Harris 1979: 192).
Firmage is more constructive:

But the problem is how one is to determine significant anomaly. Which
anomalies signify defect, and which do not? We still lack an explanation
why precisely those morphological variations singled out by the dietary
law were perceived as defects (1990: 182).
Bulmer and Harris are of course addressing the concept of anomaly

that we have dismissed on strictly exegetical grounds; but their stric-
tures apply in principle to any form of the structuralist contention that
the classification system is the/on^ et origo of the dietary prohibitions.
Douglas begins her explanation thus:
To grasp this scheme we need to go back to Genesis and the creation.
Here a three-fold classification unfolds, divided between the earth, the
waters and the firmament. Leviticus takes up this scheme and allots to
each element its proper kind of animal life. In the firmament two-legged
fowls fly with wings. In the water scaly fish swim with fins. On the earth
four-legged animals hop, jump or walk (Douglas 1966: 55)
Carroll (1978: 118-19) has no difficulty in showing that Douglas's

conceptions of the categories in Genesis are very much wide of the
mark. In the first place there appear to be five categories of animals in
Genesis 1, the land animals being divided into cattle, wild animals and
creeping things; and, as we have seen, there are without doubt four,
not three, in Leviticus 11. In the second place the three groups
mentioned by Douglas are too narrowly defined. The category of 'dp,
flying things, is seen in Lev. 11.20ff. to include insects as well as
birds; the term 'birds' (sippor) does not appear in Genesis 1 at all.
Carroll is wrong (1978: 118-19) in allowing Douglas the appropri-
ateness of the fish category, on the grounds of its use in Gen. 1.26,
28, for, as we have seen, when the creation of the water creatures is
described in vv. 20-21, the word 'fish' (dag[a\) is not used (nor are
scales, fins or swimming mentioned at all). And while the restriction
of land animals to quadrupeds is correct for the group called behemd
in Leviticus 11, the possession of four legs is virtually irrelevant to
the determination of cleanness, as of course Douglas herself realizes.
If the attempt to derive the categories in Leviticus 11 from Genesis
is a failure, does the text of Leviticus 11 itself give any grounds for
supposing that the classification in itself gives rise to the distinction of
clean and unclean?
It will be convenient to take the four main groups of animals in
reverse order to their appearance in the text of Leviticus. To take the
seres of the ground first: this group is unclean as a whole. Although it
is classified according to number of legs in v. 42, this only serves to
emphasize the rejection of the class as a whole; it does not matter how
many legs they have, all are equally unclean and forbidden for eating.
However, there are the eight species of vv. 29ff. that are not only
forbidden for food but also convey uncleanness when dead both to
persons and to utensils and food. But since these species are not defined
but named, there can be no question of their special uncleanness
arising from the classification system. And no reason can be assigned
arising out of the classification as such why this one alone of the four
major classes into which all animals fall should be unclean as a whole.
Among the creatures of the air, the birds take first place. Once
again, since the unclean species are named and not defined, there can
be no question of their uncleanness being a product of the classifica-
tion. What one finds in the Talmud is the search, not entirely successful,
for appropriate criteria with which to make sense of these apparently
random prohibitions. One can there observe the classification arising
out of the prohibitions in precisely the opposite process to that
demanded by the theory. This does not of course mean that the pro-
hibitions are actually random. Douglas is undoubtedly correct in
assuming that the great majority of the unclean birds are predators.
But if this is the reason why they are seen as unclean, it is because each
species individually has been observed and seen to be unacceptable,
not because of a logical effect of their classification.
The general prohibition of flying insects is explained by Douglas by
appeal to the fact that they are anomalous with respect to the category
of birds—flying creatures should have two legs. But of course, as we
have already observed, there is no basis for this assertion other than
the statement in the text that flying insects are unclean, which is
precisely what we are trying to explain. Nor is the permission of
locusts the clear example of the consistency of the rules that Douglas
thought it, for, as we have seen, the rabbinic view was that the defini-
tion in the text was insufficient; it had to be expanded by adding 'and
the name of which is locust'. Even in the biblical text the addition of
the specific names of four types of locust tells against the view that the
possession of rear jumping legs was decisive in itself.
As for the water creatures, it cannot be shown that there is any
inherent reason why the group defined by the possession of scales and
fins is clean and all others unclean; it is the same problem as with the
insects. Certainly there is no reason why it should be said that scaly
fish are the only 'proper' denizens of the water, other than that all
others are defined as unclean.
We come now to the beasts. Now, while it is unquestionable that all
proper beasts have four legs, the fact is irrelevant to the issue of
cleanness, and Douglas's raising the point (again in 1975b: 265) only
serves to draw attention to the inappropriateness of her idea of a
model of perfection for each class. However, when we tackle the
question of the real criteria of cleanness for beasts, we at last find our
feet touching bottom. We have seen that these define a natural group.
But this time there is a positive reason in the field of classification why
this group, and it alone, should be defined as clean, for all the domes-
tic animals kept for food (rather than for draught or transport) by
Israelites1 belong to this group.
Cloven-hoofed, cud-chewing ungulates are the model of the proper kind
of food for a pastoralist. If they must eat wild game, they can eat wild
game that shares these distinctive characters and is therefore of the same
general species (Douglas 1966: 54).
Of all Douglas's assertions about what is 'proper', this is one that gives
real information, in that it correctly and non-tautologically generates
the rule in the text. The rule clearly must be derived from the domestic
food animals in actual practice kept by Israelites as a pastoral people.
The classification of this group of animals, which are acceptable both
for food and for sacrifice, is extended into the sphere of wild animals
at a lower level of significance, making them clean for food though
not acceptable for sacrifice. To use a concept beloved of the social
anthropologist, deer and gazelle and ibex are 'classificatory' cattle, not
indeed in all respects, since they are not acceptable on the altar, but in
respect of the table. This is a better way of looking at the matter than
to regard the domestic animals, acceptable for sacrifice, as a mere
subset of the ruminants regarded as a higher order category, as in
Douglas 1975b: 265. (For the whole issue, cf. further Chapter 5, §2.c.)
It should be added that this is no way derogatory to the 'propriety' or
'perfection' of all other beasts. It is not said that ruminants are the
only perfect beasts, only that they are, among beasts, the only acceptable
food for Israelites.
The importance of this is that we at last have a point of contact with
1. With only inconsiderable exceptions; see Chapter 4, §2.

the more materially based approaches that we discussed earlier in the

chapter, a route of escape from the tautological circle denounced by
Harris in the direction of his own concerns. If it is not true that the
distinctions among animals arise out of the characteristics of the
classification system in itself, then if they are to be understood as a
symbolic system at all, it must arise out of the associations of the ani-
mals, and these will be determined, as Douglas rightly saw in the pas-
sage just quoted, largely by the specific economic relations of the
people to them.
iii. Other Criticisms. Sir Edmund Leach (1983: 20-21) has criticized
Douglas for speaking of the largely agricultural and urban Israelites
as if they were an essentially pastoral people like the Nuer. It is of
course true that most Israelites were farmers rather than, or as well
as, pastoralists, though, as we have noted (§2.b), there was no sharp
line of division between the two, and it may also be true that the pas-
toral origins of Israel are, as Leach asserts, largely mythical. Many
Old Testament scholars today would agree with him. But in consider-
ing the dietary rules of Israelites as a symbolic system, the existence
of this myth, if it is one, cannot be ignored, especially since the rules
and the myths are found in the same document, the Pentateuch, and
are in this respect consistent with each other. Self-evidently the rules
are not such as one would expect to find among woodland pig-farmers
or camel-reliant Beduin; they are such as one might expect among
such a people as is portrayed in the Pentateuch, especially in Genesis,
whose main wealth is in the form of herds and flocks, though they also
practise agriculture.
But even these legends cannot have arisen out of nothing. If it was
important to certain circles in (say) sixth-century Israel to represent
their ancestors as pastoralists, it is likely that the pastoral life and
economy were of importance, religiously and politically, at the time
or in the recent past. Moreover, we shall find (Chapter 4, §§2.b.l,
4.b) some evidence to support the suggestion of Simoons (above, §2.b)
that pastoralists, or people with a pastoral tradition, had had consider-
able weight in the economy and politics of the area for some cen-
turies. Thus it seems to me that there is no strong reason to fault
Douglas on this point, though the social character of ancient Israel,
there is good reason to suppose, was more complex and pluralist than
she suggests. Rogerson (1989b: 25) makes this point in direct reference
to her theories (and see e.g. Lang 1983; Lemche 1988). Over against
the stream of tradition that celebrated Israel's pastoral ancestry and
may have sought to express the social character of the nation and its
own theological convictions in a pastorally based system of food
restrictions, there was certainly another, much more agrarian in its
tradition, and drawn towards the agrarian gods, the Baals. Is it not such
a tradition that is represented in Hosea as saying, 'I will go after my
lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax,
my oil and my drink' (Hos. 2.5 RSV [Heb. 2.7])? To what extent this
opposition of traditions was marked by opposition of dietary customs
requires further investigation, which I intend to give it in Chapter 5.
The point links up with another of Leach's criticisms of Douglas. He
accuses her of failing to take account of ritual attitudes towards
animals in the culture of the peoples of the whole region, peoples with
whom the Israelites were 'at all times very much mixed up' (Leach
1983: 20-21). I have already touched on this in my discussion of
Simoons. However, a discussion of this very important point is best
left until after we have examined the views of Firmage, who is
vulnerable to the same criticism.
Marshall Sahlins accuses Douglas of not allowing cultural symbols
to have any meaning of their own, but simply making them empty
markers of structure motivated solely by social relationships, these
being privileged over any other subject about which human beings
might wish to express themselves.
Meaning is... sacrificed for social marking. And the cultural codes of
persons and objects, like the correspondences between them, are con-
sumed in abstract implications of inclusion and exclusion. For in the total
theoretical project, the symbol is no more than a sign: not generative of
significance by virtue of its place in a system of symbols but empirically
motivated by existing social realities—which themselves, like the 'human
interests' presumed to constitute them, are allowed to escape any mean-
ingful explication (Sahlins 1976: 118).
She is not interested, as pointers to cultural meaning, in any features
of her anomalous animals other than whether they are regarded
'benevolently, malevolently, or with ambivalence, since this can be
likened to the relations between groups' (1976: 119). And even the
social relationships she adduces are lumped together in generaliza-
tions, without regard for important differences in marriage rules, for
example, supposed to be of the same general type.
These strictures are to some extent deserved, but not entirely fair.
Douglas does sometimes attach significance to the characteristics of the
animals as conveying meaning; the unclean birds (Douglas 1975b: 270)
are a case in point. Also, it is a misunderstanding of her approach to
see animals as simply representing social relationships; rather, the
symbolic system encodes both animals and relationships, along with
many other cultural categories, in an all-encompassing structure of
replicating patterns, no one of which should be conceived as having
priority over the others.
When all is said and done, there can be no doubt of the immense
debt owed by biblical scholars, and I would hope eventually by ordi-
nary readers of the Bible, to Mary Douglas. The amount of space I
have had to give to the consideration of her work is sufficient evidence
of the seriousness of her contribution to the understanding of these
chapters, and of course her wider work on purity and pollution is of
great and probably more enduring value in the study of this whole
theme in the Pentateuch. She has compelled those of us who might
have been inclined to dismiss it as an embarrassing survival of pri-
mitive superstition to look for meaning and coherence in it. It is true
that so far as the law of forbidden flesh is concerned her own reading
of its coherence and meaning has proved largely a failure. She has
sought in it a kind of coherence that has proved exegetically unsus-
tainable, and unfortunately her understanding of its meaning is too
closely tied to this to survive on its own. It is not possible to ask
whether her concept of anomaly accurately reflects the realities of
Israelite society if this concept does not correspond to a reality in the
text.
But Douglas's is not the only attempt, though it is by far the most
important, to interpret the dietary rules as a symbolic system. Jean
Soler (1979; cf. the criticism in Alter 1979) outlines an account making
a similar understanding of the contrast of clean and unclean animals,
relying on the rejection of anomaly, part of a broader symbolic
system in which the eating of flesh as such by humanity contrasts with
God's reservation of the blood for himself. Michael Carroll has
sketched an attempt at interpreting the forbidden species in terms of
the supposedly universal distinction (borrowed from Levi-Strauss)
between nature and culture; they are those that blur this essential
boundary and so can be seen as anomalous in that sense (Carroll 1978:
121-23). The swarming things, considered as vermin, 'are animals
(nature) that invade the world of men (culture), by contaminating

their food and infesting their dwellings'. Most of the other unclean
species can be seen as carnivorous in some sense or other, and this
transgresses a rule established in Genesis, whereby both humans and
animals were originally intended to be vegetarian (Gen. 1.29-30), and
this restriction was lifted after the Rood only for human beings (Gen.
9.3), so that any animal that eats flesh is seen to be trespassing upon a
privilege reserved for humankind. '"Meat-eating" is appropriately
associated only with men (and thus culture) and is not associated with
animals (nature)' (122).
Though Carroll escapes Sahlins's criticism of Douglas that she uses
the categorization of the animal world in a purely abstract way to
point to social relationships, his own interpretation is no more satis-
factory. It can only be carried through by a series of tours de force:
thus, for example, the flying insects most often mentioned in the Old
Testament, apart from locusts and grasshoppers, are stingers and
biters, and so can be seen as carnivores; sharks lack scales, so that if
carnivores were to be excluded among fish, scales would have to be
specified; and so on.
A more recent and far more significant attempt to interpret the
priestly law of unclean flesh as a self-contained symbolic system, with
a limited degree of motivation, more than in Douglas but less than in
Carroll, is represented by the article by Edwin Firmage in VTSup, 41
(Firmage 1990).
e. Edwin Firmage
1. Exposition. Firmage (1990) begins from the failure of Douglas's
theory of anomaly, but follows her in strongly insisting that the
priestly system is self-consistent and that it can and must be explained
solely in its own terms. Even if there were pre-existing taboos, they
need not have been taken over by the priestly legislators (p. 178). In
fact, he does not entirely succeed in excluding any explanation by way
of pre-existing customs.
Firmage works exclusively from Leviticus 11, and all verse refer-
ences will be to this chapter (he regards Deut. 14 as derived directly
from Lev. 11.1-23 [p. 208]). His starting point (p. 183) is the unique-
ness of the dietary law among the laws of impurity as a law of pro-
hibition (cf. Chapter 2, §l.c.6). Unlike all other impurities, it is a sin
in itself for Israelites to defile themselves with unclean food. And the
reason for this (here Firmage is close to Milgrom) is Israel's call to

holiness, conceived as an imitatio dei. This is explicit in the redac-
tional conclusion vv. 41-45, but implicit throughout. A parallel is
drawn between the diet of humankind and the diet of God. In a foot-
note (p. 186 n. 11) Firmage refers to the ancient terms sulhan yhwh
(the table of the LORD) and lehem >eldhim (the bread of God), and to
Haran's characterisation (1985: 205ff.) of the ritual acts performed
inside the temple as the provision of the needs of a deity conceived
anthropomorphically. It was necessary that the diet of Israel should be
clean, just as that of the deity was. Now the domestic flocks and herds
of cattle, sheep and goats (and among birds doves or pigeons) had
from time immemorial provided both the bulk of the human meat diet
and virtually all sacrifices to deities.1 The cleanness of animals would
be determined by their resemblance to a model provided by these rec-
ognized sacrificial species. 'The handful of species fit for God's altar-
table, universally accepted as such from the beginning, provided the
required definition of cleanness for the rest of the animal world'
(p. 186). However, since the same degree of holiness was not demanded
of Israel as of what was offered to God, other species could be eaten.
The question was which. In most cases there would be no difficulty;
lions, wolves and bears would be obviously unlike the sacrificial
animals, but to ensure there could never be any doubt a set of simple
criteria was provided for land animals2 enabling the lay person to
make a firm distinction in every case. 'They are those features which
the priests judged to be both comprehensive and easily applicable'
(p. 186). Firmage describes the 'temple paradigm' as 'the mainspring
of the dietary law' (p. 187).
But how does this explanation fare in regard to the creatures of
water and air? Firmage is clearly in some difficulty with the water
creatures, for there is no paradigm derivable from sacrificial species:
none such appeared upon the altar. He suggests that 'certain species
were excluded because in lacking fins and scales they were thought to
resemble land species that were prohibited by the criteria of v. 3'
(p. 189); for example, eels were compared with snakes (a very wide-
spread idea [p. 200])—Firmage does not recognize the distinction
1. Firmage refers specifically to the evidence from Ugarit (cf. Chapter 4,§3.b.2).
My far more extensive survey will confirm this picture, though it requires a modifica-
tion particularly in regard to pigs.
2. Firmage fails to recognize the distinction between bPhemQ. and Seres.
between beasts and swarming things. This may seem rather inadequate
in view of the vast variety of marine life excluded by the criteria, but
he adds two further points in an appendix: (1) that the priests were
probably only concerned with animals commonly encountered by
Israelites, which meant principally freshwater species such as eels and
catfish (but do catfish resemble snakes?), and (2) that crustaceans, which
are frequently compared to locusts in the onomastica of Akkadian and
Arabic, could have been linked to the Seres of the land (p. 202). He
also points out that very little knowledge of fish and other water life is
displayed in the Bible, and that fish were largely marketed by non-
Israelites (Job 40.30; Neh. 13.16) and in forms that would make
morphological investigation difficult.
Firmage explains the lack of criteria for birds on the following
lines (190-91). Assuming that the general opinion that the unclean
birds are predators is correct, the selection must have been
deliberately made on the basis of diet and behaviour; this would be the
feature that would most clearly distinguish birds on the basis of a
paradigm provided by the dove. But although it would be generally
known that vultures, eagles and owls ate carrion and carried off small
live animals, the diet of less well-known birds would not be a matter
of common knowledge. It was therefore better to provide a list, and
not add criteria that would only create confusion. This was practicable
because of the relatively small number of unclean species. Firmage
argues (202-203) that the number of species either named or
suggested by the four occurrences of 'after its kind' (leminehu, etc.) is
approximately what one would expect for a list of predatory birds in
Israel's immediate environment. He has not apparently noticed the
numerical symmetry of the lists in this chapter, nor is he aware of the
growth of the text (Chapter 2, §l.c.5), nor does he even refer to the
anomalous position of the bat, an insectivore like many clean birds.
Flying insects, viewed as a subset of the 'dp, the flying creatures,
obviously do not conform to the temple paradigm provided by the
dove. Why then is an exception made in the case of locusts? It can
hardly be as Douglas suggests, because they jump, as land animals
should, because they are classed as air creatures (p. 192). Nor can this
criterion be connected with any temple paradigm. In this case Firmage
is forced, as we have seen, to concede that the criteria are probably
secondary (in the logical, not the literary sense), providing a means of
identification of the species allowed and not a reason for allowing
them (p. 192). The reason is likely to be simply, as I have suggested,

that they were a popular food, and indeed a necessary one when they
were themselves devouring all the crops (p. 192 n. 22).
If this is one point where the provisions of the text can only be
explained by existing custom, even by Firmage, another, surprisingly
enough, is the criterion of chewing the cud and the prohibition of the
pig. Firmage argues that since the pig is the only animal excluded by
this criterion that would not also have been excluded by that of cloven
hooves, the criterion must have been added for the specific purpose of
excluding the pig. Hence it is very probable that
alone among the prohibited animals of Lev. xi, the pig was already an un-
favored species, for reasons that likely had nothing to do with the motiva-
tion of our present dietary law. This is the only demonstrable instance in
the dietary law where the priests would seem to have accepted an ancient
tabu (193-94 [so also Milgrom 1990: 189]).
2. Critique. There is a substantial plausibility in Firmage's theory, at

any rate as regards the beasts. I had myself, long before the appear-
ance of his essay, come to the conclusion that the definition of beasts
here as edible was governed by their cultic acceptability, and not the
other way round, though my own position is supported (see Chapter
4, §3) by concrete evidence of cultic and dietary practice over a broad
geographical and temporal range. Indeed as regards the beasts
Firmage has the edge over Mary Douglas, who defines the permitted
beasts as those kept for food by a pastoral people. They are so, but
since the law is a religious law promulgated by a literate class of
priests in an urban community, it is more plausible and relevant to
derive it from religious practice, while recognizing that there is likely
to be a connection between the two facts. The great strength of the
theory is that it makes a clear link between the framework of the
code, with its emphasis on holiness, and its content.
But it has clear weaknesses in relation to the other classes of animals.
Firmage's account of the water-creatures section fails to carry con-
viction. Though his account of the birds is more plausible, the three
points overlooked by him that I mentioned above seriously damage his
case, especially the history of the text, which shows that originally it
was mainly the better-known birds that were listed, precisely the ones
that would not need to have been, according to his argument, if the
supposed dietary criterion had been stated. Yet it is equally damaging
that the raven was the very last bird to be added to the list, though its
diet must have been as well known as that of any of them. Moreover,
it does not seem that the supposed difficulty of being certain about
birds' diet is a sufficient reason for omitting a general criterion. The
case of the locusts may be compared, where a criterion is stated,
despite the fact that it could not be accurately applied, and had to be
supplemented by a list. If there is a general rationality in the list, it is
hard to see why the consciously rational authors should not put it on
display.
As regards the pig, the logic is faulty. As we have noted (Chapter 2,
§l.c.3), there are not two but three criteria for the beasts in
Lev. 11.3, though the second is subordinate to the first;1 and there are
only two more beasts known to Israel excluded by the criterion of
cloven hooves (and also by that of cud-chewing) that would not have
been excluded by the requirement of hooves: the ass and the horse. It
would therefore be just as reasonable to argue that these were subject
to ancient taboos, and that therefore the pig is not the only 'already
unfavored species'. The only other common domestic animals are the
camel and the dog, and these are supposedly excluded by the first cri-
terion, the requirement of hooves; but we have already seen the prob-
lematic position of the camel in this regard, which suggests that it too
was rejected for reasons other than the stated criteria. One must
assume that the criteria were arrived at from observation of well-
known and particularly domestic animals; and they cannot simply have
been derived positively from the known sacrificial animals, for then
there would have been no clear indication which of their many com-
mon features should be selected, but also by comparison with known
non-sacrificial animals, such as the dog, ass and pig; these three com-
mon domestic animals are excluded successively by the three criteria.
But the other part of Firmage's conclusion, that the exclusion of the
pig was for reasons that 'had nothing to do with the motivation of our
present dietary law', is equally dubious. After all, the fact that it was
thought necessary to exclude the pig indicates, in Firmage's view of
the law, only that the pig was not a sacrificial animal (which we knew
already), and therefore any set of criteria derived from the sacrificial
animals must not be allowed to include it. It does not show that the pig
was not eaten. That might be so, but it could be shown to be so only
by direct evidence. True, since the pig, unlike the ass and the camel, is
1. Firmage appears to accept this translation, at least for v. 26 (p. 205).

bred solely in order to be eaten, one would expect it to be sacrificed if

it were eaten; Firmage reasonably suggests (p. 199) that the repertory
of sacrificial animals consists of those upon whose fertility the com-
munity depended. One would expect it, which only goes to show the
danger of a priori argument. As I shall show in the next chapter
(Chapter 4, §3.b), pigs in the ancient Near East were not normally
sacrificed even where they were eaten. The position of the other
unclean domestic animals is more straightforward, being generally
neither eaten nor sacrificed, but the evidence is overwhelming that the
custom of not eating them long preceded any possible date for the pre-
sent law. Firmage's argument thus loses much of its explanatory power.
A more general problem of the theory is that he bases it upon the
idea of imitatio dei, and that this involves a thoroughly anthropo-
morphic conception of God and the cult offered to him. But despite
their use of antiquated phraseology which implies such a conception,
the priestly writers have surely left such ideas far behind. No block of
material in the Old Testament has a more sophisticated theology and a
more transcendent idea of the divine being, or displays more reserve
towards divine immanence and anthropomorphic conceptions. It there-
fore seems very doubtful that they could have developed a conception
in which the food of the deity was compared to human food. No doubt
the core of the chapter is more ancient than the mainstream of P; but
in Firmage's account it is closely connected with the theology of the
Holiness Code, and is therefore not very ancient (though Firmage
himself does not offer any date).
This problem might be avoided by arguing that it is not so much a
direct comparison between divine and human diets that is the motiva-
tion as the indirect effect of the sacrificial rules in defining meat as
clean and unclean. But this simply raises the most basic question of all.
Why, after all, should diet be a field for the exercise of holiness?
What is it about the discrimination of animals for the altar that should
render them fit or unfit for human consumption? The authors of
Leviticus 11 are unlikely to have come to such an idea unless there
had always been a close connection between table and altar, and, as I
have already remarked, we still need some precise idea of the nature
of this connection before the emergence of this law. If pigs or camels
or hares or foxes are not to be eaten, and it is because they or animals
like them are not sacrificed, why are they not sacrificed? In most cases
(not in that of the pig, a problem in itself) it is because they are not
eaten. But what is the explanation of that? Firmage's explanation takes
us some of the way along the road, but in the end we simply find our-
selves faced with the same problem one stage further back. It has
become clear that we need a more comprehensive idea of the context
in which the priestly rules were developed, that is, how they took up
current practice and modified and interpreted it.
3. Fir mage, Douglas and Cultural Pluralism. This is then the appro-
priate point at which to return to Leach's second criticism of Douglas,
which also applies to Firmage: that she fails to take account of ritual
attitudes towards animals in the culture of the whole region. Douglas,
of course, had her answer ready before the criticism was made. In
commenting on theories that make the ritual prohibitions of the Torah
a fence against foreign influence, she says with a side-glance at the
Myth and Ritual school, who see Israel's ritual as an example of a
pattern widespread in the ancient Near East,
It is no explanation to represent Israel as a sponge at one moment and as a
repellent the next, without explaining why it soaked up this foreign ele-
ment but repelled that one. What is the value of saying that seething kids
in milk and copulating with cows are forbidden in Leviticus because they
are the fertility rites of foreign neighbours, since Israel took over other
foreign rites?... The Israelites absorbed freely from their neighbours, but
not quite freely. Some elements of foreign culture were incompatible with
the principles of patterning on which they were constructing their universe;
others were compatible (1966: 49).
All that really matters for the interpreter is the 'principles of pattern-
ing' of the given cultural universe; the rituals of the neighbours can
tell her nothing, since only the pattern determines whether a given
feature is accepted or rejected.
This approach may do very well for the Bongo-Bongo (though
recent anthropology has begun to take seriously the extent to which
tribal societies are influenced by state societies in their neighbour-
hood), and it may do very well for Israel as imagined by biblicistic
scholars swallowing whole the Bible's own account of their origin; but
hardly for the complex plural society that many scholars have begun
to accept as the historical reality. It is not possible any longer to speak
of 'Canaanite' culture as something foreign to Israel. On the one hand,
Israel only slowly developed into a distinct society able to pick and
choose from the culture of its neighbours. For much of its history in
the biblical period, it is more accurate to see Israel as simply a part of

a wider area, including the cities of Syria, Phoenicia and Philistia and
the developing tribal societies of Transjordan, sharing very similar
cultural norms as well as having some distinctive patterns. (See for a
useful summary Nicholson 1986b, and now from a different point of
view M.S. Smith 1990, as well as the more polemical Lang 1983 and
Lemche 1988.) On the other hand, the religious and cultural tradition
that is most distinctive of the Israelite-Jewish heritage as we know it
from the Bible is often in intimate and mutually enriching conflict,
within the same society, with others that we know as pagan or
Canaanite.
One may sympathize with the irritation expressed by Douglas with
the seemingly mutually contradictory arguments about Israel's rela-
tionship with Canaanite and foreign culture; but they are explained
once one realizes that 'Israel' means quite different things in the two
approaches. For the Myth and Ritual school, the Israelite cult means
the royal cult of Jerusalem that supported the central institutions of a
state that disappeared in 587 BC, supposed to be partially recon-
structible from fragments of evidence in the Psalms and elsewhere, as
well as by comparison with the cults of similar neighbouring states.
But the argument that the rules of the Torah react against pagan cults
concerns the faith and practice of those in Israel whose devotion cen-
tred not on the state and its institutions but on the covenant between
Yahweh and his people, and in their present form these rules come
from a time after the fall of the state. There is no single 'pattern' that
explains the variety of responses (so Rogerson 1989b: 25).
Conceivably the original core of Israel, the tribal society developing
in the highlands of Ephraim and Manasseh in the early Iron Age, was
a simple homogeneous society to which the arguments quoted above
would be applicable; and of course we must take into account the pos-
sibility that the essentials of the dietary code go back to it. But the
creator of the code that we have is a consciously intellectual priest-
hood operating in a society divided by class, ethnic origin and religious
conviction. Here is the real justification of Douglas's and Firmage's
position. For to all appearance the priestly system is a self-contained
and self-consistent system, and has been effectively described as such
in studies such as Haran 1985 or Gorman 1990. So Douglas supports
her case that the code's own internal consistency is sufficient to explain
it (1975c: 308): 'We are asked to believe that the people of Israel have
been saddled with an irrational, undecipherable set of food-rules

imposed on them by the most rigorously logical law-givers imaginable'.
But it grossly overestimates the power and intellectual independence
of the priesthood to suppose that they could 'impose' laws in food, of
all things, without any reference to current custom. What they could
do would be to support one tradition in their society against others.
In a society marked by such cultural conflict two things are likely to
be true. On the one hand, the adversaries share more cultural assump-
tions than they themselves realize, and it is not possible a priori to
decide which parts of the 'patterning' represent the common heritage
and which are distinctive. On the other, a process takes place that
Douglas herself has recognized. In the passage about the Antiochian
persecution from which I have already quoted, she remarks:
If two symbolic systems are confronted, they begin to form, even by their
opposition, a single whole. In this totality each half may be represented to
the other by a single element which is made to jump out of context to per-
form this role (Douglas 1973a: 63).
By extension, if two symbolic systems develop in confrontation, one

may expect them to form a whole that derives its logic from a shared
symbolism with particular elements in opposition to each other. For
an instructive example of this the immortal lines of the Didache may
serve: 'Let not your fasts be with the hypocrites, for they fast on
Mondays and Thursdays, but do you fast on Wednesdays and Fridays'
(Did. 8.1). While fasting on Fridays may be said to derive from the
'pattern' of Christian culture, fasting on two days a week is as surely,
if implicitly, owed to the influence of the Pharisaic adversaries as the
choice of the days is to opposition to them. Whether a similar (if not
similarly trivial) opposition within a shared system developed between
'Canaanite' paganism and Yahwism in the field of dietary observance
is one thing we shall have try to establish.
3. Conclusion
From this survey of significant work on the dietary code several
points of importance emerge. Although no one theory has proved
completely satisfactory, all have suggested aspects that need to be
taken into account. No full explanation is possible that does not take
account of both the material and the social contexts of the code. The
limits of variation in diet are set by the ecological substrate of
Israelite society, even if Harris can hardly be correct in claiming that

ecological constraints are transformed into religious taboos. The
practice of the surrounding peoples and of Israel's own ancestors, if
we can discover them, must not be ignored, especially if it turns out
that in some, or indeed most, respects they are closely similar to that
laid upon Israel in the code. It is true that the code as we have it is a
symbolic system that created and creates meaning, ethical and aesthetic
as well as theological, for those who observe it. The question remains
how its elements originally acquired the meaning that they have.
Douglas's abstract structural approach fails to convince because of its
lack of real basis in the text, as well as the general fact that symbols in
symbolic systems tend to be individually motivated (Hallpike 1979:
151-52); but her insistence that the code as it stands must be taken
seriously and meaning sought in it marks a turning point in the dis-
cussion. Firmage's proposal carries forward this insight and is itself
rather better grounded: it succeeds in showing that the distinction
between clean and unclean animals need not be understood as arbitrary
but can be justified by a paradigm drawn from ritual practice.
The hypothesis that will be tested in the following pages attempts to
take all these points into account. It will be shown that the dietary
repertoire suggested by the code is general among Israel, its immediate
neighbours and predecessors in the land, except that in some places
there is some limited use of the pig; moreover, as regards sacrifice at
official sanctuaries, the correspondence is even closer: nowhere are
pigs sacrificed. My hypothesis is that the systematic classification of
animals as clean and unclean for food developed at the sanctuaries
(Jerusalem is not the only example) as a measure to ensure the purity
of the worshippers, and was therefore naturally based on those animals
that were acceptable for sacrifice. The deeper roots of the distinction
will be seen to lie in the common custom of an economy with strong
pastoral aspects, where pigs played a subordinate role, and where
mammalian game was mainly confined to deer and gazelle; in these
circumstances the associations and perceived characteristics of animals
could have served, as some modern parallels show, as a means for the
encoding of social dichotomies. Only at the stage of the development
of monolatrous Yahwism as exemplified in our present texts was the
distinction absolutized into a demand for total abstinence from
'unclean' food as a mark of dedication. Purity became the guardian of
monotheism.
Chapter 4
THE CONTEXT SURVEYED
In this chapter I shall survey the evidence for the way in which animals
were used, chiefly for food and sacrifice, in the Levantine region in a
period of three or four millennia including that in which the Old
Testament was formed. In the second part of the chapter, after an
introductory consideration of methods, I set out what we know from
direct evidence about the use of animals for food, and test the limits of
a purely material explanation of the facts in terms of environmental
factors. In the third part I look at the evidence for cultural factors
governing the use of animals, focusing principally but not exclusively
on those concerned with the prescription and restriction of species for
sacrifice; and part four tests certain partial explanations—mainly con-
cerned with the pig—for the facts in the two previous parts. The
following chapter attempts a full explanation in 'emic' terms through
the associations of animals in the Old Testament and other contem-
porary literature and through ethnographic parallels.
1. Methods
What kinds of evidence are available to us for the use of animals in an
ancient culture? Two kinds, broadly conceived: written and material
evidence. I choose these terms (rather than 'literary' and 'archaeo-
logical') advisedly, in order to make the clearest possible distinction in
the way the different kinds of evidence operate. 'Written' evidence
includes not only the literary works that have come down to us from
antiquity by continuous transmission, but the tablets, inscriptions and
so forth that have been unearthed in recent times by the archaeologist's
spade. Evidence of this kind might be compared to the human witness
standing in court to be examined by counsel, while by 'material'
evidence I mean what the lawyer understands by circumstantial
4. The Context Surveyed 125
evidence: bones, shells and other remnants of meals and sacrifices

discovered in the course of excavation. At one time little systematic
attention was paid to remains of this kind: they were referrred to in
excavation reports if the excavator thought they were interesting for
some special reason, otherwise they were thrown onto the spoil heap.
The modern school of archaeology allows nothing that is discovered
to go unrecorded or to fail to yield whatever it has to yield of informa-
tion about the lives or activities of the inhabitants of the site; and over
the last thirty or forty years a flourishing specialism of archaeozoology
(or osteoarchaeology) has developed based upon the analysis of faunal
remains from scientifically conducted excavations. (For textbooks of
the methodology of this science, see Chaplin 1971, Hesse and Wapnish
1985; for critical reflections on these methods, see Urpmann 1973.)
Each of these kinds of evidence has, along with its strengths, its own
severe limitations. The written evidence falls into two main kinds:
societies' witness to themselves, such as the Old Testament or the
Ugaritic texts, and the witness of outsiders, such as Lucian's De Dea
Syria.1 The first kind has the weakness that, in general, people do not
comment on what seems to them self-evident; thus although the Bible
refers to unclean food in a number of places, only the two short pass-
ages we are dealing with explain what animals were considered unclean,
and the Ugaritic texts, a more fragmentary corpus, apparently make
no explicit reference to what animals the people of Ugarit refused to
eat. It would be surprising if there were none, and indeed it is possible
to cross-examine the texts to discover their indirect witness on this
question.
The second kind has the opposite defect that globetrotters and arm-
chair ethnographers tend to comment only on what seems to them to
be surprising or quaint, on what they think will interest their readers,
or on what interests them for reasons of their own (like Porphyry
with his aim of commending vegetarianism); and they very easily
misunderstand alien customs. Greek writers will comment if a people
refuse pork, but not usually if they abstain from horsemeat, for
example. Thus this kind of evidence suffers from a selectivity that is
1. It may seem odd to describe Lucian (assuming he really wrote this work) as
an 'outsider' to Hierapolis, originating as he did from Samosata, only about 100
miles away as the crow flies. But the work reads, and is deliberately written to read,
like an ethnographic tract: the Herodotean style is intended to reinforce this impres-
sion. If Lucian was not an outsider, his readers certainly were.
difficult to control and that is compounded by the accidents of preserva-

tion. Further, much of it is later than we would like: Lucian (if
authentic [cf. Oden 1977: Iff.]) in the second century AD, Porphyry in
the third, and a number of other classical writers of the Roman
period. One particularly interesting account, and the only one that can
be set beside De Dea Syria as an attempt to describe a complete reli-
gious system, is very much later; this is the account by the tenth-
century Arab encyclopedist al-Nadim in his Fihrist of the pagans of
Harran who called themselves Sabi'ah. How much does this matter?
How much are customs likely to have changed in a thousand years or
so? The answer seems to be that they could have changed quite a lot,
especially in a period marked by massive foreign influence; and if our
evidence is of a number of varying local customs, there is no way of
effectively allowing for this change. But if it shows a broad similarity
over a wide area, and one that could not be traceable to Hellenistic
influence, then there may be some safety in concluding that we are
looking at a deeply rooted and therefore ancient set of customs. The
evidence, in other words, must recommend itself.
The material or archaeozoological evidence has the immense advan-
tage that it is steadily growing, and increasing in range as excavations
of smaller and less prominent sites are undertaken, so that it is no
longer confined to large urban centres. But even today many excava-
tions fail to produce any adequate record or analysis of faunal remains,
despite their importance for understanding the subsistence of the inhabi-
tants (cf. Hiibner 1989:225-26). It is now possible to give a reasonably
full general picture of animal use in antiquity in the region with which
we are concerned, but finer detail often eludes us as long as the
recording of the evidence remains so patchy. It may be that the con-
clusions I intend to draw will be criticized on the grounds that fuller
evidence is still required. But not being an archaeozoologist, I cannot
go out and get the evidence myself. I rely on the experts, and must
make do with what they provide; I am grateful to some of them for
guiding me to the appropriate sources and even generously presenting
me with work unpublished at the present time. It would have been
better had I been able to refer to a work written by an expert giving
such a general survey, but as far as I have been able to determine no
such work exists. I have no alternative but to make the attempt to
draw my inexpert conclusions from what is available to me. As fur-
ther evidence accumulates, no doubt these conclusions will be refined
and corrected; and may I hope that the work I would have welcomed
will be written?
This evidence does not speak for itself; it requires interpretation,
and a perusal of the literature will show how manifold are the pitfalls
that beset this process. Carefully interpreted, it can yield an amazing
amount of information about a community's mode of subsistence and
methods of animal husbandry, and in certain situations also about their
religion. But it is subject to certain unavoidable distortions and
uncertainties. Practitioners do not agree on the best way of recording
results in order to calculate the proportions of the various species in
the diet. The three main methods that are in use are (1) a count of the
number of fragments identifiable as belonging to particular species,
(2) the calculation of the respective total weights of such fragments,
and (3) the calculation of the minimum number of animals represented
by the fragments (generally referred to as MNI). All three have their
drawbacks (Chaplin 1971: 64ff.; Hesse 1971). The results that I quote
are all given of necessity according to the number of fragments
(expressed as a percentage of the total number of identified frag-
ments), since this is the only information given by all the studies cited,
whatever other means of presentation may be adopted by some of
them. But it should not be assumed that the figures are directly com-
parable from site to site. Indeed, Chaplin (1971: 67) considers that
results calculated on this basis are completely useless for comparative
purposes, since butchering methods, which generally result in the
bones of larger animals being cut into more pieces than the corre-
sponding bones of smaller ones, differ in ways that cannot be known
or allowed for. He favours, for this reason, the MNI method. How-
ever, as I shall show, within very broad statistical limits the method of
counting fragments does yield differences between sites in different
areas, differences which, taken overall, correspond as one might
expect to environmental factors. This suggests that the differences
cannot be large enough to make the comparison as useless as Chaplin
believes. It is in any case hard to see that the MNI method is any less
subject to uncertainties that vitiate comparability. However, for our
purposes the precise figures are not important; it is the general picture
that counts, and I do not believe this is fundamentally flawed.
There are other problems. Since a particular series of excavations
generally only uncovers a small part of any settlement, its evidence
may be badly skewed by differential use or preservation of material at
different places in the settlement, though statistically this weakness

may be overcome by grouping the results from many different sites to
give a picture of animal use over a region or period, as I attempt to
do. Further, though it is generally possible to show the kinds of large
animals that were used for food, the bones of fish and fowl are rela-
tively seldom recorded in any number, and even more rarely identi-
fied as to species. (There are, however, beginning to be a number of
impressive exceptions to this rule.)1 Observation at the village of
Hesban in Jordan in the course of the excavation of the nearby tell of
Heshbon showed that the dogs, when offered chicken bones, 'would
consume every one of them completely' (LaBianca 1978: 239); this
seems likely to have been a common fate of remains of fowl, while
fishbones are rarely recorded unless the earth is sieved, an extremely
time-consuming process which excavators are often unwilling to
undertake. Again, while with careful interpretation we may gain an
impression of the relative balance of the usual domestic animals in the
people's diet, we cannot tell how important meat in general was in it,
since even if we can estimate the population of the site we generally
have no idea what factor to apply to convert the recovered remains
into a figure for the number of animals originally slaughtered over
the relevant period (Urpmann 1973: 318ff.; but see Rosen 1986). And
most important for our purpose, although we may cautiously posit
that the inhabitants of a site at a given period did not eat certain
animals, or only ate negligible quantities of them, the material evidence
in itself cannot tell us why; was it only because the environment was
unsuitable? or was it because they deliberately avoided them? and if
so, why? Conversely, the kind of written evidence I shall cite does not
tell us what people actually ate, only what restrictions they set, or
claimed to set, on their diet. It is therefore rather difficult to compare
or integrate the two kinds of evidence, yet it must be attempted.
We have to impose some geographical limit on the testimony, and it
is clear that the further we go from the Land of Israel, the less likely
the evidence is to be relevant (hence I have reservations about the
very wide net thrown by de Vaux in his article on the sacrifice of pigs
[1972], which brings in Greece, Babylonia and Egypt). In so far as we
can describe the people of Israel as sharing in a common culture with
their neighbours, we may draw the bounds of that culture differently
1. See above all Boessneck and von den Driesch 1981, or on a smaller scale
Horwitz and Tchernov 1989.
as we look at different manifestations. Certain aspects of the high

culture of the elite, such as the royal ritual and ideology, or the
wisdom literature, were of course common to the whole Near East.
But when we look at more popular culture, and certainly at something
as basic to everyday life as diet, then we need to draw the boundaries
more tightly. There seems to be sufficient in common between the
cultures and religion of the various peoples speaking Canaanite and
Aramaic dialects in Palestine, Phoenicia (with its colonies in Cyprus
and the Western Mediterranean), Syria and Northern Mesopotamia to
take that as our normal boundary, yet striking parallels from Egypt or
Akkadian culture should not be ignored. As for a limit in time, that is
more difficult. I have discussed the problem raised by literary evi-
dence from a time substantially later than the time of the Bible.
Equally, it will probably be thought that the archaeological evidence
from the Early Bronze Age that I quote below is not likely to be of
great relevance. Certainly it is not by itself, but it is sufficiently of a
piece with that from the Middle Bronze Age to be worth quoting
alongside it. I have not gone further back, except by way of putting
things in an environmental context.
2. Diet: The Material Evidence

a. Introduction
The picture I shall draw in this section is drawn entirely from the
material evidence. This needs to be evaluated in the light of a general
understanding of the environmental conditions in Palestine, whence
most of our evidence comes. (I have included material from Syria and
Jordan where it is available, but the land of Israel has been far more
intensively excavated, for religious and political reasons.) Rainfall
increases generally from south to north, and from the Jordan valley
rapidly westwards to the hill country of Judah, Ephraim and Manasseh,
and eastwards to the Transjordanian highlands; beyond the spine of
the western hill-country it falls off more gradually to the coast. Thus
the total annual rainfall at Beersheba is 8.9 in, and at Jericho 6.4 in,
whereas at Jerusalem (east of the area of heaviest precipitation) it is
23.5 in; at Natanya on the coast north of Tel-Aviv it is 18.4 in, and at
Safad in Upper Galilee it is 29.1 in (May 1984: 51). The hill-country
and the northern coastal plain are capable of supporting forest, and
would have done so in prehistoric times (cf. Rowton 1967, Gophna,
Lipschitz and Lev-Yadun 1986-87); but the southern Negev and the
Arabah, and the Jordan valley as far north as the Jabbok, are desert,
except for oases (Gophna et al. 1986-87: 50). Cereals can be grown
throughout most of the country, but obviously there is a wide swathe
of territory in the south, and on the slopes descending to the Jordan
and the Dead Sea, where the only practical use of the land is for the
pasturage of sheep and goats. The limits set by these constraints must
be borne in mind as we study the archaeological record.
It is generally agreed that animals were domesticated earlier in the
Near East than anywhere else in the world, perhaps as early as
8000 BC for sheep and goats (Glutton-Brock 1981: 59-60; Cauvin
1978: 78-79), 7000 BC for pigs (Glutton-Brock 1981: 72; cf. idem
1979; Reed 1969: 371), and 6400 BC for cattle (Glutton-Brock 1981:
66). Some would regard these dates as too early for genuine full
domestication by perhaps a thousand years (cf. Ducos and Helmer
1981), but there would be no dispute that by 5000 BC all four species
were fully domesticated in the Near East. These results are derived
from the examination of remains of these species from such early sites
as Jarmo, Catal Hiiyiik or Jericho. Slight differences can be detected
between wild and domestic animals after only a few generations,
especially a reduction in size. But the progress of domestication at
Jericho (and elsewhere in Palestine; cf. Davis 1982: 13-14) is marked
especially by a sharp change in the source of flesh-meat. In the Pre-
Pottery Neolithic A (roughly the eighth millennium) the greater part
of the faunal remains are derived from gazelles (over 50 per cent) and
foxes; sheep and goats are negligible. Clearly these early villagers
were still above all hunters. Neither gazelle nor fox has ever been, or
ever could be, domesticated, because of their territorial behaviour
(Glutton-Brock 1981; cf. Garrard 1984). In PPNB (the seventh mil-
lennium) gazelles provide about 15 per cent and foxes less than 10 per
cent of the remains. Sheep and goats, which show signs of domestica-
tion, rise to 55 per cent, with cattle at 13 per cent. Pigs, which are
still wild, are at 17 per cent (chart in Clutton-Brock 1981: 60, and
1979: 155 [table]). There is a lack of animal remains from the Pottery
Neolithic at Jericho, but by the Bronze Age the four main domestic
food animals are well established as almost the sole source of meat,
apart from a small quantity of gazelle (Clutton-Brock 1979: 155). The
gap can be filled in from other sites (cf. Ducos 1969), but different
sites differ widely. Animals are kept at all sites in the Pottery
Neolithic, but proportions of the different species differ widely
(p. 267). It is worth noting, however, that there is no site at which the
pig is the leading food animal, and at many (e.g. Beisamun, where
unusually a quarter of the remains are of pigs [p. 267]), there is still
no sign that these are domesticated (p. 270).
Our more detailed attention must be given to the Bronze and Iron
Ages. In order to give a full picture of the material evidence in a
compendious form I have tabulated the information on some 40 sites
in Table B at the end of this chapter (pp. 178-80). This is not a
selection, but includes every site for which I have useful information.
They are mainly in Palestine, though there are a clutch in the
Euphrates Valley in Syria, with one just over the border in Turkey,
and a couple in Jordan. The table is arranged for convenience of refer-
ence in alphabetical order according to the name of the site. The name
is usually that used by my authority, or if not, that by which the site is
commonly known. The next three columns enable the table to be used
for analysis of the results on various lines. The area where the site is
located is given according to the following code:
cp coastal plain
ev Euphrates valley
g Galilee
he hill country
jo Jordan (highlands)
jv Jordan valley
n Negev (except for Timna, this means the Negev in ancient usage,
i.e. the Beersheba area)
nfh northern foothills
nv northern valleys
sh Shephelah
The period is given following the source and according to the stan-
dard abbreviations used by Palestinian archaeologists. However, there
are traps for the unwary, for the terminology is not used in exactly the
same way by different archaeologists, for example American archaeo-
logists end Iron I at c. 900 BC and Israelis at c. 1000 BC; more
important, the same period is referred to by different authorities as
EBIV, Intermediate Bronze and MBI; and this divergent terminology
may appear in studies written by the same author, since the faunal
analyst normally simply follows the terminology of the excavator.1
1. As a guide for the uninitiated it may be useful to append here a table of the
Under 'type' I have indicated whether the site, or that part of it from
which the sample was taken, was domestic (dom), tombs (tomb), or a
temple or other cultic structure (cult).
The figures indicate the percentage of the total number of identifiable
fragments assigned to the species in question. I have already spoken of
the problems besetting every method of setting out and comparing
results. It may be of interest to have a table comparing numbers of
fragments with weight of bone for several species; this may give some
indication of the balance of the species in the diet suggested by various
ratios of fragments. In particular, obviously, beef will be of greater
importance than suggested simply by the number of fragments, since
the bones are heavier and carry a greater weight of meat. The table
that I give here (Table A, p. 178) is derived from figures given by
Buitenhuis for Hayaz Hoyiik (1985: 70); however, I have calculated
the percentages over the identified portion of the remains rather than
the total as he does. These figures refer to domestic animals only, plus
deer, therefore they are slightly different from those in the main
table, which include wild boar in the percentages for pigs. The dis-
crepancies between the two levels indicate the degree of variability to
be expected statistically in small samples; the pig fragments that hap-
pened to be preserved from the EB level were on average larger than
those from the Chalcolithic, but this does not mean that pigs had
grown 50 per cent bigger! In this, as in the main table, percentages
are only given to two significant figures.
In Table B I have only given figures for the major animals—the
domestic food animals invariably, and deer and gazelles only if the
proportion exceeded 3 per cent. There were very few places where
hunting of mammals contributed anything significant to the diet.
main archaeological periods of Palestine, abbreviated from A. Mazar 1990: 30, with
the caution that absolute chronology is constantly subject to amendment:
Pre-Pottery Neolithic A c. 8500-7500 BC
Prc-Poucry Neolithic B c. 7500-6000 BC
Pottery Neolithic c. 6000-4300 BC
Chalcolithic c. 4300-3300 BC
Early Bronze I-HI c. 3300-2300 BC
Early Bronze FV/Middle Bronze I c. 2300-2000 BC
Middle Bronze H c. 2000-1550 BC
Late Bronze c. 1550-1200 BC
Iron I c. 1200-1000 BC
Iron II c. 1000- 586 BC
After S86 BC historical terms such as 'Persian period' are employed.
Almost always there is also a wide variety of other 'unclean' wild
animals, but always in very small quantity, far too small to base any
serious argument on, in view of the propensity of archaeological
samples for contamination by various means. Most sites also yielded
remains of equids—presumably usually asses—and dogs, sometimes in
surprising quantity. I have occasionally mentioned this for some
special reason in the last column, since there is hardly ever any
question of these animals having been eaten. Where it was specifically
stated that no remains of a particular species were identified, I have
inserted a dash '—'. Where remains were present but the quantity was
not specified, I have put 'X'. In a few cases where the source was not
directly available to me, this sign does not necessarily mean that the
original source did not give quantities.
b. Discussion
1. Cattle, Sheep and Goats. In interpreting these results, geography
and ecology are the first factors that we must consider. The most
obvious feature in the results taken as a whole is the dominance of
sheep and goats almost everywhere, not necessarily in the proportions
of the diet, but always in numbers. Everywhere there were large
numbers of people engaged in pastoralism. This may mean either that
many members of the settled community were so engaged, or that
they were in close commercial contact with nomad stockbreeders. At
different times and places these two types of relationship will have had
different degrees of importance (cf. Wapnish and Hesse 1988: 83).
But if we then look at those sites in the driest locations, those marginal
for agriculture unassisted by irrigation, we find that they almost
invariably have still higher proportions of sheep and goats, with cattle
generally well under 20 per cent. These include the sites in the Negev,
and the nearby and almost equally dry Tell es-Sharia, Tell Jemmeh
and 'Araq el-Emir, and the sites in the mid-Euphrates Valley, where
the rainfall is also low, and Jericho, where there is little rainfall,
though proper use of the spring water makes agriculture possible. Of
these, only Tel Masos and MB Jericho have more than 20 per cent of
cattle. Other sites where the proportion of cattle in the remains falls
below 20 per cent include most of the cultic and funerary sites, which
require separate discussion, the Ophel, which is exceptional in any
case, and Tell Qiri and Tell Qasile.
These exceptions may not be easy to explain, but in general the key
to these facts has been given by Baruch Rosen (1986), who points out
in a most illuminating study of the bases of subsistence at Izbet Sartah
that the number of cattle kept at any settlement depends in general on
the extent to which it relies on agriculture for its subsistence and
therefore requires oxen for draught; Izbet Sartah's 34 per cent indi-
cates a community based solidly on agriculture, as the number of
grain silos also shows, but wherever the proportion of cattle exceeds
something like 20 per cent, subject to the problems of bias in the
results, it is likely that the community taken as a whole is supported
primarily by agriculture.
But records from different periods of Palestine's history—Assyrian
tribute lists, Turkish tax rolls and British censuses—uniformly reveal
a ratio of sheep and goats to cattle for the country as a whole far
higher than this, about 9:1 (Baruch Rosen 1986: 60-67). This shows
the great importance that pastoralism and pastoralists have had in the
economy of the country at all times, for the proportion of cattle in
their flocks and herds tends not to exceed 5 per cent. It will be obvi-
ous that the corresponding ratio over the sites listed in the table taken
together is much lower than 9:1. But this is to be expected; for
archaeologists have tended to home in on substantial sites, while com-
munities of pastoralists tend to live in small settlements, or indeed,
especially in this region, to be nomadic, and thus to leave virtually no
domestic remains detectable by present methods. The sites we have
identified as marginal for agriculture, however, clearly relied very
heavily on pastoralism. At Tel Masos and MB Jericho, where agricul-
ture flourished, irrigation must have been used, but in the mid-
Euphrates valley in early times, unlike lower Mesopotamia, or the
same area today, the flood-plain had not been utilized by clearing and
irrigation, and one must suppose that at Jericho in the Early Bronze
period limited use was being made of these techniques. One must also
suppose that at Tell Qiri and Tell Qasile, where there is no such
problem for agriculture, there was nevertheless an exceptionally wide
hinterland exploited by pastoralists.
There is however probably some direct evidence in Table B of the
presence and activity of pastoral nomads, since although they have no
permanent settlements they do worship at permanent cult sites, and
their wanderings must come to an end in the grave. Finkelstein (1988:
343ff.; cf. 1985: 164) points to these two types of remains as likely to
have been used by nomad pastoralists: isolated sanctuaries, either away
from any settlement or outside the walls of important centres; and

cemeteries not apparently associated with any settlement.
The first group includes the LB cult place at Shiloh and the Fosse
Temple at Lachish. As Finkelstein points out (1988: 344 and 1985:
164), it is the analysis of the faunal remains at Shiloh that suggests its
use by pastoral people: the proportion of cattle in the remains is very
low and well on a par with such steppe settlements as Arad and Tell
es-Sharia, and it contrasts sharply with the figures in the following
period at Shiloh when it lay at the centre of a developing network of
agricultural settlements. Unfortunately Olga Tufnell's report on the
remains found in the Fosse Temple does not give quantities. Neither
there nor at Shiloh were there any pig remains to speak of, nor appar-
ently at Lachish; regrettably Hellwing and Sadeh give no figures for
the minor categories at Shiloh.
Among isolated cemeteries we may mention from our table Jebel
Qa'aqir, a group of sixteen tombs west of Hebron, nine of them con-
taining animal bones, every one of which came from a sheep or goat.
The tombs do not seem to be associated with any settlement, and one
might well expect to find nomadic pastoralists in that area, especially
in EB IV/MB I. The story of Abraham's negotiations with Ephron
suggests, however, that often nomads found their last resting place
within the territory of the settled people with whom they were in
contact. Perhaps this may explain the results from the tombs at Jericho
and in the Refa'im valley, where the grave-offerings are likewise
overwhelmingly caprovine, apart from the frequent offerings of don-
keys in the Jericho tombs, the only other animal associated with pas-
toral nomads at this period. On the Jericho tombs Nobis suggests
(1968: 417) that part of the population of Jericho itself could have led
a seminomadic life to secure sufficient pasture for their flocks.
2. Pigs. In general, where the proportion of cattle is low, one may

expect the proportion of pigs to be still lower. This is not because the
raising of pigs has any close relation to crop-farming as it has in the
modern world (as we have seen, pigs in traditional peasant societies
may be pastured in woods or kept in the settlement and fed on waste),
but for two other reasons: because ample surface water is an essential,
and because pigs cannot be part of the mixed holdings of a pastoral
family, since they cannot be herded in the same way and do not thrive
on grass. Nomadic pastoralists cannot keep pigs at all, though a settled
family reliant on flocks for its livelihood might keep a few pigs at
home provided they could supply them with sufficient water. This
expectation is borne out by the above figures: among those sites where
cattle remains fall below 20 per cent, most, even excluding the temples
and tombs, have less than 2 per cent of pig bones and only three have
more than 6 per cent: EB Hayaz Hoyiik, MB Tell Jemmeh, and most
remarkably the Refa'im valley in the so-called EB IV, where only
3 per cent of bones were of cattle, yet 15 per cent were of pigs. It is
really the low proportion of cattle here that is surprising, since the
community certainly practised agriculture successfully in the
following MB II period (Horwitz 1989b: 49).
Do we then find that at the sites we can regard as primarily agricul-
tural, those where the proportion of cattle exceeds 20 per cent, pigs
are raised in greater numbers? At some, yes, but by no means at all.
Out of the 17 domestic sites or strata where cattle exceed 20 per cent
there are only three (EB En Shadud, Iron I Tel Miqne, and EB-MB
Tell el-Hayyat) where pig exceeds 10 per cent, and only a further four
where it exceeds 6 per cent. At the majority, therefore, it is in the
same range as in the strongly pastoral settlements, and there is a notable
group where the porportion of pig bone is less than one per cent:
Ashdod, Izbet Sartah, Tel Masos and Tel Michal. Iron Age Lachish,
which is only partly cultic, could well be added to this group, and the
urban community on the Ophel, where probably nobody produced
their own food and so the low proportion of cattle has nothing to do
with local conditions. These sites all have one thing in common: they
belong to the Iron Age. Even if we go up to the verge of the 6 per cent
mark, we bring in only one Bronze Age site: EB Tel Dalit;1 and LB
Lachish (according to Drori) stands at 6 per cent. On the other hand,
there are only two Iron Age sites where the use of pig is above this
level, Ekron being one and Pella (at 15 per cent) the other. The Bronze
Age therefore fulfils our expectation, if generally on a rather modest
scale, while the Iron Age for the most part notably frustrates it.2
1. In Hell wing and Gophna's statistically illegitimate 1984 study of two sites
combined, most of the EB material comes from Tel Dalit, and all the MB material
from Aphek.
2. Averages are probably not of much value in this discussion, but for what it is
worth the average of the percentage of pig-bones in all the Bronze Age sites in the
table is 7.6, and in all the Iron Age ones 3.9, or about half. Without Ekron and Pella
the Iron Age average falls to 1.5.
Ulrich Hiibner (1989) has argued that the archaeological evidence

shows the keeping and eating of pigs to have gone on, admittedly on a
fairly small scale, without a break from the Bronze Age into Iron Age
Israel, thus that the prohibition of swine's flesh in Leviticus and
Deuteronomy was not the reflection of ancient custom, but an innova-
tion. However, his citation of the evidence is by no means as system-
atic or comprehensive as in our table. It can be seen from our figures
that pig production and consumption, already quite low, suffered a
marked downturn at the beginning of the Iron Age, and remained
high (or got higher) only in a few places that are certainly not
Israelite. At no identifiably Israelite site is the proportion of pig
remains higher than 2 per cent (Kinneret and Tell Qiri). It is not
enough simply to quote instances of a given type of find occurring;
for genuine understanding one must be able to answer the questions:
'in what quantity?' and 'with what associations?' The associations I
will come to later; the quantities are enough to make it clear that pig-
keeping did not in any significant sense 'obviously proceed without a
break' (Hiibner 1989: 227). However, not all the sites where pig
remains are scanty are Israelite, however precisely one wishes to
define a word that it is difficult to link in a simple way with particular
archaeological remains. Certainly Ashdod is not.1
We ought to allow for the possibility of accounting for this pattern
in purely environmental terms. John Rogerson has suggested to me
possible ways of doing this. The most obvious factor to be invoked is
the availability of water. All animals require water to drink, but pigs
also need to bathe in it in warm weather, since, as we have seen, they
have no physiological means of maintaining their body temperature.
Hence agriculture could be successfully carried on in many places
where it would be difficult to keep pigs. In a general sense the modest
values for pig remains are explained by the general lack of adequate
water supplies in most parts of the country, and we might expect a
reasonably high frequency of pig bones only where water was easily
available in quantity throughout the year. This might include parts of
the coastal plain between the second and third kurkar ridges, where
1. Ahlstrom (1984a) and Finkelstein (1988: 45) in their sharply different ways
unite in denying that Tel Masos was an Israelite settlement, though in doing so they
go against the view of the excavators (Fritz and Kempinski 1983; cf. Dever 1990:
93).
marshy areas can be found even now (Rogerson 1989a: 76, 80). It
would also of course include the Jezreel valley and the Jordan valley
close to the river; but certainly not the hill country, where the rock is
predominantly limestone which almost immediately absorbs the winter
rains, and where spring water and rainwater conserved in cisterns
would be difficult to apply to pig-keeping, being too valuable for
other purposes; this would also apply in a place like Tel Masos. Since
the hill country became a zone of heavy settlement in the Iron Age,
and the balance of population in the country swung towards the high-
lands, this might account for the fall in pig frequencies then.
It does not however account for the figures that we find in Table B,
for this includes relatively few domestic sites in the hill-country.
True, most of those that there are have, as expected, few or no pigs,
though the Refa'im Valley in the Bronze Age is, as we have noted, an
exception; and the only places where we find the pig a major food
animal in quantities similar to those of sheep, goats and cattle are Tell
el-Hayyat, in the Jordan valley, and En Shadud, in the Jezreel valley.
But we should note at the same time that these findings date back to
the Early Bronze Age and to some extent the Middle Bronze; at no
later time anywhere do we find a figure above 18 per cent for pig
remains. The higher values appear at first sight to be found in the
expected areas: Ma'abarat on the coast; Pella immediately above the
Jordan valley, near enough, perhaps, for it to have pig farms serving
it in the valley and using river water; Ekron and Tell Jemmeh on the
coastal plain. But doubt must creep in when we look more closely at
the position of these two sites. Ekron is nearly in the foothills, a good
twelve miles from the coast, and Tell Jemmeh is virtually in the
Negev. Moreover, the hypothesis does not work conversely; it does
not help us to understand the low pig frequencies found in some places
where water would probably have been easily available: Ashdod, Tell
Qasile and Tel Michal on the coast, Jericho in the Jordan valley (in the
EB) and Dan near its source. It cannot therefore account for the
decline of pig use in the Iron Age.
We may then ask, mindful of Harris's attention to the woodland
habitat usually required for the free-range keeping of pigs, whether
the low use of pigs and especially the decline in pig-keeping in the
Iron Age are to be associated with the deforestation of the land, which
would be an inevitable accompaniment both of (1) the demand for fuel
for the smelting of metals since the beginning of the Bronze Age, and
of (2) the heavy exploitation of the land for grazing as well as for
agriculture. In fact it is very doubtful whether this process had pro-
ceeded either so far or so fast by the beginning of the Iron Age as to
make pig-keeping impossible or even anti-social in the sense under-
stood by Harris. Rogerson in his Atlas of the Bible gives detailed
attention to the question of deforestation, and indicates on his maps the
likely extent of forest around 1200 BC, always very much greater than
today (Rogerson 1989a: 60, 62-63 and passim). The question has also
beeen discussed by Rowton (1967) over the broad scene of Western
Asia as a whole, and by Gophna et al. (1986-87) on the small scale of
a regional survey. 'Man's impact on the arboreal vegetation in the
Central Coastal Plain was not extensive', conclude Gophna and his
colleagues (1986-87: 81); 'For the severe degradation of the forest in
this area, we should look to later periods [than the Middle Bronze
Age]'. And these later periods should certainly not include the Late
Bronze Age, when there was a sharp decline in the settled population
in Palestine (Finkelstein 1988: 340). Finkelstein argues (1988: 342-43)
that much of the former settled population will have become nomadic
rather than simply disappearing; but Rowton shows that it is not nomads
so much as the resettlement of nomads that furthers the degradation of
forest (1967: 275-76). Should we then look to the extensive settlement
that took place in the Iron Age, especially in the previously wooded
hill country, as achieving the deforestation we are looking for?
Certainly the Iron Age resumed the process of degradation, but hardly
so fast as to be a convincing explanation of the decline of the pig. The
fall in the proportions of pig remains takes place at the beginning of
the Iron Age, rather than during it, as shown by an exclusively Iron I
site such as Izbet Sartah. And Finkelstein shows that in the country of
Ephraim settlement was slowest on the western slopes of the hill
country, where the thickest woodland survived (1988: 187-88).
The truth of the matter is that, as I have already pointed out, wood-
land is not necessary for pig-keeping; pigs can be kept at home and
fed on waste, as in modern China. I have already suggested that this
was the normal way in which they were kept in the ancient Near East
(Chapter 3, §2.c.3). The practice of fattening them on grain must
have been exceptional, given the normal conditions of scarcity, and
the highland forests in any case usually lacked suitable water supplies.
Deforestation, then, may be entirely irrelevant to the question, or
rather, it may be the result rather than the cause of the decline of the
pig, as I have already suggested (Chapter 3, §2.c.3). In that case both
the decline of the forests and the decline of the pig may be due to the
settlement, or resettlement, of people traditionally reliant upon sheep
and goats and their political dominance in the subsequent period—the
theory of Simoons (Chapter 3, §2.b), combined with that of Finkelstein
(1988: 336-51) about the emergence of Israel. But I defer considera-
tion of this hypothesis until later in this chapter (§4.b).
3. Other Domestic Animals. The other common domestic animals

were the donkey and the dog. As I have already observed, these turn
up in nearly every dig; the dog is perhaps the earliest domesticated
animal of all (Clutton-Brock 1981), while the donkey appears regu-
larly from the beginning of the Bronze Age onwards. Normally they
appear in relatively small numbers which are much subject to statisti-
cal variation: the 25 per cent of donkeys at En Shadud is presumably a
statistical fluke. No evidence that I am aware of suggests that either of
them was ever eaten in the period with which we are concerned,
except in emergency (cf. 2 Kgs 6.25). Some early peoples hunted the
onager or wild ass (Equus hemionus) for meat, but there is little evi-
dence of this in Bronze and Iron Age Palestine, and the domestic
donkey is a different matter altogether.
One further domestic animal remains to be discussed: the camel.
There has been a great deal of controversy over the date at which it
was introduced as a domestic animal in the Near East, but the archae-
ological evidence is beginning to settle it. At the sites listed in the
table, which are broadly representative of the settled areas of Palestine
during the Bronze Age and Iron I and II (i.e. down to about 500 BC),
the camel can practically be ignored. It is only in Hellenistic and
Roman times that it begins to turn up with any frequency (Wapnish
1984: 171).
The camels of 'Izbet Sartah, mentioned in the table, are a pretty
little problem. They are obviously wildly out of context at an Early
Iron Age agricultural village in the foothills of Ephraim. They had
apparently not been slaughtered, but their bodies had been stuffed into
two disused grain silos of the second of the site's three levels of occu-
pation. They could easily belong to a later period (Hellwing and
Adjeman 1986: 146).
More relevantly, we find camel bones in some quantity in Israelite
territory first at the desert fortresses and way stations of the Negeb in
the tenth century (Hakker-Orion 1984): Har Saad, Kadesh Barnea and
Aroer. The frequent reference to them in the patriarchal narratives
(especially Gen. 24) suggests that by the time of the final redaction of
the latter, at latest, it was natural to assume that pastoralists would use
them—and more than pastoralists, if we are to believe one of the
Assyrian reliefs in the British Museum which portrays a family setting
into exile from Lachish with a camel to carry their water (R.D. Barnett
[1985] has drawn attention to this). They had been domesticated first,
unquestionably, in Arabia (Compagnoni and Tosi 1978) and it con-
tinued to be primarily the Arab tribes who used them (Hakker-Orion
1984), giving themselves immensely greater freedom to traverse rela-
tively waterless and thinly grassed regions, though true Beduin reliant
on the camel seem only to have emerged about 2000 years ago. Their
use was above all for transport and commerce; their slaughter for meat
can only be a sideline, because of their slow rate of reproduction
(Kohler 1984; Wapnish 1984: 175). Nevertheless, Paula Wapnish
reports on the discovery of a centre of camel eating at Tell Jemmeh,
10 km south of Gaza, and therefore in the area where camel trains
would be used and pastoralists using camels will have been present.
Although camel bones are present in small numbers from the four-
teenth century onwards, they appear frequently only from the seventh
century to the third (1984: 172-73); historically this seems to have
been a time when the Babylonian and Persian empires were attempting
to control the incense trade carried on by the Arabs, which will have
led to a large increase in the use of camel caravans (1984: 179).
Wapnish's careful discussion of the age balance of the camels slaugh-
tered leads to the conclusion that they are likely to have been
unwanted stock from trading caravans, sold to the townspeople by the
traders (1984:175-78).
Now if there was one such centre where camel meat was eaten on
the desert trade routes, there will have been others, and of course the
traders themselves, and still more camel-using pastoralists, are likely
to have used their stock for meat on occasion, as today. The combined
evidence of Tell Jemmeh and the modern Beduin shows that the
factors that restrained peasant populations from using their donkeys
for meat (below, §3.c; Chapter 5, §l.a) do not seem to have applied
to camels. But the people who ate camel meat lived outside the main
areas of settlement in the land of Israel, and ethnically would in the
main have been non-Israelites. It should also be noted that the custom
of eating camel meat will only have come to the attention of Israelites
generally about the time of the exile, when the caravan trade was
increasing, and Arab tribes were pressing into Edom and the southern
parts of Judah.
4. Wild Mammals. We now need to turn our attention to the use made
of wild animals. As will be seen from the table, it is rare for hunting
of large animals to contribute very much to the diet; most of the
assemblages of which this is true come from the Early Bronze period,
though the remarkable quantity of fallow-deer remains found at Mt
Ebal is worth noting; it proves that large areas of forest still existed in
this part of the hill-country in the thirteenth and twelfth centuries
(Horwitz 1986-87: 182). For the most part, however, it is clear that
the assiduous hunting of the gazelle in earlier times had too severely
depleted its numbers for it to remain a significant source of food, and
the fallow deer had been reduced by the clearance of forest as well as
by over-hunting.
No wild mammals other than the various species of gazelle and deer,
and wild boar, which is frequently indistinguishable from domestic
pig, contribute anything significant to the diet at the great majority of
sites. There is surprisingly little evidence at any period later than the
Neolithic of the eating of wild beasts that did not closely resemble the
domestic stock, despite the great depletion of the stock of wild rumi-
nants by the Early or at least the Middle Bronze Age; there is very
little evidence of the eating of hares, to take the obvious example, any-
where near the biblical period. Indeed according to Db'ller (1917: 189)
they were still avoided in Syria at the beginning of the present
century. There are perhaps one or two exceptions. At Ashdod, for
example, the remains of quite a number of medium-sized animals such
as hare and porcupine were found, amounting to as much as 5 per cent
of the whole assemblage, and it is possible that some of these were
eaten. However, my earlier caution about the contamination of samples
should be borne in mind. At Ebal 4 per cent of the identifiable sample
consisted of bones of small animals and birds, many of them 'unclean':
a polecat, a lizard, 'a reptile, probably snake', hare, mole rat, a bird
of prey, a small carnivore, tortoise, and hedgehog. But all the mammals
except the polecat are pronounced 'of recent origin and probably
intrusive' (Horwitz 1986-87: 176). There is therefore next to no
reputable evidence that the people of the Levant were in the habit of
hunting and eating wild species called unclean in the Old Testament,
with the important exception of the wild boar. What Boessneck and
von den Driesch say about Heshbon (1978: 285) could be said with
variations about every site: 'Only gazelles and partridges were hunted
on a scale worthy of mention, though during the earlier periods
fallow deer may also have been hunted to some extent'.
5. Birds. The reference to partridges reminds us that, as I have already

observed, a great deal of evidence for the consumption of fowl has
been lost even at sites where careful study of the mammalian remains
has been undertaken. However, there is sufficient evidence to make it
clear that one widely canvassed idea is false—the idea, I mean, that the
domestic fowl was not introduced to the Near East until comparatively
late times. At Tell Sweyhat it was there in the Early Bronze age,
before 2000 BC; at Lachish remains were found deriving from Level
V or VI in the Late Bronze (Ussishkin 1978: 88-89); and at Jerusalem
there are several Iron Age (monarchical period) remains (Horwitz
and Tchernov 1989). Domestic birds also included geese and ducks
(ibid.); whether particular examples of pigeons are domestic birds or
not is a difficult question to decide, even in the case of living birds;
certainly pigeons formed part of the ancient diet; and the bird-trapper's
art, so frequently referred to in the literature of the Old Testament,
seems to have been largely directed towards partridges (Horwitz and
Tchernov 1989, and Boessneck and von den Driesch 1978: 285). Once
again, we can find very little evidence of the eating of unclean species
in Israel's immediate environment.
6. Water Creatures. The case is rather different, but even more

obscure, when it comes to fish. As I have already observed, fishbones
are infrequently preserved from excavations. They are however suffici-
ently often reported to make one confident that the widely reported
Syrian and Palestinian abstinence from fish is either no early develop-
ment or remained confined to certain groups. One recent excavation
where it was obviously important to study the marine remains as far
as possible was that at Tel Kinrot (Tell el-'Oreme), Kinneret, on the
shore of the sea of Galilee. The report (Fritz forthcoming) is not yet
published, but Hiibner treats us to the titbit of information from it that
the bones of catfish, a scaleless fish, were 'relatively numerous' (1989:
228) among the faunal remains of Iron II. He does not tell us what
'relatively' means: it is all very well to draw attention to the perisha-

bility and easily overlooked character of fishbones, but since this
applies to all fishbones, a relevant and useful comparison could have
been made between quantities of bones of 'clean' and 'unclean' fish.
Catfish were also found in the MB tombs at Sasa (Horwitz 1987), not
very far away and no doubt from the same source.
Molluscs are a different matter: their shells are durable and hard to
overlook, and are found in nearly all excavations. However, it is not
always easy to say whether they had been eaten on site; they were
popular for decoration, and the great majority of Palestinian sites are
too far from any likely source to make it probable that they had been
brought to the site alive. In most places they occur in ones and twos;
only if there are substantial dumps of local species does it become
probable that they were eaten by the local inhabitants. This is the case
at Bronze Age Jericho, where we find over 300 shells of a local
water-snail, Melanopsis praecorsa buccinoidea Oliv. (Nobis 1968:
420-21). Hellwing (1988-89) says of Bronze Age Tel Kinrot that 'it is
difficult to assess at this stage the economic significance of the [much
smaller] mollusk shell concentrations at the excavation site'. In the
nature of things the eating of molluscs would be very much a local
peculiarity, except for land-snails, and of that there is little evidence
that I know of after the Neolithic (it is attested for that era at Jericho
[Hellwing 1988-89]).
7. Summary. To summarize the evidence for people's dietary prefer-

ence over such a large space and time is very difficult. There are,
however, a remarkable number of constants. Almost everywhere sheep
and goats provide a high proportion of the meat eaten, attesting the
importance of pastoralism (whether nomadic or not) in the economy
and society of the region; beef is of correspondingly less importance,
and pork usually less important still, often much less so than environ-
mental considerations alone would lead one to expect. Where, excep-
tionally, we find substantial numbers of pig remains in communities
that were largely pastoral, we must suppose that they had access to
good water supplies and fed the pigs in the settlement on waste. But
much more commonly we found that pigs were eaten in relatively
small quantity even where environmental conditions would have been
favourable, and whereas this is often true in the Bronze Age, it is very
marked and virtually normal in the Iron Age; we often find very low
or negligible pig frequencies in the Iron Age, but nothing quite as low
in the Bronze Age. We did not find any consistently predictive
environmental or technical explanation for this. On this point it is
clearly necessary to appeal to cultural factors, something that in any
case is necessary to account for the failure to utilize the flesh of the
universal scavenger, or the principal beast of burden.
3. Evidence of Cultural Factors

a. 'Clean and Unclean' Animals in Israel (Non-Priestly Sources)
The principal Old Testament sources for the dietary restrictions found
in Israel, so far as the distinction of kinds is concerned, are our texts
Leviticus 11 and Deut. 14.3-20. Outside these contexts, references to a
distinction between clean and unclean animals are surprisingly sparse.
The most obvious is in the story of the Flood, in those passages that
are generally referred to as the J version. In Gen. 7.2-3 Yahweh
instructs Noah to bring into the ark 'of each clean beast(behema)
seven pairs, and of beasts that are not clean one pair; and also of the
birds of the air seven pairs...' 1 The difference in the numbers is
clearly explained by the sacrifice that Noah will offer after the Flood
(8.20): 'And Noah built an altar to Yahweh and took of every clean
beast and of every clean bird and offered whole-offerings on the
altar'. It is not clear whether Noah and his family are also expected to
use the clean animals for food in this version; in P their food is
clearly to be vegetarian (6.21—a distinct command from that con-
cerning the animals, as in 1.29-30; cf. Chapter 6, §2.e). Probably they
are, as one extra male would suffice for the sacrifice. Westermann
says very generally that the higher number of clean animals 'indicates
their greater significance for humans' (1984: 427). It is very doubtful
whether this gives sufficient weight to the particularities of the story.
The question arises whether Gen. 7.3 really does not envisage the
existence of unclean birds (it does not say 'of all the birds'); if so it
would be in conflict with 8.20 as well as with Leviticus 11. Westermann
(1984: 428) regards 7.3a as a later elaboration, arising from the
1. There is no certainty that this is the correct translation (it is effectively that of
RSV and REB and most EVV; the AV is ambiguous); although it seems most likely, it
involves an inconsistency, since D^IO a'Kf (probably the correct reading: cf. the
Ancient Versions) is taken to mean 'two of each' and motf runtf 'seven pairs of
each'. It might well mean seven individuals (cf. the JB).
misunderstanding of behemd in v. 2, which he considers to be in this
place a comprehensive term referring to all land animals, including
birds; the elaboration ignores the distinction important to J between
clean and unclean. If so, it must come from a redactor who was not
only indifferent to the distinction, but also lacking in literary per-
ception. Moreover, there is no other case known to me, and certainly
Westermann cites none, in which behema includes birds. It would
surely be better to suppose that either the author or the supplementer
considered all birds to be clean, and in the former case that it is 8.20
that has been supplemented.
The priestly tradition regards the distinction between clean and un-
clean animals, like other ritual institutions, as having been given only
at Sinai and only to Israel, being exclusive to Israel and indeed dis-
tinctive of it (Lev. 20.24ff.). Westermann notes the existence of two
traditions of interpretation, one that sees J as reading back into pri-
maeval time the distinction as it existed in Israel (presumed to be that
in Lev. 11); the first is represented by Cassuto and Dillmann, to whom
Wenham should now be added; and the second regards J as deducing
the antiquity of such institutions from their prevalence in his own time
(Gunkel, Skinner and Westermann himself). In either case it is clear
that a distinction of the same kind as is given to Israel in Leviticus 11
is taken for granted. The definitions assumed are not necessarily exactly
the same as those specified in Leviticus 11 and other priestly passages.
Quite apart from the question about the birds, there is nothing to
indicate that Noah only sacrifices domestic animals; indeed the
implication is that the sacrifice includes wild clean animals as well.1
In truth, this passage does not tell us a great deal—perhaps only that
the distinction of clean and unclean in Israel was not dependent solely
on priestly teaching. Other passages assuming the possibility of
unclean food are even less informative. Judg. 13.7 implies that the dis-
tinction would be of particular importance to a person associated with
the cult or under a religious vow; because her child is to be a lifelong
nazir, Samson's mother is neither to drink alcohol nor to eat kol-
tum'a, 'anything unclean'. This may point to the original area within
which the distinction was significant as regards diet. Hos. 9.3, 'they
shall eat unclean food in Assyria', perhaps betrays a different
assumption from the J narrative of the flood. Different peoples have
1. Thus his sacrificial practice would be similar to that at Mt Ebal (Horwitz

1986-87: see below, §3.b.l)
different dietary customs, and someone living abroad may be

compelled to eat things that are unclean according to Israelite under-
standing.1 It cannot be assumed from this that Hosea already under-
stands things according to the formula of Lev. 20.24ff., that the dietary
rules have the function of marking Israel out as distinct from all other
peoples. In any case, neither of these passages necessarily refers to
distinction of species at all. But it is a reasonable, if not a necessary
deduction from the three passages taken together that the distinction of
clean and unclean flesh is one with a wide base in Israelite society, not
a priestly peculiarity.
It is therefore somewhat surprising that Firmage (1990: 183) rein-
forces his methodological objections to going outside Leviticus 11
with a round historical assertion that
with the possible exception of the pig, there is no evidence prior to the
appearance of the present dietary law [Firmage gives no indication when
he thinks that was] that the Israelites regarded any of the animals prohibi-
ted by Leviticus 11 as unclean. Therefore, while Israel's dietary tabus
often overlap with those of contemporary cultures, one cannot assume that
its aversion to these animals originated from the same long-standing,
popular source.
Be it said first that the 'possible exception' is a very substantial one,
since the pig is the only creature commonly eaten in the ancient Near
East that is declared unclean in Leviticus. But has Firmage simply
overlooked Gen. 7.2, or does he not see it as 'evidence'? True, the
unclean beasts alluded to in Gen. 7.2 are not named, and consequently
it is technically correct that there is no evidence that any particular
animal prohibited in Leviticus 11 is seen as unclean in Gen. 7.2. True
also, the distinction in Genesis 7 may have nothing to do with food
and be related only to sacrifice; but as we have seen this is rather
doubtful. And true again, the Levitical law may have changed or
reinterpreted (and certainly may have extended) food avoidances
already existing in its culture. But since there is no evidence worth
speaking of from any period of Israel's history for the consumption of
any of the land animals mentioned as unclean in Leviticus 11 other
than the pig, it is straining the argument to claim that it is probable,
or even plausible, that Gen. 7.2 has an entirely different list in mind.
1. The usual interpretation of the commentators, however, is that the unclean-

ness of the food arises from the uncleanness of the foreign land 'which belongs to
foreign gods, not to Yahweh (Am. 7:17)' (Wolff 1974: 155).
It is not as if Firmage's position could be supported by questioning the

orthodoxy on the relative dates of J and P, for he emphasizes the
character of the dietary law as a rule of holiness unique to Israel; it
would be odd for any subsequent writer to make it Noachic.
b. The Selection of Animals for Sacrifice

I have organized this sub-section according to the type of evidence
used. Both material and written evidence from within and without
Israel tends to confirm the impression gained from the Flood story
and other texts, that a common distinction between animals acceptable
and unacceptable in cultic situations was widespread and generally
understood.
1. Material Evidence. At most of the sites from which we have mate-

rial, the analyses have not been comprehensive. We can say that cattle
and sheep and/or goats were sacrificed, and pigs probably were not,
but no more. At many of them, the proportion of cattle appears to be
lower than one would expect for the area where they are set. The
following consideration could account for this. Among sheep and
goats only a small number of male animals as they reach maturity
need to be kept for breeding; the rest are available for food or
sacrifice (or both). Among cattle the primary use of male animals is
for draught, so that fewer young animals would be available for food
or sacrifice. But animals required for labour are generally castrated,
which would not prevent them from being slaughtered for food at the
end of their useful lives, but would prevent them from being sacrificed.
In the biblical prescriptions only intact and perfect animals could be
offered in sacrifice (Lev. 1.3, etc.), and it does not seem too incau-
tious a supposition that this would be true fairly generally. Also, the
bias noted by Chaplin, whereby butchered beef results in a larger
number of bone fragments than butchered mutton, may not be opera-
tive to the same extent at cultic sites, where some animals will have
formed holocausts and others will have been food for large gatherings.
The one site where a comprehensive analysis has been undertaken is
Mt Ebal (Horwitz 1986-87). Some doubt has been cast on the identifi-
cation of this site (by Zertal, first in 1985) as an altar and temenos (cf.
Finkelstein 1988: 85). But Zertal has now (1986-87 [actually pub-
lished 1989]) comprehensively answered his critics. We need not
follow the arguments on either side, except to discuss the evidence of
the faunal remains. Horwitz notes the absence of species that are
normally found at domestic sites: equids, pigs, gazelles and dogs; and
that 'the comparative data on burnt bones suggests a slightly higher
(though not significant [sic])frequency at Ebal than that expected from
a bone sample of this size' (1986-87: 181). But though the higher
frequency of burnt bones may be statistically insignificant, it cannot be
insignificant that they include fallow deer antlers (ibid.), since no one
would leave the antlers on while cooking roast venison; the only
possible explanation is that the deer had been burnt as whole offerings.
It is true, as Horwitz notes, that the Mosaic prescriptions do not allow
for the sacrifice of wild animals. There is no explicit prohibition, but
we may compare the sacrificial prescriptions, Leviticus 1-7, which
only mention cattle, sheep, goats and doves; Lev. 17.13, which pre-
sumes that an animal caught by a hunter will not be presented in
sacrifice; and Deut. 12.15, 22, which assume that gazelle and deer will
be eaten 'by the clean and the unclean'. This is true, but the evidence
of the bones is incontrovertible. Whatever may have been the case at
Jerusalem, at Ebal, deer (but not gazelle) were sacrificed! The animals
sacrificed there were goats, sheep, cattle and fallow deer, in that order
of frequency (though there is not sufficient difference in numbers
between the identifiable remains of sheep and goats to be able to say
for certain which were more frequent). Remains of partridge and
rock dove were also found, but Horwitz does not suggest there is any
evidence that they were sacrificed.
The most significant fact to be gleaned from the results taken
together is the exclusion of the pig from the altar. It is clear from
Table B that not one of the cultic sites where we have some analysis of
the faunal material offers any evidence for the sacrifice of pigs. In this
respect there is no difference between Bronze Age sites (Lachish VI,
Lachish Fosse Temple, Nahariyah, Shiloh) and Iron Age ones (Ebal,
Lachish, Shiloh); between sanctuaries possibly used by nomads (Fosse
Temple, LB Shiloh: above, §2.b.l) and ones used by settled people;
between presumptively 'Canaanite' sanctuaries (Lachish VI, Nahariyah)
and presumptively Israelite ones (Ebal, Iron Age Lachish, Iron Age
Shiloh); between metropolitan sites (Lachish) and country ones (Ebal)
(cf. below, §4.a). This is one of the facts overlooked by Hiibner in his
1989 article—it is a question of the associations of the material. If
pigs were not sacrificed even by people who raised them, if in limited
numbers, that is clear prima facie evidence that they were conceived
to be what we may call 'unclean', even if that has not quite the same
meaning as in Leviticus 11.
It might be argued that the accidents of selection have given us evi-
dence mainly from sites where people worshipped who did not in any
case raise or eat pigs, and so were not likely to sacrifice them. Among
Bronze Age sites, this would apply to the Shiloh sanctuary and the
Fosse Temple at Lachish. The suggestion could conceivably be true
also of Nahariyah, a sanctuary within the Phoenician orbit (according
to the excavator, Dothan 1956), if the probable fact that pigs were not
kept at Ugarit, or later in Phoenicia (§3.c) could suggest a long-
standing avoidance of pig-meat on that coast. But it is at least untrue
of the temple in Lachish level VI at the end of the Late Bronze, given
the contemporary evidence from domestic sites in the same town.
Thus there is strong confirmation from archaeological evidence,
most of which was unknown to de Vaux at the time he wrote his arti-
cle on the sacrifice of pigs in 1958 (1972: 255-56), that his conclusion
to the rarity of this custom was correct. It can also be confirmed from
the written evidence, much of which was known to him.
2. Internal Written Evidence. There are two main sources of internal

written evidence, apart from the Old Testament, whose evidence I
have just summarized: the Ugaritic liturgical texts, which include
many lists of prescribed sacrifices and sacrificial calendars (all avail-
able texts are edited by Paolo Xella [1981], and they are analysed by
Jean-Michel de Tarragon [1980]; pp. 32-39 deal with our subject, but
are dependent on Levine 1963); and the so-called Marseilles tariff
(CIS, I, 165; edited with commentary KAI 69), which lays down the
fees chargeable at the temple of Baal-Saphon for different types of
sacrifice with different animals; it was discovered in the harbour at
Marseilles, but the likelihood is that it originates from Carthage (KAI,
p. 83); certainly the language is Punic, and the vocabulary and ideas
can be parallelled in other Punic and Phoenician inscriptions; its date
is the end of the third century BC (KAI, p. 83), more than a thousand
years later than the Ugaritic texts.
The most frequent terms for animals used in the Ugaritic liturgical
texts have been elucidated by Baruch Levine (1963). In these special-
ized documents terms that are used broadly in literary and other texts
take on a very precise meaning, and others that do not occur else-
where at all are brought in: s means a sheep or goat of the male sex;
dqt, literally a small animal, a female sheep or goat; 'alp a bull; gdlt,
literally a large animal, a heifer or cow; s'in small cattle collectively.
The remainder have been dealt with by de Tarragon (1980: 32-33):
'imr a lamb, 'srm birds (not specified); ynt a dove (generally specified
as ynt qrt a town pigeon). The frequency with which the different
species and sexes are mentioned in the text (not of course the same
thing as the frequency with which they were sacrificed, but indicative)
is entirely in line with expectation: s 87 times, dqt 23 times, 'alp 20
times, gdlt 42 times, ynt qrt 1 times (1963: 34). The ratio of sheep
and goats to cattle is 110: 62 or 64:36; lower than the observed ratio
at other cultic sites, but it must be remembered that these texts are for
a royal, public ritual; the same fact will explain the relatively low fre-
quency with which the inexpensive sacrifice of a pigeon is prescribed:
in the Old Testament this is for the poor (Lev. 5.7, etc.). That the
majority of specifications of a sheep or goat call for a male animal,
while the situation is reversed for cattle, offers a degree of confirma-
tion for my hypothesis about the proportions of the species above.
These are the animals commonly sacrificed. But once the sacrifice
of a goose ('uz) is prescribed to the gods of the underworld ('Urn 'ars:
KTU 1.106: 30, Xella 1981: 82-83); and two texts speak of the sacri-
fice of an ass (V): KTU 1.40: 26, 34, 43 (Xella 1981: 257ff.), where
probably the ritual calls for the sacrifice of three sheep/goats and
three asses (de Tarragon 1980: 36), and KTU 1.119: 16 (1980: 25ff.).
All three examples are unusual in some way, the first in that the ritual
is addressed to the chthonian deities; the second in that the text is not a
ritual prescription but a liturgical text for what is clearly an unusual
rite of expiation (discussion in de Tarragon 1980: 92ff.), in which the
victims are offered to the whole assembly of the gods; the third,
which is the prescription for one particular day of the year, in that of
the whole series of prescriptions for particular days (of course we do
not have them anything like complete) this is the only occasion on
which an ass is offered—to Baal according to Xella's reconstructed
text; but the tablet breaks at this point, and the text is quite uncertain.
De Tarragon comments (1980: 37-38):
The list of animals offered to the divinities makes absolutely no distinction
between clean animals and unclean ones. The distinction which was to
exist in precise fashion in the Palestinian Iron Age is not found at the end
of the Middle Bronze Age on the coast of Syria.
This could, I think, have been expressed more cautiously. The ritual
texts make no such distinction explicit, true; but neither do the pre-
scriptive ritual texts of the Old Testament. The texts do call very
occasionally for the sacrifice of an animal (the ass) that is unclean in
the Old Testament system, again true; but this is no evidence that the
Ugaritic priests made no comparable distinction. Positive evidence,
though circumstantial, that they did is the entire absence of any men-
tion of the pig as a sacrificial animal from the texts available to us (84
of them in Xella). We have, it is true, no warrant to say categorically
that a pig (or any other animal) would be unacceptable in sacrifice;
but the repertory of animals actually prescribed is limited to sheep/
goats, cattle and birds, with the very occasional exception of an ass. It
is possible that geese could only be sacrificed to the infernal powers,
and if so this would also suggest some kind of discrimination between
animals (cf. below, §3.d). But this is hypothetical. The repertory is
similar to the Old Testament in that it includes only domestic animals,
and that the bird normally offered in sacrifice is the domestic pigeon.
(Of course, when we find in a mythological text [UT 62] talk of the
sacrifice of harts, ibexes and [possibly] roebuck [70 of each!], this is
not to be confused with practice in the real world.)
We may add here that at Ugarit, if not elsewhere in the Bronze Age,
the pig seems to have been avoided also as food. In all the Ugaritic
texts there is no reference to pigs as an article of diet, indeed no real
reference to pigs at all. h(ri)zr appears as an obscure term for some
kind of trade (UT 1024: rev. 4; 1091: 6) and as the title of certain
servitors of Baal in the myth (67.V: 9), otherwise only as a personal
name.1 Arguments from silence are notoriously risky, but to me it
seems provisionally possible to conclude that at least the city population
did not normally eat pork.
The Marseilles tariff has caused rather more difficulty in the
identification of the names of animals. The following terms are used
for them: 'lp, a bull, which is assessed at the highest value of ten
shekels; '#/, a (male) calf; and at the same value (five shekels, half that
of a bull) 'v/, which I discuss below; then at a considerably lower
value (one shekel and two zr) ybl, which is likewise discussed below,
1. It is surprising that Hiibner (1989: 235 n. 55) should cite three Ugaritic texts
as evidence for the keeping and consumption of pigs at Ugarit. One of these is the
Baal text, and in the others it is a question of a personal name.
and 'z, a goat; then three terms all at the lowest value, one-quarter of
a shekel less: emr, a lamb; gd', a kid; and the unique srb 'yl\ finally
two terms for birds: spr 'gnn and ss. The argument turns on whether
'yl is to be vocalized (for convenience using the Masoretic Hebrew
vocalization) 'ayil, a ram, or 'ayyal, a hart. Dormer and Rollig (£47)
go for the former alternative, and Dussaud (1921) and Fevrier (1958-
59) for the latter. Surely it is the French scholars who are correct.
Consider the consequences of Donner and Rollig's decision. If 'yl is a
ram, then what is ybll They say rightly that it must indicate another
kind of sheep, but having nothing more appropriate to suggest, con-
jecturally translate 'Hammel', which means a castrated ram. This is
improbable for the reason I mentioned above (§3.b.l). Further, srb
'yl clearly has to have something to do with 'yl, and they duly trans-
late it 'young ram' ('Jungwidder'). But what is the difference between
a young ram and a lamb? This tariff clearly does not recognize the
offering of female animals, and this accords with the statement of
Porphyry (De Abst. 2.11) that the Phoenicians did not sacrifice or eat
females. Moreover, why should the text use four different terms for
sheep when two each are enough for cattle and goats? Such an accumu-
lation of improbabilities ought to lead us to adopt the alternative
suggestion, which makes clear and logical sense, even in the absence
of the evidence from Mt Ebal that demonstrates that the sacrifice of
deer was practised among West Semitic peoples, 'yl then means a
(fallow deer) hart, ybl a ram, and srb 'yl a young hart; there are two
terms for each species, one for the adult and one for the young, and
the values make reasonable sense: a hart is valued equally with a
calf—they are about the same size—a ram with a buck, and a lamb,
kid and fawn equally. The terms for birds offer further difficulties: to
translate them, as is often done, as referring to domestic and wild
birds respectively, is conjectural, but plausible.
The repertory of species here is identical to that found at Ebal, give
or take a bird or two, though there is no reason to suppose that
sacrifice at Ebal was restricted to male animals. No species is men-
tioned that is unclean in the Old Testament. It is true that the text has
reference to the cult of one god only. But we may generalize the
information by reference to the external written evidence, which gives
a remarkably similar picture, with some variations.
3. External Written Evidence. Our latest evidence is also the most

impressive. According to al-Nadim, quoting al-Kindi (Fihrist, ix.1.5-
7; Dodge 1970: 748), the 'Sabians', the pagans of Harran, sacrificed
the males of cattle, sheep and goats and other four-legged beasts which do
not have teeth in both of the two jaws, with the exception of the camel.
They [also sacrificed] birds which do not have talons, with the exception
of the pigeon...
They restricted the eating of flesh to the same species; the camel, pig,
dog and ass are specifically mentioned as avoided, but also the pigeon.
'With the exception of the pigeon', not only is this precisely the same
set of dietary restrictions as are observed by the Jews, but they are
defined by the same criteria as are used in the Talmud (above, Chapter
2). Inevitably this must arouse suspicion. Had these Mesopotamians,
idolaters though they were, been influenced in some way by Judaism?
They had indeed made a remarkably successful attempt to survive as
pagans under Muslim rule by taking on the superficial features of a
'people of the book', adopting, it would appear, in AD 833,1 the name
of a Gnostic sect of southern Mesopotamia mentioned in the Qur'an
(cf. Chwolsohn 1856: II, 2ff.). Did they perhaps adopt along with the
name some of the ritual prescriptions of the sect, which could have
been derived from Judaism? This cannot be excluded. But considering
the centrality of the dietary rule to their daily life as well as their reli-
gion, it seems unlikely that it could have been a superficial addition to
their way of life. At most, the defining criteria used could have been
borrowings, or they could have been derived by the Muslim observers,
or else could be a feature of learned Mesopotamian classification
adopted from that environment by both the Babylonian Talmud and
the Haranians.
The Sabian religion, confined in al-Nadim's time to Harran, was at
one time more widespread; J.B. Segal (1953) reports the presence of
many shrines dedicated to the Sabian astral deities in the vicinity of
Edessa, and dating from about the second or third century AD, before
the Christianization of that city. It seems likely, therefore, that we
have to reckon with an Aramaean culture in Northern Mesopotamia in
late antiquity that restricted animal food on much the same lines as the
Old Testament, except that it added the pigeon to the list of forbidden
1. A new study of the religion of Harran, Green 1992, has appeared too late to
take account of it.
creatures. In this, as we shall see, it was not unique. Lucian's evidence
tends to extend the range of our evidence for this system in both space
(to the right bank of the Euphrates) and time (to the second century).
His subject in De Dea Syria is the cult of Atargatis at Hierapolis. Here,
he tells us (ch. 54), 'they consider pigs polluted (enageas) and neither
sacrifice nor eat them. But others regard them not as polluted, but as
holy.' This clearly does not mean that some avoided pigs and others
ate them, but that all avoided them, but differed in how they explained
it. To some, pigs could be like pigeons (cf. below, §3.c, and Chapter 5,
§3).
4. Conclusions. Thus we find a core of practice very similar among all

the peoples of Syria and Canaan: everywhere the principal sacrificial
animals are the sheep, the goat and the ox; everywhere the dog and the
pig are excluded. But there are fuzzy edges which enable the different
traditions to express their individuality, including or excluding asses,
deer or pigeons. Generally speaking, of course, the species sacrificed
correspond with those that are eaten, but the people of Ugarit occa-
sionally sacrificed asses although they probably did not eat them; at
most sanctuaries wild animals were not sacrificed, although deer and
gazelles were hunted and eaten on a modest scale; and at Jerusalem—if
we may take the Levitical rules as representing the tradition of that
sanctuary—although most birds could be eaten, only pigeons or doves
were prescribed for sacrifice. This last point should not be taken as
simply reflecting the general impermissibility of wild animals for
sacrifice, for we have been able to establish that a number of other
domestic birds, including chickens, were kept at least as far back as the
time of the monarchy. One might expect that metropolitan sanctuaries
like those of Jerusalem and Ugarit would be unlikely to allow wild
animals, whether beast or bird, to be offered, while the offering of
fallow deer at Mt Ebal reflects the fact that this altar (there is no
temple) served a rural and partly nomadic population organized only
on a tribal level. However, the evidence of the Marseilles tariff, if it
does come from Carthage, appears to contradict or at least qualify this
idea.
As regards the pig, the priests of the Syria-Palestine area were in
agreement with their counterparts in southern Mesopotamia and
Egypt. In Babylonia there was no hesitation about eating pigs as there
was further west (Saggs 1988: 166-67). Assertions to the contrary are
sometimes made, but these seem to depend on references to restric-

tions in connection with particular cults. There are 24 words in
Akkadian for pigs in different varieties and connections (Salonen 1974:
8), a sure sign of a culture that raised and made use of them in large
numbers. But the pig was not a sacrificial animal, except for certain
apotropaic rites directed at demons (Blome 1934: 121; cf. Frank
1908: 56-60, 73-91; Myhrman 1902). In Egypt the position is complex
(see LA, V, s.v. Schwein, Seth, Speisege- und Verbote). Swine were
certainly raised in Egypt from the earliest times to the latest, and at
various periods formed part of the royal and temple possessions (LA,
V, s.v. Schwein [W. Helck]). They were used in agriculture for
treading in seed. But their cultic role was extremely limited, though it
seems that they were offered in sacrifice in certain festivals in Lower
Egypt (cf. Herodotus 2.47, Plutarch De hide et Ostride 8). For
further discussion, see Chapters, §l.b.
c. Dietary Restrictions
In the reports from Harran and Hierapolis, as apparently at Ugarit and
in the biblical rules, the rule for sacrifice is closely paralleled in the
restrictions on diet: if pigs were not sacrificed, they were not eaten
either, and the Sabians would eat only those animals that were also
clean for sacrifice. A similar restriction of diet, though without
specific reference to the cult, is reported by Porphyry for 'Egyptian
priests': 'they abstained from all fish and such quadrupeds as have
single hooves or several toes (poluskhide), or do not have horns; and
all flesh-eating birds' (De Abst. 4.7). What priests precisely he is talk-
ing about is not clear; food avoidances in Egypt itself varied so much
that the report is unlikely to refer to all Egyptian priests, and there is
a distinct possibility that he is speaking of a group of Semitic origin. It
will be noted that the rules for quadrupeds define the same taxon as
Lev. 11.3 or the Sabian rule, but in a different way again. The item
additional to the Levitical rule here is fish, and here again we fre-
quently meet with the same avoidance elsewhere in the region.
These are the only accounts that have survived of complete systems
of food avoidance in the region, or near it. But reports of avoidance
of many of the individual species or groups of animals whose avoid-
ance is implied in these systems are common, and the pig is naturally
the most frequently mentioned. Greek writers often refer to the
Jewish prohibition of pork, and the Phoenicians are also mentioned as
abstainers from pork, though without the mention of any cultic setting
(Porphyry De Abst. 1.14;1 Herodian 1.6.22; both third century AD).
De Vaux's assertion (1972: 266) that 'abstinence from the meat of
the pig was a widespread custom known...among all the Semitic
peoples, with the exception of the Babylonians' is a bold deduction
from perilously slim evidence, though he is by no means alone in
making it. What I have just quoted is almost all the evidence there is.
De Vaux's related conclusion that the sacrifice of pigs was everywhere
rare is, as we have seen, much better supported, and it does seem pos-
sible to assert that wherever cultic practice had a significant influence
on diet, pig meat was avoided. There will usually be a high degree of
connection between dietary and sacrificial practice, between altar and
table. There are two reasons for this. In the first place, most sacrifices
are eaten, and most people are likely to assume that their gods have
the same dietary preferences as they have themselves. Secondly, and
conversely, most people in the ancient world were poor, and did not
eat meat regularly; when they did, it would normally be on a special
occasion, which would tend to be a cultic one. The implication of
Deut. 12.15-16, 20-25 is that the normal practice, even among the
well-off, was not to slaughter domestic animals without cultic
consecration. This would tend to imply that animals could not be eaten
that were unacceptable to those gods to whom sacrifice was offered. It
has generally been assumed that those animals will be sacrificed that
are significant in the diet; but it is beginning to become clear from our
investigations that the contrary influence asserted for Israel by
Firmage is true for a much wider area, at least as far as the pig is
concerned. And since there is no significant evidence of the eating of
other 'unclean' animals, it would follow that wherever the cultic
norms of the official sanctuaries were influential enough, the dietary
repertoire was confined to the 'clean'.
This does not necessarily mean that where pigs were eaten profane
slaughter must have been practised. Ulrich Hiibner (1989: 228, 234
n. 44), it is true, argues that the archaeological evidence, which shows
1. involves an inconsistency, since D^IO a'Kf (probably the correct reading: cf. the
(De Abst. 1.14); I am uncertain of the precise force of the aorist tense here,
perhaps gnomic. This explanation, that the pig used not to exist in that part of the
world, is of course not true, yet Porphyry goes on to suggest that the pig is not
offered in sacrifice in Cyprus or Phoenicia or in Egypt for the same reason, ignoring
the well-known comments about swine in Egypt in Herodotus (2.47).
masses of animal remains in secular contexts, tells against the assump-

tion that has reigned since Robertson Smith that profane slaughter was
a latecomer to the scene. The Deuteronomic permission for secular
slaughter was
an assimilation of theory to the reality, which was that large parts of the
population had long since been practising profane slaughter in everday life.
This may indeed be true to some extent, but the evidence Hiibner relies
on does not prove his case, for neither temple nor altar is required for
the invocation of a deity. The issue as regards Israel will be discussed
further below (Chapter 5, §l.a; Chapter 6, §l.d). All that needs to be
said here is that if deities were invoked when pigs were slaughtered
they are likely to have been other than the official gods of the public
cult. We shall consider some direct evidence for this possibility at §3.d.
The other domestic animals, as we have seen, were not normally
eaten anywhere. The donkey was bred for transport and labour gene-
rally, and when it was old and worn out, its flesh cannot have been
appealing, even if the scruples expressed by Porphyry (see Chapter 5,
§l.a) failed to restrain one.
The dog was subject to more variation in function than the donkey.
Dogs probably acted as scavengers everywhere and at all times, but
what else did they do? They were useful to the hunter and the shep-
herd, less so to the farmer. The Old Testament refers once to sheep-
dogs (Job 30.1), and once to watchdogs (Isa. 56.10). Dogs as pets do
not figure in the Hebrew books of the Old Testament; but in the book
of Tobit (5.16), Tobias has a faithful dog who accompanies him to
Media. There is evidence from some places in the region of the treat-
ment of dogs as family members, when skeletons of dogs are found in
articulation, suggesting deliberate burial (e.g. at Jericho from PPNA
to MB, Glutton-Brock 1979: 137-38; at Ashdod in the Persian period,
Dothan and Porath 1982: 42). It is perhaps significant that, so far as I
am aware, no such finds have been made in Iron Age Israel. Certainly
the attitudes expressed towards dogs in the Old Testament are almost
uniformly negative (Chapter 5, §l.b). Juliet Clutton-Brock comments
thus on the relative absence of canine remains from Bronze Age
Jericho:
It does not mean that the people did not keep dogs at this period, only that
they did not eat them. It is very probable that the carcasses of dogs were
disposed of in some separate place, perhaps outside the city walls, and
they may already have been considered as 'unclean' animals (1979: 141).
The Ophel is another site where no dog bones were found (Horwitz
and Tchernov 1989), and the same conclusion should no doubt be
drawn. Perhaps one should add the clarification that it does not
follow, where remains of dogs are found, that there they were eaten.
As I have already said, there is no evidence for this in the period with
which we are concerned. One should also add that there is no way of
attaching precise meaning to the term 'unclean' in relation to a culture
that is unable to speak to us with its own voice. All we can say for
certain is that people in general did not eat dogs, but that we may
draw a distinction between the people of Neolithic Jericho and Persian
period Ashdod, who buried their dogs within the walls, and those of
Bronze Age Jericho and Iron Age Jerusalem, who may have thrown
their dogs outside the walls without ceremony, but may on the other
hand have sometimes buried them like their own dead outside the
walls. The point will be discussed further in the next chapter (§l.b).!
Little can be added to this from written sources. Hellenistic writers
generally say nothing about Semites eating dogs,2 but there is a
curious report in Justinus's second century AD epitome of Pompeius
Trogus's history (composed around the turn of the eras), that in the
early fifth century Darius sent a message to the Carthaginians calling
on them to stop practising human sacrifice and eating dog-meat
(canina vesci), and to start cremating their dead; these demands the
Carthaginians obeyed eagerly ('cupide paruere') (Justinus 19.1.10).
There can hardly be much historical value in this; but just as it is true
that the Carthaginians practised human sacrifice and buried their dead,
it may also be true that they ate dog meat. This might have been part
of a special rite (Movers 1841: I, 404; Doller 1917: 191), but it seems
more likely to be connected with the fact that dog-eating is widespread
1. The recent discovery at Ashkelon of a dog cemetery containing more than 700
skeletons casts new light on the issue. The excavator, L.E. Stager, suggests that they
may have been sacred animals in the cult of the Phoenician god of healing, Resheph
Mukol (Stager 1991). This would mean their function was similar to that of the
pigeons and fish I discuss next.
2. Which may be less significant than it seems: dog-eating, despite Porphyry's
confident assertion to the contrary (De Abst. 1.14), was at one time not unknown
among the Greeks (Simoons 1961: 101-102; Bouffartigue and Patillon 1977: 93,
who quote Hippocrates: Regimen 2.46 [an incorrect reference]; Sextus Empiricus:
Hypotyposes 3.225; Pliny: Hist. Nat. 29.14).
among the Berbers to this day (Simoons 1961: 102; de Planhol 1957:
62-63); thus it should probably be put to the account of the native
element in the population rather than the Phoenician.
I have already referred to the taboos on fish and pigeons found at
Harran and Hierapolis and among Porphyry's Egyptian priests. They
are in fact much more widespread than this, being frequently men-
tioned by Greek writers in connection with the cults of the major
Syrian-Canaanite goddesses in the later period. The evidence is as
follows. Lucian tells us that fish were sacred to Atargatis (De Dea
Syria 45), and several authorities say that most Syrians would not eat
them; indeed as early as 400 BC Xenophon discovers that the Syrians
regard fish as gods (Anabasis 1.4.9; cf. Porphyry: De Abst. 4.15;
Artemidorus: Oneirocr. 1.8 [second century AD]; Diodorus Siculus
2.4.3 [first century BC]; Hyginus: Fabulae 197 [c. AD 10]). Atargartis,
as Oden has shown (1977: 55ff.), was an amalgam of the three prin-
cipal Canaanite female deities, Asherah, Astarte and Anat, and of these
Asherah was associated with the sea (88ff.; 'Atrt-ym in the Ugaritic
texts); so it seems probable that the fish taboo was associated with her
before she was merged with the other two (99-100). However, it is
not attested in the Ugaritic texts, an important source for the early
cult of Asherah; indeed there is a fishing scene in the Baal myth (CTA
4.2.29ff.; Gibson 1978: 57). Somehow Asherah has become trans-
formed from a patroness of fishing into a goddess in whose honour
one abstains from fish. Doves, on the other hand, were sacred to Astarte
(Philo apud Eusebius: Praep. Ev. 8.14.64) before Atargatis (Lucian
De Dea Syria 54; cf. Oden 1977:102), and according to several writers
were avoided by Syrians and Palestinians generally (Sextus Empiricus:
Hypotyposes 3.223 [second century AD]; Hyginus: Fabulae 197 [c. AD
10]). Once again there is no sign of this taboo in the Ugaritic texts,
where pigeons, as we have seen, are frequently prescribed for
sacrifice, as in Leviticus: e.g. KTU 1.119.10 (Xella 1981: 25).
Owing to the loss of bird and fish remains it is difficult to confirm
or refine this information by means of material evidence. But we can
consider its significance on its own. It would seem that these prohibi-
tions were fairly widespread, and are likely to have emerged already
by the fifth century BC; but they had not existed, at least at Ugarit, at
the end of the Middle Bronze Age. Thus their development seems
likely to have been virtually contemporary with the formation of the
Levitical dietary code. I shall attempt to evaluate the significance of
this at a later stage (see Chapter 5, §3 and Chapter 6, §2.a.3).
d. Exceptional Cases: The Sacrifice of Pigs

1. Outside the Bible. The rules I have established in §b above govern,
so far as we can see, the normal cults of public sanctuaries throughout
the West Semitic cultural area. What then of the exceptions to the
general rule that pigs are not sacrificed, detailed by de Vaux in the
article to which I have already referred (1972; cf. von Rohr Sauer
1968 and Stendebach 1974)? His conclusion is that 'the custom was...
restricted to certain pults or to lesser forms of religion such as magic
and exorcisms. The pig was a demoniacal animal' (p. 265); it was
therefore appropriately offered to demons or deities of the under-
world. His article arose out of his own discovery at Tell el-Farah
(North) of a subterranean chamber of MB date, containing a bench
along one wall and a large half-buried jar in one corner; little else
apart from some pig bones, and in the jar the bones of a pig embryo
(detailed description and drawings in de Vaux 1957: 559ff.). He
argued that this chamber could only be interpreted as a sanctuary of
some kind, and the bones as the remains of offerings. He also seized
on certain slight indications on the contemporary surface (p. 564) as a
sign that the chamber had originally been connected with a sanctuary
above ground, and he compared the so-called cella discovered under-
neath the late MB temple at Alalakhby Woolley (Woolley 1955: 66ff.).
He goes on in both articles to point out that the only other discovery
of pig bones in a cultic situation in Palestine, at Gezer, was also in a
subterranean situation (Macalister 1912: 378-79); he points to certain
iconographic evidence from excavations in Palestine; then he draws in
a chain of examples from literary sources of the offering of pigs in
countries round a wide arc of the Eastern Mediterranean: Babylonia,
Greece, Egypt; only Palestine-Syria itself offering no evidence worth
speaking of, other than Isa. 65.4-5; 66.3, 17, which are far more diffi-
cult to interpret than one might suppose from reading de Vaux.
Methodologically this approach seems very dubious. Only what might
reasonably be connected with Canaanite or Syrian peoples should be
considered relevant to establish an otherwise dubious thesis. This point
also vitiates Milgrom's briefer survey (1991: 650ff.), with its heavy
reliance on Hittite evidence.
That leaves us with the bones from Gezer and Tell el-Farah, some
obscure information from Cyprus and about the Sabians, and the
Isaiah passages. There are problems of interpretation with all of these
pieces of evidence. The archaeological evidence is solid enough if it
has been interpreted correctly; but in both cases we rely on the
inevitably subjective opinion of the excavator, for neither locus obvi-
ously proclaims itself as cultic: neither contains an altar, an impossi-
bility underground in any case; so the interpretation of the bones as
the remains of sacrifices creates an obvious difficulty. Even if they are
correctly interpreted as cultic, there is no direct evidence about the
object of the cult, nor is de Vaux's understanding of the meaning of
the underground location the only possible one. However, as I have no
alternative to offer, it seems reasonable to accept this interpretation
provisionally, and to regard these sites as possible evidence of a sub-
terranean cult offering slaughtered pigs to the gods of the dead, or to
the dead themselves. Of course, this would be accepted more easily if
it could be supported by other evidence.
There was always heavy Phoenician influence in Cyprus; we have
already seen Porphyry's testimony that the Cypriots did not sacrifice
pigs. But the Byzantine writer Joannes Lydus (John of Lydia) asserts
that on one day every year, April 2, wild boars were sacrificed to
Aphrodite (De Mensibus 4.65). John preserved tradition about the
Roman festival calendar, along with information like this from else-
where. Obviously it is very difficult to say how far back his informa-
tion goes; his dating of a Cypriot festival by the Roman calendar
scarcely inspires confidence. Another rather interesting passage is
quoted by Athenaeus (Deipnosophistae 3.95f-96a) from the fourth-
century BC comic dramatist Antiphanes, to the effect that in Cyprus
pigs were sacred to Aphrodite, and (presumably only at certain times)
the people prevented them from eating dung and made the cattle eat it
instead. If this piece of third-hand evidence is reliable, we might inter-
pret it on the lines that the pig, normally an unclean animal, became
regarded as clean for the purposes of the cult, and that this involves a
clean animal in taking up the role of the bearer of pollution,
symbolized by the exchange of diets.
A rite possibly involving a similar symbolism appears to have been
celebrated once a year by the Sabians at Harran: from the 4th to the
10th of the month Kanun al-Awwal (Chislev) a dome stood in the
sanctuary of Baltha, that is the planet Venus, and 'in front of this
dome they slaughter sacrificial beasts chosen from as many kinds of
4. The Context Surve 3
animals as possible, four-footed beasts and birds' (al-Nadim, Fihrist

9.5.9 [p. 762]). An alternative translation (Chwolsohn 1856) refers to
the quantity rather than the range of kinds. Even on Dodge's transla-
tion it cannot be certain that the writer is saying that the normal res-
trictions on animals acceptable for sacrifice are lifted. The rite quoted
as Sabian by de Vaux (1972: 260-61; cf. Smith 1894: 290), in which
on one day a year a pig was sacrificed and eaten, belongs to the group
called Rufusiyun (Fihrist 9.7 [p. 768]), and Chwolsohn (ad loc.}
rightly points out that this is unlikely to be a group at Harran; 'Sabian'
came to be used by Arab writers as a general term for pagan. But
though we cannot locate them, they are no doubt West Semitic, for the
implication is that otherwise they did not eat or sacrifice pigs.
The evidence so far cited does not seem to be a very sound frame-
work within which to interpret the Isaiah passages that themselves offer
so many difficulties. We have excluded much of de Vaux's evidence
on geographical grounds, and the iconographic examples he quotes
from Palestine (cf. also von Rohr Sauer 1968; Brentjes 1962; Hiibner
1989) do nothing to show that pigs were sacrificed. It is not legitimate
to conclude from the representation of an animal in a supposedly
cultic context that it must be a sacred animal or likely to have been
sacrificed. But there is a broader framework that may help to bolster
these weak indications by making it in general more likely that West
Semites did on occasion sacrifice animals normally unacceptable (cf.
W.R. Smith 1894: 290-94).
We have already seen that at Ugarit the royal rituals required the
offering of an ass, not as part of the ordinary cult, but once a year,
and also for an extraordinary ritual, which lacks a rubric owing to the
fragmentary state of the tablet, but which cannot have been held fre-
quently. Also at Ugarit a goose, not ordinarily called for, was sacri-
ficed, again once a year, to the infernal powers. But it is especially
significant that human sacrifice was practised among these peoples, the
best evidence being (archaeological) from Carthage and its colonies,
and (literary) from the Old Testament. George Heider (1985; cf. now
also Day 1989) gives detailed examination to all the evidence, and
concludes that 'Molech' was an underworld deity, and that the tradi-
tional interpretation of the Old Testament passages speaking of the
'passing of children through the fire to Molech' as of human sacrifice
is correct; it would be better to translate 'offer by fire'. The latter of
these conclusions seems safe enough; the former may be rather
shakier: it is rejected most recently by M.S. Smith (1990: 136).

At Carthage and at other places in the West the calcined bones of
children have been found buried in jars in special cemeteries, called
'tophets' by the excavators after the Hebrew term. In apparent asso-
ciation with these interments are stelae, in later centuries usually
inscribed and recording vows to Baal Hammon and to Tanit, the prin-
cipal city gods, usually identified with El and Asherah (Warmington
1960: 129), and not regarded as chthonic deities. It is these inscrip-
tions that use the word mlk, which, as Eissfeldt has shown (1935) and
Heider admits, is an expression for a type of sacrifice, and not the
name of a god. There can be no reasonable doubt that the children had
been sacrificed by fire, and this can be linked with the classical reports
of child sacrifice at Carthage (e.g. Diodorus 20.14.4-7: to 'Kronos')
(Stager 1982, Heider 1985: 196ff.). Now this cult is neither to extra-
ordinary deities nor is it an annual event; though the classical sources
speak of mass sacrifices at times of crisis, the archaeological evidence
is quite clearly of a cult kept going entirely by private vows,
presumably by the parents of the children. It is thus not a public cult
in the sense of one funded by the state or celebrated by its officers;
thus we can speak of a private practice of human sacrifice at Carthage.
Recently, however, evidence has turned up that may link a cult of
this kind with the cult of the dead, and also, perhaps, with the sacrifice
of pigs. At Pozo Moro in southeast Spain, within the area of Punic
influence, a tower has been discovered which was plainly used as a
crematorium; and on the sides of the tower there were reliefs, one of
which depicts a two-headed monster sitting on a throne in front of a
table receiving a child in a bowl in his right hand, while a person over
the table from him prepares to slaughter a second child. What is par-
ticularly significant for our purpose is that the monster's left hand is
laid on a pig lying on its back on the table (Heider 1985: 189ff.;
Almagro-Gordea 1980). Charles Kennedy (unpublished, quoted by
Heider, 1985: 190) interprets the monster as Death, especially as the
other reliefs connect the tower with the cult of the dead. The relief
might have been considered as the depiction merely of some myth if it
were not on the side of a building plainly used for the burning of
human bodies, and if the style of the reliefs did not lead us plainly to a
culture where the sacrifice of children was customary.1 The pig seems
1. Shelby Brown (1991: 70-72) is more cautious, commenting that the meaning
of this one out of many mythological scenes 'cannot yet be known'.
to suggest that pigs as well as children were offered, though the

animal bones found in the tophets alongside the human ones (normally
in separate jars and evidently as substitutes for children) appear usu-
ally to be of lambs or goats with the occasional bird (Stager 1982: 7;
cf. Fedele 1979: 84 [Tharros in Sardinia]). It will be recalled, how-
ever, that the bones of a pig embryo found at Tell el-Farah were in a
half-buried jar, a situation that offers something of a parallel.
It is clear that we can say that in cults on extraordinary occasions,
to extraordinary deities, or outside the public cult, extraordinary vic-
tims may be offered. It is more difficult to show, if we leave out of
consideration the biblical evidence and confine ourselves to the
Canaanite-Aramaic world, that the pig was distinctively the represen-
tative of the infernal world, and used specifically in sacrifices to its
powers. It remains to be seen whether that is a natural interpretation
that can be laid upon the biblical texts.
2. The Isaiah Texts. Discussion of the Isaianic texts that appear to

refer to the sacrifice or cultic consumption of pigs and other unclean
animals (Isa. 65.3-5; 66.3; 66.17) is bedevilled by disagreement about
the date and provenance of these passages and of Trito-Isaiah' gen-
erally, and recently even about their meaning. Although Hiibner (1989:
229) has laid stress on the supposed late date of these passages1 as
indicating their dependence on the law in Leviticus and Deuteronomy,
the evidence we have accumulated should make clear the irrelevance
of the premise to the conclusion. While the Pentateuchal laws may
have reached their final form relatively late in the postexilic period,
pork was unclean, in the sense of being unacceptable for cultic use,
long before then and probably even before the priestly law was
formulated at all. Hence although the author, and the practitioners of
the practices condemned, if they are a reality, may be thinking of the
priestly law, that does not disqualify the passages as supporting
evidence for attitudes and practices of earlier times, especially if it is
possible to trace in them the outlines of a coherent practice that is
more than simply defiance thumbed at the priestly law or a satirical
inversion of it.
More problematic for us is the case mounted by Paul Hanson (1979:
1. Vermeylen 1978: 500-501: fourth century; Steck 1985: 76-77: third century;
cf. earlier Volz 1932: 200, 280-81; against, most recently, e.g. Hanson 1979: 32-
208; Achtemeier 1982:16: late fifth century.
146-47,179-80, 197ff.) that all the apparent attacks on pagan practices

in Trito-Isaiah are intended ironically as satirical attacks on the
obsessively orthodox priestly establishment, and are
not meant to be taken any more literally than the charge in 59.5-6 that they
hatch adders' eggs and spin spider's webs, or the indictment in 57.5-8
that they sacrifice their children or build a harlot's bed on a hilltop
(p. 147).
Hanson's reading is a persuasive one, but, as Theodore Lewis notes
(1989: 160), it does not necessarily put the passages out of court as
evidence for the real existence of the practices listed (such as the
sacrifice of children!). The issue is this. If the passages are nothing
more than rhetorical accumulations of imagined activities designed to
make the most repulsive impression possible, then of course they are
no evidence for the reality of the activities. But if they are references,
however satirically intended, to cults that really existed in the cultural
environment, then of course they are such evidence. If it is possible to
show that the latter is the case, then we need not embark on the diffi-
cult task of deciding whether Hanson's reading is in general correct—
difficult because the presence of irony, almost by definition, is
undetectable by literary means; a knowledge of the situation is
required, and this is just what we do not have a priori. How are we to
choose between the alternatives?
My suggestion is that we should examine 65.3-5 and 66.17 in par-
ticular to see whether they may be seen as coherent allusions to one
particular cult. It is unlikely that we could include 66.3 here, since it
seems to be a rather systematic recitation of unacceptable offerings.
But 65.3 and 66.17 both speak of cultic activities in 'the gardens',
hagganndr, the proposed emendation to haggaggot, 'the roofs' is made
less probable by the double attestation. Where and what were these
gardens? They might be interpreted with reference to 1.29 (Whybray
1975: 269; Achtemeier 1982: 124 [but hardly as 'high places']), but
another interpretation lies to hand in the phrase in 65.4 'sitting in (or
among) the graves'. Gardens were sometimes used for burials (2 Kgs
21.18; Jn 19.41), so that it seems at least possible that conversely
sometimes cemeteries may be referred to as 'gardens'. The following
phrase ubannesurim ydlinu has occasioned difficulty by its vagueness:
the usual translation is 'they spend the night in secret places', and it
has been held to refer to the practice of incubation at sanctuaries to
obtain a dream or vision (as Solomon does in 1 Kgs 3)—note the LXX
addition of dia enupnia 'through dreams'; but 'secret' is not a very

accurate translation of a word that should mean 'guarded', and it is
not at all clear what the latter would mean. But LXX has 'in the caves',
and Dahood (1960: 408-409) has proposed to read ben sunm 'within
the rocks (or mountains)', that is, in caves, on this basis.1 Caves,
natural and artificial, were of course also frequently used for burials.
There seems then at least some possibility that these two passages are a
consistent description of a cult of the dead, and that the consumption
of pig's flesh, and in 66.17 of the flesh of other unclean animals, is
connected with this.
I am confirmed in this view by Lewis's convincing presentation of
the case that a cult of the dead existed in ancient Israel (Lewis 1989:
99ff.; cf. also Heider 1985: 389-90; M.S. Smith 1990: 126ff.). Lewis
gives consideration to Isa. 65.4 (158-60), but first and at especial
length to Isa. 56.9-57.13 (143-58). He sees references to the cult of
the dead and to necromancy throughout this passage, for example in
57.6, where he follows Irwin (1967) in connecting the puzzling MT
hlqy nhl with the Ugaritic hlq 'perish' (cf. Dahood 1965: 35, 73, 99,
207), so that the sentence reads 'among the departed of the wady2 is
your portion'. The significance of this from our point of view is that
the previous verse refers to the sacrifice of children, and uses the
phrase 'under the clefts of the crags',3 which is a close parallel to
Dahood's emendation in 65.4. In other words, the acceptance of such
an interpretation of the passage increases the coherence of the
evidence. Yet when Lewis comes to 65.4 he says merely (1989: 159)
that 'the narrator...mixes the metaphor of defilement through death
with that of defilement through the violation of dietary practices', and
that, while a diet might have been expected that fitted better with the
death imagery (i.e. excrement and urine as in 2 Kgs 18.27 [Xella
1980]), 'it seems that our author preferred swine flesh to describe
defiling food (cf. Isaiah 66.3, 17)' (n. 108). He has evidently not
considered the possibility canvassed here, that the eating of swine flesh
1. This reading is not really dependent on a dubious restoration by Avigad

(1955: 163-66) of an inscription from the Kidron valley (cf. Ussishkin 1969), but
will stand on its own merits. Lewis (1989: 160) rejects it in the light of Isa. 45.18-
19, where he finds a parallel in inon. I do not find this convincing.
2. Kennedy (1989) goes further by translating *7m as 'grave' (cf. Job 21.33,
28.4).
3. inon*7m
was an actual part of the ritual referred to. The fact that it is twice
referred to in this connection increases this possibility, and so does the
other evidence reviewed above, fragmentary as it is.
The evidence for the use of other unclean animals than the pig in
the cult of the dead is certainly more fragmentary still. The mouse is
mentioned in Isa. 66.17, along with a vague reference to 'the seqes'
for which the Syriac text reads 'the Seres'. Kennedy (1989: 50) refers
to the discovery of two camels in partial articulation in a tomb of the
late fourth to early third century at Tell Mikhmoret (North), and sug-
gests that this may be the earliest evidence for the beduin dahiyyeh
sacrifice on the anniversary of death.1 As far as I have been able to
discover, we have no evidence of any similar custom involving the
dog (but compare Isa. 66.3 for what it is worth).
My tentative conclusion is that although the evidence is scattered
and difficult to interpret there is some indication that in Syria-
Palestine, as well as in neighbouring countries, the pig, and possibly
other animals, while not normally used in the public cults, was
employed as a victim, and eaten, in obscure and perhaps often secret
cults offered to the dead or the deities of the underworld, or both—
sometimes perhaps also to goddesses of fertility. At Ugarit in the
public cult this seems to have been true of the goose, whereas there
the ass was employed in certain unusual sacrifices, but not otherwise.
It does seem to be possible, however, that the pig in particular, if not
also other 'unclean' animals, was the focus of degrading associations
that made it unacceptable for the normal public cult of city and tribal
gods, and for eating by self-respecting bourgeois (see immediately
below), but appropriate for the worship of powers who had them-
selves to bear the odium of being the enemies of the human race.
4. The Pig: Some Interpretations

a. Politics and the Pig
The virtual absence of the pig from remains associated with public
cult places is quite plain in the material set out in Table B. But the
same virtually total absence of pig remains is shared by some large or
important urban centres: monarchic Jerusalem (the Ophel), Iron II
Lachish, which was a regional centre of government under the
1. But the report to which he refers (Paley and Porath 1983) makes no mention
of camels and dates the tombs a century earlier.
monarchy (in both these places no identifiable pig remains appeared

whatsoever) and Ashdod, where the very small quantity of pig bones
is attributed to wild pig by Haas. Ashdod was by far the largest of the
Philistine cities, and one of the largest cities in Palestine (A. Mazar
1990: 308). We also surmised (above, §3.b.2) that pork was not eaten
at Ugarit, and it may well be that the abstinence from pork by the
Phoenicians is to be categorized in the same way, since the ethnic term
'Phoenicians' refers usually to the people of a small number of urban
commercial centres on the Levantine coast.
The extremely high proportion of beef in the diet at Lachish is
notable. The best explanation is probably that the area excavated ('the
Sanctuary and the Residency') contained the homes of the dominant
elite in the city, and they would naturally have had the most expensive
and prestigious diet. In spite of this they had no pork, a clear sign that
pork was the very opposite of prestigious. In contrast, the people who
lived on the Ophel in Jerusalem in the later monarchy had as little
beef as the average steppe-dweller, and a good deal of fowl in their
diet. Is this the sign of a lower-class residential area? Yet these people
also ate no pork. These two sites are among the very few that could be
described as urban in the modern sense of the word; that is, that their
inhabitants depended for their living not on primary production but
on industry or services. Their diet was governed not by the con-
straints of the productive system in which they were involved but by
choice and their purse. The Lachish elite, whose purse was long, chose
not to eat pork; the Jerusalem artisans must either have refused to eat
it or found it unavailable. In either case one may deduce that there
was no demand for it, and very likely the habits of the poor were, as
so often happens, determined by the habits of the rich with their
greater power to determine the operation of the laws of supply and
demand. These places are Jewish, but the phenomenon is equally
striking at Ugarit, in Phoenicia at a later time, and at Ashdod. In all
these cases we are dealing with metropolitan centres where cultural
factors may have had a greater power to determine practice; and
apparently, despite the distance in time and space, and despite ethnic
differences, similar attitudes existed. It may well be that the meat that
was available at these places came generally from the city temple. On
the other hand, at more rural sites suitable for the keeping of pigs, we
generally find at least some, though quantities in the Iron Age are, as
we have noted, often very small. Of course we should add that there
are in the Bronze Age several urban sites and still in the Iron Age a
few where there are reasonable quantities of pig remains.
In an unpublished study of Middle Bronze Age sites referred to by
Horwitz (1989b: 50), Hesse et al (1986)1 have attempted to argue that
the smaller and more rural a site is, and hence the more independence
it is likely to have of the economic power of the large urban centres,
the higher the frequency of pig remains it will have. This is a predic-
tion derived from Diener and Robkin's theory that the prohibition of
pork was a means of political and economic control. This theory is
developed in reference to the Islamic prohibition of pork, but if there
is anything in it it will apply also to the earlier period. Essentially it is
a political explanation: the prohibition is explained as part of the pro-
cesses of appropriation by which local communities are linked to the
metropolis (Diener and Robkin 1978: 501). In the right conditions the
keeping of pigs is a very effective means of exploiting local resources,
which might otherwise have been available for the centre. One of the
goals of early Islamic political policy was the destruction of local
autonomy and the appropriation of local surpluses (Diener and Robkin
1978: 503) to maintain the loyalty of the regime's urban and nomadic
supporters. 'In such a context, farmers who fed their grain to the pigs
rather than delivering up badly needed surpluses to the fledgling state,
were indeed engaging in defiling behaviour'. The eating of pork was
therefore forbidden so that agricultural surpluses could be appropri-
ated by the state. Diener and Robkin note that in remote rural areas in
the Islamic world even today (for example in the Atlas mountains—
Coon 1951) pigs may be kept secretly, while of course the rule is kept
strictly in urban areas. Hesse et al. generalize this into the hypothesis
that frequencies of pig remains will be related to the ranking of the
community on an urban-rural scale, assuming that the centre's control
over rural communities that were economically largely independent
would have been loose. As we have seen there is some evidence to
support this hypothesis. Horwitz (1989b: 50) notes that the degree of
control would depend on the strength of market relationships.
It has to be said, and was, by Raphael Patai in the same issue of
Current Anthropology in which Diener and Robkin's article appeared,
that their theory ignores the most basic fact about the process of
appropriation: that tax and tithe are the first call on peasant incomes;
1. I have unfortunately not seen this paper.

the tax-collector is not interested in the way the peasants use the crops
that he leaves them with, so long as he gets his cut, which is based on
total crop yields, or some more arbitrary measure.
The village did not have the choice of diminishing the amount it paid to
those in authority; had the villager wanted to feed grain to his animals, he
would have to take it from the small heap left to him and not from the big
one which went to the city (Patai 1978: 520).
Christians were allowed to continue to raise pigs, and paid higher
taxes!—conclusive disproof of the theory in itself. A prohibition of
pork would not therefore serve the purpose Diener and Robkin have
in mind; indeed, the effect of such a process of appropriation in itself
on the use of pork would be the precise opposite of that postulated by
Hesse et al.\ the village would be deprived of the surplus from which
it might raise pigs, and the city would be enabled to use it for that
purpose among others. The observed facts must be explained differ-
ently; but of course in the nature of the case the explanation must have
a political aspect. Horwitz remarks that 'regardless of the...origin of
this food taboo...the enforcement of this prohibition could have
offered a means of political and economic control over the population'
(1989b: 50). More accurately, its enforcement would demonstrate
such control. Hence, supposing it was related to the beliefs or interests
of political and religious elites in some way—as is certainly suggested
by the absence of pigs from the remains of sacrifices at temples
presumably controlled by such elites—if they attempted to enforce it,
their attempt would have most success in the city and least in the
remote villages; and this is suggested by our figures, and may be what
Hesse et al. demonstrate. Horwitz herself speculatively relates the
decline in pig frequency in the Refa'im valley from EB IV to MB II
to the rise of a market enabling urban consumers to influence rural
production.
This observation does not therefore in itself explain the attitudes
towards the pig that we find in the evidence, but it places them in an
important social context. And its place in this context may be of
significance for other aspects of the complex of attitudes that we find
both in the Old Testament and outside it. The priestly system of
dietary prohibitions is not unique; it is one example of a set of very
similar systems of restrictions that we can associate with city-based
elites throughout the area, especially in the first millennia BC and AD,
and perhaps also earlier. And we might well speculate that some
aspects of those restrictions were reinforced by urban contempt for

the village.
b. Pastoralists and the Pig

These considerations do not explain why the beginning of the Iron
Age marks a serious decline in the use of the pig, and why attitudes
condemning it as unclean are most conspicuous in the Iron Age and
subsequently. So far from being a time of greater urbanization and
political control, the early Iron Age is a time of the decline or
destruction of many urban centres, of the dispersal of settlements and
of the extension of tribal rather than urban control over many parts of
the country. Only with the foundation of the Israelite monarchy in
Iron II does the urban control of the country begin slowly to advance
from its state in the Late Bronze Age.
Here we take up again the suggestion, arising from a combination of
Simoons and Finkelstein, that the decline of the pig at this point may
have been caused by the resettlement and increase in political power
of formerly nomadic groups. We touch here on the most contentious
issue in the study of Israelite history today. Besides Finkelstein 1988,
which I am here referring to, we may compare among others
Gottwald 1979, Lemche 1985, Callaway 1985, Coote and Whitelam
1987, London 1989.1 Most of these views give some prominence to
the rapid spread of settlements in the hill country in the early Iron
Age, though Finkelstein's is by far the most thorough study of them.
And if we had the relevant studies, there would be no surprise for any
of these views if the highland settlements mostly lacked pigs, as Izbet
Sartah does, for as we have already seen water problems make the
area generally unsuitable for the keeping of pigs. What needs explaining
is the sharp fall in pig production nearly everywhere in the country
from this time on.
Whereas some other recent views of the origin of Israel have peasant
populations moving from the lowlands to the highlands and becoming
'retribalized', Finkelstein believes (1988: 338) that 'most of the people
who settled in the hill country in the Iron I period came from a
background of pastoralism, and not directly [Finkelstein's italics] from
the urban Canaanite polity of the Late Bronze period'. And by pasto-
ralism Finkelstein means in this connection pastoral nomadism: the
1. There is a useful collection of articles surveying the present state of the

question in SJOT 1991, 2.1-116.
way of life of people spending at least part of their lives on the move
with their flocks. In his view such people formed a very large part of
the population throughout the Late Bronze Age, following a severe
contraction of the urban system at the end of the Middle Bronze
(p. 340). He shows that the process of settlement was slow, beginning
with the eastern slope of the central hill-country, which was the easiest
part for mixed cereal growing and pastoralism, and proceeding
westward and into Galilee and Judah over the next two hundred years.
The creation of a monarchy based on the hill-country settlements
would, in Finkelstein's view, have led to the political power of people
who had a not very distant nomadic past, and the political conditions
must have led to their infiltration into the lowlands.
These people would have lost any skill in or desire for pig-breeding
that their ancestors may have had, and it is not improbable that they
would also have had attitudes of contempt for the pig (cf. Simoons
1961: 41; above, Chapter 3, §2.b), though this is not absolutely neces-
sary to explain the results. If so, their attitudes, as the Israelite monar-
chy became consolidated and began to rely on older-established urban
elites, would have smoothly fitted in with the latter's cultic and civic
rejection of the pig. It seems likely also that the settlement of nomadic
people was not a once-for-all event in Israel, but that there was a con-
tinuous flow of people reinforcing such attitudes at the centre. Jehu's
alliance with Jonadab ben Rechab (2Kgs 10.15-16; cf. Jer. 35.6-10)
is only the most remarkable example of a trend that is likely to have
existed throughout the nation's history in the land.1 It also suggests
that it was among the pastoral nomads that the strongest support for
the exclusive cult of Yahweh often lay, and the coincident strength of
these attitudes must be a key to the history that we shall have to try to
tell. It is also likely to be important that geography made Judah far
more dominated by nomadic, or lately nomadic elements than Israel
proper (Thompson 1992). It is of course in Judah that the dietary law
took its present form.
It is not possible here to discuss the evidence for Finkelstein's view
and its rivals in general. All that I can do is to suggest the bearing that
the evidence of animal use may have on the discussion. There are two
main elements to Finkelstein's theory: the predominance of pastoral
1. Frick (1971), however (followed by Gottwald 1979: 294, etc.), argues that
the Rechabites are likely to have been travelling metal-workers like the Kenites rather
than pastoralists.
nomads in the Late Bronze Age, and the source of the agrarian settlers
of the Iron I period in indigenous pastoralists rather than either out-
siders or peasants escaping from or rebelling against the Canaanite
city-state system. The first element is easier to discuss. As I have men-
tioned (§2.b.l), Finkelstein (1988: 343-44; cf. 1985: 164) points to
isolated sanctuaries and cemeteries, common in the LBA, and also in
EB IV/MB I, but not according to him at periods 'characterized by
urban activity' (1988: 344), as evidence of the existence of a large
population of (nomadic) pastoralists in those periods; and this evidence
derives some of its conviction from faunal remains. The virtual lack
of pig remains at Shiloh does not prove it, as must now be clear, but
the very low proportion of cattle remains is strong evidence for it.
It is not of course possible to demonstrate directly the background
of a community from its faunal remains, since they bear directly only
on their use of animals once they had reached the site. But that may
nevertheless be influenced by their background, which would be one
factor, alongside the environmental constraints, in the formation of
the characteristic elements in their culture. No one result by itself may
be said to conflict with any of the rival views to Finkelstein's, but the
balance of the Iron Age results in general may surely be regarded as
surprising if a view like Gottwald's were correct. He explicitly rejects
the view that pastoral nomadism was a dominant element in early
Israel; it was simply a 'subsidiary sub-specialization within the domi-
nant economic mode of production, namely, intensive agriculture'
(1979: 460), and was involved in the same way in opposition to domi-
nation by the city. But if we are correct in seeing contempt for the pig
as being characteristic of the city over against the village, we should
certainly not on that hypothesis expect pig use to decline after the
victory of the peasants in their supposed revolt against the cities.
Coote and Whitelam's view might, however, be reconciled somewhat
better with the results, since they allow for the participation of pas-
toral nomads as such in the creation of new settlements (1987: 127-
28), and do not think in terms of a direct revolt against the cities.
I am far from accepting the naive view of pastoralism, amply dis-
proved in recent studies, as one undifferentiated form of life that can
be set over against settled agriculture as simply opposed. The close
interaction between them—the mutual dependence of pastoralists and
farmers, and the spectrum of possibilities in pastoralism from its prac-
tice as an important adjunct to farming (very important in the hill-
country; see Hopkins 1985: 246ff.) through seasonal transhumance by
specialists from a settled community to full nomadism—is now well
recognized (cf. Gottwald 1979: 435ff.; Lemche 1985: 84ff.). Their
close interdependence within one community may be demonstrated by
some of the results in our table, especially in some Middle Bronze
Age communities such as Tell Jemmeh or the Refa'im valley, which
combine high values for sheep and goats with moderately high ones
for pigs. But it is just this kind of situation that could have led to the
selection of the pig as a focus of contempt by pastoralists involved
with settled communities yet anxious not to be identified with them. I
discuss some parallel examples in the next chapter of the selection of
animals as identifying marks within dichotomized communities.
The decline of settlement in the LBA, followed by a revival led by
many of the people who had withdrawn into nomadism, repeated a
process that, it is generally recognized, had occurred, perhaps in a
more severe form, eight hundred years earlier in EB IV/MB I. It is
possible that that episode also had resulted in the coming to power of
people inheriting the pastoralist attitude towards the pig, and this may
explain why the city elites already held attitudes that chimed in with
the views of more recently settled people. The example of Egypt
(Chapter 5, §l.b) may be an analogy or a connected development.
Naturally the nomads in process of settlement in the early Iron Age
will not have been the only element in the population, and this may
account for the fact that the Iron Age evidence is not uniform; most
places had a few pigs, and some have modest numbers. The most
important incoming element in the population was the Philistines. But
the results from their settlements are divergent and impossible to
interpret consistently. At Ashdod and Tell Qasile (a new settlement)
there are virtually no pig remains. But at Tel Miqne (Ekron) their
incidence actually rises with the beginning of the Iron Age, along with
those of cattle. As Hesse points out (1986: 23), this points to 'an inten-
sification and centralization of the animal production effort'. What
social or political developments lie behind this process we are unable
to say; but clearly it is an entirely different sort of development from
the establishment of generally small new agricultural settlements, which
was going on in the hill country at the same time, though one effect
that it has in common with that is the intensification of agricultural
production.
c. Conclusions
The evidence taken as a whole rules out Hiibner's conclusion (1989:
229) that the Jewish conception of the pig as unclean originated rela-
tively late, in the outlook of exilic and postexilic times. On the con-
trary, it seems in various forms to have been universal in the whole
broader ancient Near Eastern cultural area. It does seem to have
become more strongly expressed as time went on, but certainly not
only among Jews. There may be a concurrence of ecological and cul-
tural factors in it. The environmental conditions meant that wherever
the pig was found it was a consumer of human wastes. Evidence we
shall be looking at in the next chapter suggests that this would mean it
would be likely to be abominated by those who could afford to express
delicacy, and that it would always be excluded from the table of the
gods, which represented the dignity of society and state. We can, on
the other hand, distinguish between Egypt and Babylonia, where the
pig was widely used as food although excluded from the altar, and
Syria and Palestine, where it was a less common article of diet,
declining still further as time went on and becoming formally abomi-
nated as food among many peoples, especially in religious connections.
There are obvious underlying environmental factors here; there was
no problem about water in the flood plains of the Nile, Tigris and
Euphrates, whereas in the intervening area only certain restricted
zones were suitable. But this, though it is probably a necessary con-
dition, does not sufficiently explain why pig meat should have fallen
under a general ban among Jews, Phoenicians and others. Rather, the
animal seems to have become the symbolic focus of social tensions
between shepherd and peasant and city and village, and was rejected as
food wherever priestly elites were strong enough to bring a cultic
community under the rule of the altar. This was true in a pre-eminent
degree of the postexilic Jewish community, but not of them alone.
5. General Conclusions
As I have taken care to emphasize, the fundamental constraints on the
diet of human communities derive from their natural environment and
the equipment available to them for exploiting it. This is as true of the
ancient Levant as of any other region and period; hence the dominance
of the flocks in their economy, at least in numbers, and the corres-
pondingly lesser place taken by the herd; and hence the relatively
small place taken by pigs in the diet in most places during the Bronze
and Iron Ages. The conditions that would enable the keeping of pigs
on a large scale were generally absent. But this did not prohibit the
keeping of pigs altogether, as the remains show. Nor can it account for
the other restrictions on diet that both written and material evidence
attest. Cultural factors enter here, and their significance is shown most
obviously by the restrictions on the use of particular species as sacri-
ficial victims, again attested by both kinds of evidence. Throughout
the period sacrifice in the regular public cult is virtually confined,
among mammals, to ruminants, mainly, of course, the three normal
domestic species used for food. Pigs are not merely rare in this
character but entirely excluded, except in obscure rites associated with
the cult of the dead. Animals commonly kept for other purposes than
food are virtually never eaten and are sacrificed very rarely. This
avoidance of the donkey and the dog is widespread far beyond our
region, and is easily explicable. Other restrictions, and particularly
that of the pig, have a more complex background. Finally we have to
say that the evidence is insufficient to say very much about wild beasts
and birds, except to observe (1) that they formed in most places a
very small proportion of the diet, (2) that where they appear it is
overwhelmingly the 'clean' gazelle and fallow deer that figure, with
wild boar in some places, and (3) that there is direct evidence in late
times that at least in some places the same rule that we find in the Old
Testament was applied: that of only eating ruminants among mammals
(that is, animals following the model of sacrificial animals).
The position is, then, that the biblical system of rules arose in a set-
ting that was eminently compatible with it: it required no sharp
changes in habitual dietary and cultic practices general in the land and
its environs at least since the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age.
This is especially true of the accepted dietary and sacrificial customs in
Israel—in evidence from the beginning of the nation's existence, or at
least settlement, in the land, established by its nomadic forebears and
encouraged by its priests in line with very ancient practice in the Near
East—can be shown to correspond closely to the rules formulated,
presumably at a relatively late stage, in the Old Testament. However,
we have not yet come to understand these customs or rules from the
inside, as it were, in terms of the associations evoked in the members
of Israelite society by the animals in question and their relation to
society itself. This is what we shall attempt to do in the next chapter.
Table A
Sheep/Goats Cattle Pigs Deer (Total)
Chalcolithic: number 280 24 49 10
(percentage) 74 6.3 13 2.5
weight (gm) 1800 440 595 528
(percentage) 50 12 17 15
Early Bronze: number 226 28 29 1
(percentage) 70 9.2 7.4 0.33
weight (gm) 923 458 264 8
(percentage) 50 25 14 0.44
Table B: Proportions of major animal remains at Palestinian and Syrian sites, Bronze and Iron Ages
(percentages of total number of identified fragments)
Site Source Area Period Type Sheep/Goats Cattle Pigs Others
Arad Lemau 1978 n EB dom 87 7.4 __
Araq el-Emir Toplyn 1983 jo Iron I—Rom. dom 76 9 6
Ashdod Haas 1971 cp Iron dom 49 37 0.3(wild) large rodents 5
Beersheba Hellwing 1984 n Iron dom 83 13 0.5
Ebal Horwitz 1986-87 he Iron I cult 65 21 __ fallow deer 101
Ein-Habsor Gophna 19722 n EB dom 66 __ __ gazelles 33
EnShadud Horwitz 1985 nv EBI dom 29 22 24 equids 25
HayazHOyiik Buitenhuis 1985 ev EB dom 70 8.2 10
'Izbet Saitah Hellwing et al. 1986 nfh Irani dom 53 34 0.4 camels 8
Jebel Qa'aqir Horwitz 1987 he IntB tomb 100 __ __
1. No equids or dogs.
2. Apttd Hakker-Orion 197S.
Jericho Clutton-Brock 19791 jv EB dom 76 12 1.8 gazelles 5.5
MB 63 23 7.7
Jericho tombs Grosvenor et al. 1965 jv EB—MB tomb 91 1 0.5 equids 7.5
Jerusalem Ophel Horwitz et al, 1989 he Iron II dom 87 5 __ birds 7
Lachish Drori 19792 sh LB dom 62 21 6 dogs 9
Lachish Lernau 19753 sh Iron dom/cult 48 47 __
LachishVI Drori 19764 sh LB cult 74 11 __
Lachish, Fosse temple Tufnell 1940 sh MB—LB cult X X __ birds and fish
Ma'abarat Hakker-Orion 1975 cp Bronze dom X many
Megiddo Bate 1938 nv Chalcol.—LB tomb X X X horse, dog
Nahariyah Ducos 1968 cp MB5 cult 88 12 negl. no deer or gazelle
Pella McNicoll 19826 jv Iron dom X X 15
Refa'im valley Horwitz 1989a/b he EBIV dom 81 3.1 15
MB II tomb 90 __ __ equids 10
dom 65 18.5 8.3 equids 7.5
Sasa Horwitz 1987 g MB II tomb 79 8 11 catfish 2
Shiloh Hellwing et al. 1985 he LB cult 92 6.6 few
Iron I cult 75 23 few
Taanach Hakker-Orion 1975 nv Bronze dom X X few
Tel Aphek and Tel Dalit Hellwing et al. 1984 nfh EB dom 64 21 1.8 gazelle 5.3
MB dom 49 33 7.7 gazelle 5.6
Tel Dan Area B Wapnish et al. 1977 jv Iron dom 58 35 1.5 deer 3
Tel Gat Ducos 1968 sh EBH dom 51 20 9 gazelle 8
antelope 4.5
1. Results for the Iron Age have not been entered because the remains are very few.
2. Apud Tchemov and Drori 1983.
3. Lemau's results for LB have not been entered because they were based on a small sample of 53 and seem to have been superseded by Drori's more credible figures.
4. Apud Hellwing and Adjeman 1986.
5. Ducos gives the date as 15th century, but the excavation report (Dothan 1956) shows that this is a mistake: the sanctuary had been abandoned by the end of the 16th century.
6. Apud Hflbner 1989: 234 n. 43.
Table B (continued)
Tel Kinrot Hellwing 1988-89 g EB dom 55 26 7.6 molluscs 8.7
ZieglerefcA1 LB dom 61 29 1.7 molluscs 1.9
Iron II dom X X 2 catfish
Tel Masos Tchemo'v etal. 1983 n Irani dom 66 23 0.2
Tel Michal Hellwing and Feig2 cp Iron! dom 59 30 0.7
Tel Miqne-Ekron Hesse 1986 cp Bronze dom 71 21 8 wild animals not
Irani 45 37 18 included in calculation
Iron II 61 29 10
Tel Nagila Ducos 1%S n MB dom X no sheep X __
Tell el-Hayyat Metzger 1984 jv EB- dom 41 25 31
MB
Tell es-Sharia Davis 1982 sh LB 95 3 negl.
TeUHadidi ClasonandBuitenhuis 1978 ev Bronze dom 61 17 4.5 equids 10 (Chicken [Bronze])
-Rom.
Tell Hesban LaBianca 1973; Boessneck jo Ironl- dom 71 X 4 Chicken (c. 7th-6th cent. BC)
etal. 1978; Weiler 19813 Byz.
Tell Jemmeh Wapnish and Hesse 1988 cp MB dom 77 10 12
Tell Qasile Davis 1985 cp Iron I dom 84 14 1.6
Tell Qiri ha-Zorea Davis 1982 nv Iron dom 86 11 2
Tell Sweyhat Buitenhuis 1983 ev EB dom 68 8.9 0.37 fish/waterbirds, very few
Timna Rothenberg 19724 n Bronze industrial 90 __ __ ostrich eggs
1. (Forthcoming.) Apud Htibner 1989: 234 n.43.

2. Apud Hellwing and Adjeman 19J6.
3. Apud HUbner 1989: 234 n. 43.
4. /Iporf Hakker-Orion 1975.
Chapter 5
THE CONTEXT INTERPRETED
In this chapter we are still concerned with the broader cultural context
within which the priestly definitions took shape. But if the last chapter
was an 'etic' investigation, attempting to determine objectively the
dietary preferences and other cultural uses of animals of the people of
ancient Canaan and Syria, we turn here to try to understand, if pos-
sible, the subjective attitudes of the people towards animals as possible
items of diet for human beings or gods: an 'emic' study. Attitudes of
this kind may be illuminated by the network of associations built up
round animals in a particular culture. Illumination, however, does not
necessarily amount to explanation. We need to beware of the danger
of circular argument, in which the rejection of a species for food is
'explained' by the attitudes towards it in the culture—attitudes that of
course include the dietary rejection itself. While cultural materialists
such as Harris escape from the circle by excluding any consideration
of subjective attitudes at all from the discussion, structuralists like
Douglas attempt to do so by looking not at the attitudes to individual
species in isolation, but at the pattern that they make as a whole, as a
way of looking at the world, linking them with the way in which other
aspects of life are viewed. In this chapter we shall try to form a pic-
ture of the associations of animals among the peoples of the area that
will enable such a pattern to be developed. It would of course be vain
to pretend that we could examine the evidence in a totally unprejudiced
way and then produce from it a pattern, especially since an obvious
pattern already exists in the priestly torah on the subject. I should say,
then, that I shall be looking particularly for the evidence that Israelite
or indeed West Semitic society in general was tending towards the
kind of binary opposition that we find in that torah.
The field anthropologist questions the people to elicit their attitudes,
and certainly does not depend on personal impressions of the characters
or functions of the animals in question, which are influenced by the

associations of the researcher's own culture. Thus the fact that we
'know' that pigs are dirty is of no relevance to discovering the reasons
for the pig taboos in Canaanite-Israelite culture. What we 'know' is
dependent on the way in which pigs are kept in our society, which
accounts for, or may in part be accounted for by, the way in which we
view them. But, of course, we are in no position to question infor-
mants in an ancient society. We can only rely on what happens to have
been transmitted to us: literary works, overwhelmingly those of the
Old Testament, with all the traps that they conceal for the interpreter,
with a few scraps of epigraphy. There are many ways in which this
material may be misleading. The Bible does not represent the culture
of the area as a whole, but only one tradition within it. We cannot be
sure that it represents popular attitudes with any accuracy. It is a liter-
ary corpus, created by an elite, not a repository of the attitudes of the
people. But it is virtually all that we have. However, there are some
field studies and essays in the anthropological literature that may sug-
gest analogies to help us to understand the possible cultural context of
the Levitical rules, and these we shall look at in the second part of this
chapter. In the third part I try to sketch a brief history of the way in
which the patterns of meaning elucidated in the first two parts may
have been used.
1. The Associations of Animals in the Old Testament and its World

We have already seen that Gen. 7.2 suggests that the distinction
between clean and unclean animals was an inherited feature of the
culture of the people of Israel, and the unusual position of the pig that
we have documented in the last chapter tends to confirm this. In order
to open up something of the background of this, we need to look at
texts that mention particular animals. This could be a vast and largely
unrewarding survey, but I would suggest various ways in which it
might be curtailed. It does not seem necessary to search for examples
of the mention of every individual species, both because rules and
customs tend to be applied to wide groups of creatures and because
there could be no question in practice of the use of most species for
food, and it is natural to concentrate on those most in contact with
human life. Although it may be said (e.g. Levine 1989: 247) that dis-
proportionate attention tends to be given to the pig, which has no
5. The Context Interpreted 183
special position in the Bible, in fact it is quite natural to concentrate
on it, because it is the only commonly eaten species that is declared
unclean. And as we have seen, this was already so in early times, not
first in the Hellenistic period.
Leach (1964: 31) suggests that in all societies edible substances
might be divided into three categories:
1. Edible substances that are recognized as food and consumed as part
of the normal diet.
2. Edible substances that are recognized as possible food, but are
prohibited or else allowed to be eaten only under special (ritual)
conditions; [which are] consciously tabooed.
3. Edible substances that by culture and language are not recognized
as food at all; [which are] unconsciously tabooed.
Thus the Old Testament prohibition of pork is an explicit, conscious
taboo, but the English objection to eating dogs 'depends on the cate-
gory assumption: "dog is not food"'. This, Leach asserts, depends on
verbal categories: eating man is disgusting and 'there are contexts in
colloquial English in which man and dog may be thought of as beings
of the same kind (1964: 32)'. Now it is clear that this categorization,
even if adequate for attitudes in our culture (for a severe critique of
Leach's article, see Halverson 1976), cannot be applied to the rules of
Leviticus 11, for these rules have the specific object, at least in their
final form, of defining every member of the animal kingdom as either
fit or unfit for food: everything that is not defined as fit for food is
ipso facto unclean. It may well, however, be argued that the omission
in an earlier form, and in Deuteronomy 14, of the seres of the
ground, is traceable precisely to the category assumption 'swarming
things are not food', even in the sense in which pig is: nobody (before
the crisis reflected in Isa. 66) eats them. This in itself is an important
result. But it also demonstrates that we do not need specific attitudes to
particular animals to account for the fact that they are not treated as
food. What I will be able to show in this chapter is, on the one hand,
that similar attitudes of contempt tend to embrace carnivorous animals
and birds, dogs and pigs, and on the other that the domestic animals of
the Israelites have a special position that makes them in a certain sense
members of the community.
a. Domestic Animals as Members of the Community

This point is one that Mary Douglas makes in her earliest treatment of
the subject (1966: 54):
To some extent men covenanted with their cattle in the same way as God
covenanted with them. Men respected the first born of their cattle, obliged
them to keep the Sabbath... The difference between cattle and the wild
beasts is that the wild beasts have no covenant to protect them.
The analogy between human beings and beasts is developed in some
detail by Wenham (1981; cf. Levine 1989: 245-46; Milgrom 1990:
179-80; Eilberg-Schwartz 1990: 122-23). He cites the Sabbath law in
the decalogue (Exod. 20.10; Deut. 5.14) and the law requiring the
dedication of the first-born, both of human mothers and of beasts
(Exod. 13.2; 22.28-29 [Eng. 29-30]; 34.19). But in the latter
connection he shows that the analogy is quite extensive: Exod. 13.13
and Num. 8.16-17 call for the redemption of non-sacrificial animals
and of human infants (but there is clearly a difference: it is permitted
to refuse to redeem the first-born of an ass, and break its neck instead,
but not so with your own child); and the period allowed between birth
and offering is the same as that between birth and circumcision for a
human male child, in each case eight days inclusive: Exod. 22.29
(Eng. 30) and Lev. 22.27; Gen. 17.12 and Lev. 12.3. Another analogy
may be drawn between the requirement for physical perfection in
sacrificial victims (Lev. 1.3; 22.17-25, etc.; Deut. 17.1) and in priests
(Lev. 21.16-23).1 And finally in the blessings and curses that are
attached to the proclamation of the Law, the animals of the Israelites
are included (Deut. 28.4, 18, 50-57; Lev. 26.22). Levine (1989: 245)
also draws attention to the law of the goring ox (Exod. 21.29-32),
which requires the ox not simply to be destroyed as a danger, but to
be stoned like a human criminal, and its flesh left uneaten.
Wenham does not argue like Douglas and Levine that the animals
are in some sense 'within the covenant', part of the community, but
simply that a practical analogy is drawn between human beings and
animals, which indeed may cover wild animals also, as in the analo-
gous commands given to human beings and animals in Gen. 1.29, 30;
and Levine (1989: 246) notes that even wild animals may be held
1. Milgrom (1990:181) draws attention to the close correspondence between the

lists of disqualifying blemishes in priests and sacrificial animals in Lev. 21.18-20
and 22.22-24: there are twelve items in each.
responsible for their actions. He refers to the priestly introduction to

the Flood story, which states that 'all flesh had corrupted its way upon
the earth' (6.12), and to the conclusion, which hands over the animals
into the power of humanity and requires that anyone, whether human
or animal, who kills a human being will have to answer for it to God
(9.5). But it is notable that most of the cases cited by Wenham do
refer to domestic animals, and the law of the first-bom in particular is
very striking for the similar way in which it treats human and animal.
Moreover, it is easy to substantiate Douglas's assertion that human
beings felt an obligation to protect their animals, even if it is hardly
accurate to refer to this as a covenant. The repeated use of the
metaphor of the shepherd both for the king and governing officials
(e.g. Ezek. 34) and for God (e.g. Ps. 23) strongly suggests this. If the
use of a metaphor shows us something of the way in which its vehicle
is viewed, we shall have no difficulty in concluding that it was a moral
obligation for a shepherd to protect his sheep, and of course to protect
them in the first place from wild animals (1 Sam. 17.34-35; Isa. 31.4;
Ezek. 34.5, 8; etc.). It is also clear that the metaphor involves human
beings in thinking of themselves as sheep, and so identifying them-
selves in a sense with their own animals (e.g. Ps. 95.7; Isa. 40.11). We
thus gain a picture of a broad human and animal community set over
against the creatures of the wild, specifically the large and dangerous
carnivores. Characteristically, and obviously, domestic animals, par-
ticularly sheep, are docile—'like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before her shearers is dumb...' (Isa. 53.7)—and
wild animals are out of the control of human beings; that is what
makes them wild; one might think of the brilliantly portrayed gallery
of animals of the wild offered by Yahweh to Job in his answer from
the whirlwind (Job 38.39-39.30), the repeated point of which is that
Job cannot control them. Admittedly they include the warhorse, which
is domesticated and which one might presume to be under the control
of its rider, but it is not so portrayed. Characteristically also they
serve as metaphors for the enemies of human society (cf. §l.c below).1
1. Eilberg-Schwartz (1990: 120-21) draws attention to a very much wider range

of animal (and vegetable) metaphor for human relations and activities, not all of them
directly relevant here, but suggestive. He puts it (p. 125) that the animals that serve
as metaphors for Israelite society are seen as clean, while the predators that symbolize
the enemies of Israel are unclean. But while this is true, the national aspect is not
essential to the metaphor.
So far this picture is imprecise. There are distinctions to be made
within the body of domestic animals, even as they are all bound within
the same community. Some of them are providers of nourishment,
milk and meat. Others, principally the ass, are solely labourers. It is
hardly necessary to offer substantiation of so obvious a fact; but it is
worth referring to Porphyry's comment, 'we do not slaughter asses or
elephants or any of those animals that share our labours but do not
enjoy their benefits'.1 This was the wisdom of a humane (and vegetar-
ian) philosopher, but one who was born in Tyre and likely to have
been as familiar with the Semitic cultural world as with the Greek; it
probably reflects a more inarticulate general opinion among ancient
people, Greek or Oriental. At all events the ass invariably appears in
the Old Testament as a beast of burden, sharing its master's toil and
also his rest (Exod. 20.10). It appears as food only in a situation of
desperate famine (2 Kgs 6.25). Eilberg-Schwartz (1990: 126-27) com-
pares the relation of the ass to the flocks and herds to that of the ger,
the alien, in Israelite human society, who usually works as a labourer,
and shares in many, but not all, of their privileges and restrictions. In
view of my definition below (§l.b) of the other unclean domestic
animals as 'ambiguous', this idea could be helpful.
It seems most natural to include the camel under the same rubric.
We have noted that it is of limited importance in the cultivated land
during the biblical period, but where it was used it was clearly a beast
of burden existing alongside other domestic animals that continued to
be the only source of meat. It was not, as it is among the Beduin, the
main domestic animal that provides both transport and nourishment. It
was probably not until about two thousand years ago that such true
Beduin began to emerge, and it is almost certain that such camel-using
communities as the Midianites (Judg. 6.5) with whom the Israelites
came into contact did not use the camel in that way, but probably only
for transport (the same verse refers in a more general way to 'their
livestock' [miqnehem}). However, as we have seen, camel meat was
eaten in the vicinity of Israel's territory, probably by caravan traders
and an urban community to whom they sold the meat of their surplus
animals. It seems likely that we have a commercial community here in
which restraints characteristic of peasant communities are less signifi-
cant. If camel-eating became at all well known to Israelites in the later
1. De Abst. 2.25:
biblical period, it would be as the custom of ethnic groups to their
south with whom they had long-standing enmities, and who were
rapidly taking over parts of their land,1 and this could have reinforced
the general objection to the use of the flesh of an animal whose
function in the human community was as a labourer.
If we turn to those animals whose function in the community was to
provide nourishment for the human members, it is not surprising in
view of the degree of identification between the human and animal
sides of the community that the traditional rule was that they could
only be eaten under the restraints of the ritual context. This is the rule
among many peoples, for example the Nuer (Evans-Pritchard 1956),
and the Kachin (Leach 1964: 56), and it is clearly implied as the exist-
ing custom by Deut. 12.15, 20ff., which attempts to abolish it (cf.
Chapter 4, §3.c). The simple dedication of the meal to a deity requires
no sanctuary or priest (Kaufmann 1961: 180-81). In the Israelite con-
ception it appears to consist essentially in the pouring out of the blood
to the deity. That is all that Saul considers necessary to regularize the
slaughter in 1 Sam. 14.32-34; and in the two treatments of the issue in
the legal literature, Deuteronomy 12 and Leviticus 17, the question of
the blood is central (Lev. 17.10-11; Deut. 12.16, 23-25). When the
slaughter is secularized in Deuteronomy, though the blood must not be
eaten, it is to be poured on the ground 'like water', which probably
means that it is not to form the object of a ritual (cf. Weinfeld 1972:
214, who notes [214 n. 2; Kaufmann 1961: 181] that the sin of Saul's
soldiers is precisely to slaughter the animals 'on the ground' as required
in Deut. 12.16). The popular custom should not be identified with the
rule propounded in Lev. 17.3-4, which demands the offering of the
beast at a particular sanctuary2 (cf. Levine 1989: 112-13, who how-
ever is surely wrong in finding implicit permission for secular
slaughter here). For this priestly writer slaughter without presenting
the beast at Yahweh's sanctuary is murder (v. 4), and the blood
1. Knauf (1988:168) explains in this way the Deuteronomic interpretation of the

'kid in mother's milk' prohibition as a general dietary prohibition rather than a festal
regulation, which he believes it was originally; it was and is still the pastoralist com-
munities of the southern desert fringe who relish meat cooked in milk as a delicacy
(1988: 164-65).
2. Originally perhaps at a plurality of Yahweh sanctuaries (S.R. Driver 1902:
138). Failure to make these distinctions vitiates McConville's attempt (1984: 42ff.) to
prove the antiquity of profane slaughter as conceived in Deuteronomy.
thrown on the altar serves to atone (v. 11)—very possibly for the very
act of slaughter of a community member, the victim itself, though this
is unclear and disputed. Although this priestly theory is scarcely likely
to represent popular understanding, it may well articulate a wide-
spread sense that the ritual act tends to compensate for and bring
within an ordered system the potentially disruptive cutting off of the
life of a being that has shared the life of the community.
Even in rabbinic Judaism, which accepts the Deuteronomic permis-
sion for profane slaughter, a distinction remains between the eating of
domestic beasts and of game: in the former case the abdominal fat is
prohibited in accord with Lev. 7.23-25 (m. Hul. 8.6). The wording of
v. 25, which originated in the setting where no domestic animal was
eaten without sacrifice, continues to remind the slaughterer and eater
of the special position of domestic animals, as those animals by which
God's blessing is transmitted to the community of Israel.
As we have seen, domestic birds were kept. Among these the dove
has a special position—I think we can reasonably assume that doves
were kept as domestic birds, especially since otherwise they would be
the only wild victim permitted in the sacrificial codes of Ugarit and
Leviticus; the Marseilles tariff, which seems to permit wild birds, also
permits deer (Chapter 4, §3.b.2). Although we know from the archaeo-
logical record that chickens were kept (Chapter 4, §2.b.5), they are
not mentioned once in the Old Testament, and geese and ducks are no
better off (unless the obscure barburim of 1 Kgs 5.3 [Eng. 4.23; most
English versions 'fowl'] are one of these three species). But the dove
is an image of gentleness—indeed imbecility—and love, Hos. 7.11;
11.11; Ps. 74.19; Song 2.14; 5.2; etc. Probably because of this it is the
symbol of the goddess of love, Astarte, in Phoenicia and Syria, and
becomes at some period prohibited as food to her devotees (Chapter 4,
§3.c).
b. Ambiguous Animals
We turn from the blessed to the reprobate. At all periods human
settlements in the Middle East, as in many other parts of the world,
have harboured dogs. But their relationship to the human community
is much more unclear and ambiguous than that of other animals.
Although dogs were kept as pets (Chapter 4, §§2.b.3, 3.c), even if
Tobias's dog is the only example in a Jewish context, in general the
tone of biblical references to them is decidedly negative. This despite
the fact that they had their uses for rounding up sheep and as guards
(Job 30.1; Isa. 56.10-11). Yet even these two references to the honour-
able functions of dogs use them as contemptuous figures for people
whom the speaker despises, and there is much more of the same kind
—cf. 1 Sam. 17.43; 24.15 (Eng. 14); 2 Sam. 3.8; 9.8, 16.9; 2 Kgs
8.13; Ps. 59.7, 15 (Eng. 6, 14); Prov. 26.11; Eccl. 9.4; Matt. 7.6;
Mk 7.27 (Matt. 15.26); Phil. 3.2; 2 Pet. 2.22. And there is similar
material in non-biblical texts from the region: e.g. in the Lachish let-
ters, where the writer regularly refers to himself by the stereotyped
phrase 'your servant a dog' (Torczyner 1938: 2.3-4, 5.3-4, 6.3); in
the Amarna tablets, 1.84 (Knudtzon 1915), the writer's enemy is
described as a dog (1. 8, cf. 1. 17).
Generally in these passages 'dog' is simply a term of vague abuse
(or ironical self-deprecation) for someone who is beneath contempt;
in the Marcan passage it refers specifically to the Gentiles. However,
in Deut. 23.19 (Eng. 18) (to which Rev. 22.15 probably refers), we
have a very specific idiom in which the term 'dog' apparently refers
to a male prostitute.1 This may account for the fact that in the other
biblical passages, despite its frequency, the word is never used directly
as a metaphor for a human being. Homosexuality is of course very
strongly reprobated in the biblical tradition (cf. Houston 1991); see
Lev. 18.22; 20.13, where the act of intercourse between males is
described as td'ebd, 'abomination'; it is the only individual offence in
those sexual codes to be described with that word, which is otherwise
rare in the Holiness Code. It implies, as we have noted, that which
every right-thinking person rejects with disgust. The use of the
abusive term may imply a very specific obscene reference to the act of
anal intercourse, but there is also a more general reason why someone
who offers himself for this act that violates the structure and norms of
society in so flagrant a way should be described as a dog, and it also
accounts for the general abusive use of the word.
For the function of the dog to which most frequent reference is
made is that of a scavenger. The dogs are those who will eat what
human beings refuse to eat, meat that is itself unclean or disgusting
(Exod. 22.30 [Eng. 31]). They appear constantly in the prophetic
curses in Kings as eating the dead bodies of slaughtered royalty, along
with the 'birds of the air' (1 Kgs 14.11; 16.4; 21.19, 23, 24; 22.38;
1. Stager (1991), however, following Peckham 1968, interprets it literally, of

dogs taking part in healing rites.
2 Kgs 9.10, 36). There are closely parallel expressions in the Assyrian
vassal treaties, as Weinfeld has shown (1972: 131-32; see below).
Now, though human corpses were (one hopes) not everyday fare for
the dogs of Israel, their position as scavengers that get rid of unclean
and uneatable refuse is quite clear. And it puts them into an ideologic-
ally ambiguous position. For the eating of bloody corpses is an act that
essentially belongs to wild animals (such as the 'birds of the air' and
the lions and bears fended off by the shepherd), just as the food itself
belongs outside the boundaries of the human community. Human
beings are not permitted to eat blood; their animals are herbivorous
(supposedly—the habits of goats are overlooked; remember that we
are dealing with attitudes, not with facts). Dogs thus, ideally, put
themselves outside the community with the wild animals. But they are
not outside the community, they have to be in the camp or settlement
to do their scavenging, and they are tolerated precisely because they
do it and so relieve human beings of the unpleasant task of disposing
of their waste. Human beings need dogs, and yet they despise them for
doing what they need them for—precisely the position of prostitutes
(of either sex)! Dogs are anomalous animals, in Douglas's phrase, but
because of their functions, not because of their classification.
Now for the pig. It is clear from our previous investigation that its
position also is anomalous: a domestic animal bred for the table, that
yet cannot appear on the table of the gods (except perhaps for the
denizens of Sheol), and that appears to be rejected as food by the
urban elites, as well as, less surprisingly, by people with a pastoral
background. A full explanation would need to take account of the whole
complex picture that we were enabled to draw in the last chapter.
It will be convenient to begin just where we left off in considering
the dog. For where dogs appear as scavengers, or in contemptuous
references to men, swine frequently appear also. This emerges from
Weinfeld's discussion (1972: 129ff.), which I referred to above. The
reader of the gospels will immediately recall Matt. 7.6. The Vassal
Treaties of Esarhaddon contain the expressions, 'May dogs and swine
eat your flesh' (1. 451), and 'May dogs and swine drag your corpses to
and fro in the squares of Ashur; may the earth not receive them'
(11. 483-84) (Wiseman 1958 as in Weinfeld 1972: 131). Ashurbanipal
asserts that he fed the corpses of rebels to 'dogs, swine, jackals, eagles
(or vultures), the birds of heaven and the fish of the deep' (Streck
1916: II, 38, iv: 74-76, in Weinfeld 1972: 132). More remarkably, the
LXX text of 1 Kgs 21.19; 22.38 (3 Reigns 20.19; 22.38) mentions

pigs, which are absent from the MT: 'In every place where the pigs
and the dogs licked the blood of Naboth, there the dogs will lick your
blood, and the prostitutes will wash in your blood'; 'And the pigs and
the dogs licked up the blood, and the prostitutes washed in the blood'.
Weinfeld suggests (p. 132 n. 5) that the pigs may be original to the text
and have been censored from the MT in order to avoid the implication
that pigs could be found in an Israelite town.1 (Not that, if it were the
original text, it would necessarily imply that; for Weinfeld argues that
we are dealing with a stereotyped form of expression that owes its
origin to the international treaty tradition.)
The ranging of pigs with dogs in the Assyrian texts is the more sur-
prising in that in the Sumero-Akkadian cultural area pork was, as we
have seen, far more freely eaten than further west. And in both cul-
tural areas it seems that pigs have a reputation shared with dogs for
living as scavengers and polluting themselves with unclean food. As
we have seen, it is likely to have objectively been the case that pigs in
the Near East, as in China, lived primarily in or near the settlement
on waste food. But they would have been useful as scavengers in the
same way as dogs. It may therefore be that pigs fell into the same
ideological trap—valuable for a purpose that in itself undermined
their value. This obviously would not have disqualified them as food
in the eyes of the local people who bred them for that purpose, but it
might make a difference to the way in which more delicately brought
up people viewed them—urban elites including priests. It would
certainly be impossible for them to offer animals raised on unclean or
questionable material in sacrifice, since their food might make the
animals ritually unfit themselves. The only reference to pigs in the
Hebrew text of the Old Testament in any other connection than their
unfitness for food is Prov. 11.22: 'As a gold ring in a pig's snout, so is
a beautiful woman without discretion'. Perhaps the reference is not
quite as contemptuous as those using the dog, but nearly so.
Even in a society that had no objection to eating pig meat, as in
Mesopotamia, pigs were bound to have a lowly position, and this
1. He further suggests that the reference to the prostitutes in the MT of 1 Kgs

22.38 may be a corruption, intentional or unintentional, of one to pigs: rvurm from
D'lTni. There is the same combination of feeding dogs and bathing pigs in 2 Pet.
2.22. The LXX has then preserved a conflation of the two readings which has
afterwards been copied in 3 Reigns 20.19.
seems to be broadly true also in Egypt (Chapter 4, §3.b.4). Since

Egypt was entirely devoid of woodland, pigs must have been fed either
on grain (an expensive business, but feasible for the wealthiest; cf.
above, Chapter 3, §2.c.3) or, as elsewhere, on waste. Helck comments
(LA, V, 5.v. Schwein): 'to judge from its place in lists, the pig was the
least esteemed of domestic animals'. This may be the reason for its
general rejection as a sacrificial animal. Griffiths, however, has a
different explanation:
There was perhaps a subconscious ambivalence in the attitude to the pig:
on the one hand it was, unlike the rare prizes of the desert hunt, long
domesticated and ever within reach—a case of familiarity breeding con-
tempt; on the other hand it was extremely useful and willingly excluded
from the menu of the gods (Griffiths 1960: 33).
The uncleanness of swine and swineherds reported by Herodotus

(2.47) is, however, rather difficult to fit in with our knowledge from
native sources. It may be a late development, and if so seems to be of
a piece with developments in Israel and Syria.1 On the other hand,
there is an elaborate explanation connecting it with the myth of Seth,
who turned into a black pig to damage Horus's eye (see LA, V, s.v.
Seth). It is suggested that the original worshippers of Seth, who were
pig-raisers, were the native inhabitants of Egypt conquered and sup-
pressed by the Horus people, who were, it is supposed, pastoralists in
origin (cf. Emery 1961: 95-96). These demonized Seth, mythologized
their conquest of his people in the story of Horus and Seth, and
despised his animal, the pig. The difficulty with this explanation is that
the supposed consequences, the demonization of Seth and the impurity
of the pig, are not evidenced for some two to three thousand years
after their supposed cause, the conquest of the Horus people. It is quite
correct of te Velde (1967) to query the political interpretation of the
Seth myth, and though Griffiths espouses it, he considers the associa-
tion of the pig with Seth to be a later development.
Whether it is correct to see in the development of contemptuous
attitudes towards the pig in Egypt the result of the influx of pasto-
rally-based people, or something purely indigenous, in either case we
have perhaps a useful analogy to what happened in Israel, perhaps
something more in view of the dominance of Egyptians in Canaan for
1. Darby et al. (1977: 198-99) suggest that it is a custom of the early dynastic
period (p. 173) revived in the Saite period.
several hundred years before the rise of Israel.
At all events it is clear that throughout the ancient Near East there
was a strong tendency not to give equal regard to all domestic animals.
'Shepherd' was an appropriate epithet for kings and gods, 'swineherd'
was not; their subjects could compare themselves to sheep, while gods
could be called 'bull' or represented as one, or as a ram, but even the
Egyptians did not have a pig-headed god, given that the Seth animal
cannot really be regarded as a pig (Griffiths 1960: 32, against
Newberry 1928). This tension could have led to a formal hierarchy
among domestic animals (as among the Kalasha [below, §2.c]), but the
more usual result in this region was the anathematization of the pig as
unclean, and often also, as in Israel, the eventual cessation of its
raising.
c. Animals as Enemies
Dogs and pigs, then, find themselves, despite their close association
with humans, or I should say rather because of it, or because of its
particular character, on the wrong side of the line that divides the
good herbivorous domestic animals from the scavenging, blood-con-
suming carnivores: 'evil beasts' (Ezek. 14.15, 21) and 'the fowls of the
air' (1 Kgs 14.11, etc.). And we have already established, primarily
on the testimony of the Mishnah, that the unclean birds listed individ-
ually in Lev. 11.13-19 and Deut. 14.12-18 are overwhelmingly birds
of prey and carrion-eaters. This is also true of the majority of the
unclean beasts, at least those that are certainly behemd rather than
seres. It has to be admitted (so Firmage 1990: 186) that the most
prominent of these birds and beasts have good associations also; the
lion and the neSer—eagle or vulture—are frequent examples of
strength and power and the latter especially of swiftness (e.g. Deut.
28.49; Isa. 40.31 or 2 Sam. 1.23). Both lion and eagle feature here as
similes for the strength and swiftness of the warrior. The lion exem-
plifies courage in 2 Sam. 17.10; but equally often serves as a figure
for danger or treachery or implacability, as in Job 10.16, Pss. 7.3
(2), 10.9, 17.12, Isa. 5.29 and Amos 3.8. References to other carni-
vorous beasts and birds are relatively few. But, for example, the bear,
which for some reason figures in our culture's folklore as a friendly
beast, invariably stands for danger and ferocity in the Bible, and the
she-bear robbed of her whelps is the type of frustrated anger and
violence (2 Sam. 17.8; Prov. 17.12; Hos. 13.8). Among the smaller
carnivores the Su'al, probably the jackal, features as a carrion-eater in
Ps. 63.11 (10).
There is however a special literary context in which many of the
unclean species appear, including many of the birds that do not appear
elsewhere outside Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14, and it may
enable us to use extrabiblical evidence. This is the prophetic curse of
destruction, when it extends to descriptions of the deserted ruins of
the doomed place, which become the habitation of many wild crea-
tures, including a surprisingly high proportion of those that appear in
our chapters as unclean. There are also passages that use the same idea
of the ruins as the habitation of wild creatures, though they are not of
the same genre.
The passages in question include Isa. 13.21-22, Isa. 34.11-15, Jer.
50.39, Mic. 1.8, Zeph. 2.14, Ps. 102.7, Job 30.29, and a number of
other Old Testament passages where only one of the creatures appears;
the first Sfire inscription (KAI 222), at line A33; and perhaps the
Balaam inscription from Tell Deir 'Alia, Combination 1, according to
Hoftijzer's interpretation of this very fragmentary and uncertain text
(Hoftijzer and van der Kooij 1976: text 173-74, translation 179-80,
commentary at 200-201); Garbini 1979 largely dissents, observing
that the majority of the birds are 'small and offensive' (p. 178), and
McCarter (1980: 51, 58), followed by Hackett (1984: 46-47), has given
a possibly more convincing interpretation. But whether or not
Hoftijzer's interpretation is accepted, his commentary is useful to us
here, since he conveniently lists all the creatures that appear in all
these texts, biblical and extrabiblical (Hoftijzer and van der Kooij
1976: 206-207), and the great majority in fact occur in the Bible. It
will be understood (cf. Chapter 2, §l.c.5) that many of them are not
identifiable, and there is the further complication that the Balaam
inscriptions are perhaps, and the Sfire inscriptions certainly, in Aramaic
rather than Hebrew (for discussion of the language of the Balaam
texts, see, among others, Hoftijzer and van der Kooij 1978: 300-302;
McCarter 1980: 50-51; Hackett 1984: 109ff.; and various articles in
Hoftijzer and van der Kooij 1991). However, many of the names of
creatures are just the same as in the Old Testament, and others (e.g.
'rnb - BH 'arnebet) are not very different. I list the birds first, in
alphabetical order, since these have more verbal contacts with Leviticus
11, where the unclean species are listed, then the beasts; however the
qippod and the qippoz could well be birds. The names appearing in
the Bible are given in vocalized transliteration, those in the inscrip-

tions with consonants only, though when they also appear in Leviticus
111 have given the vocalized form as it appears there also. The
references to the Deir 'Alia texts are to Hoftijzer's arrangements of
the lines; Caquot and Lemaire (1977: 193) have suggested a rearrange-
ment that has been widely accepted, but here I am following Hoftijzer.
'nph Balaam I: 10. Cf. Lev. 11.19, >andpd.
batya'and Isa. 13.21; 34.13; Jer. 50.39; Mic. 1.8; Job 30.29. Garbini finds
y'nh in Balaam 1.10. Cf. Lev. 11.16.
dayyd Isa. 34.15. Cf. Deut. 14.13, where it appears to be a gloss (Chapter
2, § 1 .c.5). Undoubtedly intended as some kind of bird of prey.
drr Balaam I: 10. Probably the swallow (BH derof)\ not unclean in the
Bible, but cf. b. Hul. 62a.
yanSOp Isa. 34.11. Cf. Lev. 11.17.
kos (owl) Ps. 102.7; proposed in BHS as emendation in Zeph. 2.14 (RSV
'owl', REB 'tawny owl'). Cf. Lev. 11.17.
lilit Isa. 34.14. Generally regarded as a demon, Lilith or the 'night hag',
but REB prosaically 'nightjar'.
nSrtywn Balaam 1:10-11 Heb. neSer, Lev. 11.13, is not referred to in these
contexts in the Bible, but Hoftijzer takes nSrt as a fern. pi. and as a
general designation: 'birds of prey from the marsh'. Caquot and
Lemaire (1977) and Garbini (1979: 178) take ywn as another bird-
name: 'pigeon' (cf. BH yond), and nSrt as a singular, McCarter and
Hackett agree on ywn but take nSrt as a verb.
'"tallep (bat) Isa. 2.20. Cf. Lev. 11.19.
'qh KAI222.A33. Donner and Rollig 'magpie' referring to Aram, 'aq'aq.
This is not among unclean birds in Lev. 11.
'oreb (raven) Isa. 34.11; Zeph. 2.14 LXX. Cf. Lev. 11.15.
sdh KAI 222.A33. Donner and Rollig 'owl', referring to Jewish Aram.
sacfyd'. Whether this is one of the birds in Leviticus 11 under another
name is uncertain, but it is certainly of the same general kind.
spr Balaam 1.11. Heb. sippor 'bird'; but here probably specifically
'sparrow' (Hoftijzer et al. 1976: 204).
qd'at Isa. 34.11; Zeph. 2.14; Ps. 102.7. Cf. Lev. 11.18.
rhm Balaam 1.10. Uncertain; Garbini reads rhpn, a verb. Cf. Lev. 11.18,
rahan, probably a vulture of some kind.
'dah Isa. 13.21. Meaning uncertain; RSV 'howling creatures', REB
'porcupines'.
't Isa. 13.22; 34.14; Jer. 50.39. BOB, REB 'jackal'; RSV 'hyena'. But
an older tradition takes it as a fabulous beast: LXX onokentauroi; cf.
Wildberger(1982: 1325)—'Kobolden'.
'rnb Balaam I.I 1, KAI 222.A33. Cf. Lev. 11.6, 'arnebet, hare.
pere' Isa. 32.14. Wild ass.
sby KAI 222.A33. Heb. fbt, gazelle. Not unclean; cf. Deut. 14.5.
if Isa. 13.21; 23.13; 34.14; Jer. 50.39; but Pss. 72.9; 74.14, where the
text is uncertain, are not really relevant here. Meaning uncertain; RSV
'wild beasts' (i.e. not translated), REB 'marmots'. But a strong tradi-
tion represented by the LXX and Vulgate and followed by Wildberger
(1982: 1325) regards them as demons.
qippod Isa. 14.23; 34.11; Zeph. 2.14. Meaning uncertain; BDB 'porcupine',
RSV 'hedgehog' (both from LXX ekhinoi)', REB 'bustard'; 'bittern'
also suggested; cf. BDB (s.v.), Hoftijzer et al. 1976: 207.
qippoz Isa. 34.15. Meaning uncertain; LXX assimilates to the previous word.
BDB 'arrow-snake', from the Arabic qqffaza, but they admit that this
does not incubate its eggs; Wildberger however follows this; RSV
'owl'; REB 'sand-partridge'.
Sa'fr Isa. 13.21; 34.14. Much disputed; normally means a he-goat, but in
Lev. 17.7 is clearly a deity of some kind, hence the traditional trans-
lation 'satyr' (is this what is meant by the Vulg. 'pilosi'?), both there
and in these passages. REB gives 'he-goat' here, of course not an un-
clean animal. Wildberger (1982: 1328, 1347) argues for the tradi-
tional understanding of this with '? and si, as well as lllit, as demons
or fabulous creatures. Certainly there is no reason in principle why
the text should not people these horrid ruins with mythological as well
as real creatures.
Sa'al Ezek. 13.4; Lam. 5.18. Probably jackal.
Srn KAI 222.A33. Donner and Rollig 'wild cat', referring to Akk.
Suranu.
tan Isa. 13.22; 34.13; 35.7; Jer. 9.10 (11); 10.22; 49.33; 51.37;
Mic. 1.8; Job 30.29. Usually 'jackal', but REB 'wolf.
Hoftijzer notes that three of the creatures mentioned in the Balaam
inscription are unclean in the Bible, and concludes from the listing
above that 'in ancient Israel those animals and birds which could be
used as "symbols" of destruction and doom, (normally) also were
considered unclean'. One has to reckon with a literary tradition.
There is probably a literary connection between the two principal
Isaiah passages in chs. 13 and 34, and possibly some of the other bibli-
cal passages as well. There may also be some connection with the Deir
'Alia prophecies (if that is how they should be described) and the Sfire
treaty, but there is not much overlap in the creatures mentioned. It is
nevertheless remarkable that of all the animals and birds that could be
mentioned as the inhabitants of ruins, those in the biblical texts are all
unclean (with the possible exception of the sa Tr), and also that of the
21 or 22 names of unclean birds in the present texts of Leviticus 11
and Deuteronomy 14, many of which occur nowhere else, no less than
5. The Context In 97
ten are mentioned either in the biblical texts or in the Balaam inscrip-
tion. It is true that the two Aramaic texts mention clean creatures also,
but even then certain kinds of swallow are held to be unclean in the
Talmud. There does seem to be a very high level of correlation
between uncleanness and presence in a literary tradition concerned
with destruction and desolation—more certainly for the biblical texts
than could be expected by chance. But which way did the connection
go? Are the birds named as unclean because they inhabit, or are
believed to inhabit, desolate places, or does the literary tradition select
birds recognized as unclean to play this lugubrious role?
If we recall our investigations of the list of unclean birds in Chapter
2, we found there that the list has been expanded. Originally, we sus-
pected, it contained just eight birds, and twelve have been added.
Now, of the seven names of birds (including the bat!) in the biblical
desolation passages that appear in Leviticus 11 or Deuteronomy 14, all
but one are among the added ones in the latter part of the list; that is,
of the twelve added names, six are found in this distinctive literary
tradition; bringing the Balaam inscription into the equation would
possibly bring the number up to eight, but would add no further
names found in the earlier part of the passage, unless you count neser.
That is, of the original list of eight no more than two are represented
in this tradition, but of the twelve added names at least half are. It
therefore does not seem likely that the literary tradition selected
unclean birds, at least not from the list we know, but rather that the
expansion of the list was inspired by the literary tradition. On the
other hand, there is no need to ascribe any excessive care for realism
to the writers of the desolation passages. They were using a tradition,
and the choice of birds and beasts may have been governed more by a
traditional sense of fitness for such a role—that is, by cultural atti-
tudes of fear or contempt—than by the actual likelihood that they
would inhabit desolate places. I have noted before (Chapter 2, §l.c.5)
that if the y ansup and the qa'at (and the rahcan and the >anapa) were
really water birds, it would be improbable to find them in desert
places as described in Isaiah 34 and elsewhere. G.R. Driver (1955)
concluded from this that such an identification was mistaken. But this
may have been a hasty conclusion, if I am correct.
One curious point that may have a bearing on this is the strange
assertion in Isa. 34.16: 'Seek and read from the book of the LORD: not
one of these shall be missing'. What book, we want to ask? The
commentators agree that it is the prophecy itself, the book of Isaiah or

the whole prophetic canon; cf. Delitzsch n.d.: II, 71; the verse instructs
the future reader to compare prophecy with fulfilment, and Skinner
(1896: 258) remarks, in accepting this view, that the words also imply
the existence of a prophetic canon. For Kaiser (1974: 359-60) it is the
book of Isaiah itself, the chapter being one of the latest in the book
and itself dependent on other passages in the book. Wildberger (1982:
1349-350) takes the verse in the same way, but dating the chapter rela-
tively early (sixth century), regards it as a much later supplement.
One may agree that it is a gloss of some kind. But is it so certain that
the glossator intended to refer to the book he was glossing? Why
should he instruct the reader to search in the very book he was read-
ing already? And what book was more likely to be called 'the book of
Yahweh' in the late Second Temple period than the Torah? Thus the
glossator could, I suggest, be calling attention to the fact we have just
been noting: that very many of the unclean creatures of the Torah are
to be found in the prophecy (and therefore, naturally, in Edom; I am
not denying the presence of the theme of the fulfilment of prophecy).
As it so often happens, there is an element of hyperbole in the scrip-
tural utterance. And this late contributor to Scripture testifies to the
maintenance of the equivalence we have been demonstrating: creatures
that inspire fear or revulsion, for whatever cultural reason, most of
them scavengers and blood-eaters, are those that appropriately inhabit
places where the LORD'S sword has descended for judgment, and are
also those that are declared unclean for eating.
It may be worth comparing the list of birds seen in Mesopotamian
sources as birds of ill-omen (cf. Salonen 1973). They include (this is
by no means a complete list; I give them with Salonen's translation,
though most are very difficult to identify): adaburtu 'flamingo'; amas-
sanu 'wild pigeon'; anpatu, also 'flamingo' (cognate with Heb. 'anapa);
arebu 'crow' (Heb. 'oreb); ensubu uncertain, but cf. Heb. yanSup;
ellebu a hawk, perhaps the hen-harrier; hasibaru 'hoopoe'; igiru
'heron'; qadu the 'large pin-tailed sandgrouse' (Arabic qata), though it
is generally taken as an owl. It will be seen that most of these are
certainly or probably the same birds as ones in the Leviticus 11 list,
though there is also a pigeon and perhaps a grouse which would cer-
tainly be clean birds in Israel. In very broad terms, therefore, there
are similar tendencies observable everywhere in the region to invest
certain birds with reprobate status, particularly birds of prey and
5. The Context 99
others that might be seen as unclean feeders.

It is difficult to say anything useful about attitudes to water creatures
that could illuminate Lev. 11.9ff. They are simply not mentioned to
any significant extent by the writers of those dry and landlocked hills.
To suggest that the distinction has something to do with the observed
diet of bottom-feeding molluscs and crustaceans (Levine 1989: 248) is
plausible in view of what we have been noting just now, but it is not
based on native evidence. However, we have already observed that fish
were associated with Asherah, and that this led in due course to the
development of a taboo on their flesh in some quarters.
d. Resume
We begin to trace the outlines of a structure of thought about animals
in the society out of which the Old Testament arose, related to the
structure of the priestly definitions, but anterior to it logically, if not
chronologically. The primary distinction is between domestic animals
and wild ones. Domestic ones are within the community in the limited
sense in which this can be true for non-human creatures, and to some
extent people are able to identify themselves with them. They are tame
and submissive, their docility confirms human power over the animal
world, and their diet is acceptably pure. Wild creatures refuse the
dominion of humankind, they tend to be violent and dangerous, and
their diet typically tends to include waste matter and blood. Ambiguity
arises in the case of the dog and the pig, which are domestic at least in
the sense that they inhabit human settlements (and camps in the case of
the dog), but their diet puts them on the wrong side of the line. The
pig of course is traditionally eaten—it is bred for nothing else—but
the dog is not. It is hardly surprising that this ambiguity should be
resolved by using 'dog' as a word of abuse and by identifying pigs
with underworld deities or avoiding their flesh, nor that this should
happen not only in Israel but in a whole range of other societies in this
general cultural area. There is no ambiguity in the case of the ass,
which because it exists for labour is not in any case eaten, but it is
possible that it did arise in the case of the camel in the late biblical
period. A different kind of ambiguity exists in the case of the
domestic creatures that are bred for meat among other uses. Their use
for food is hedged around, in traditional custom, with the limitations
and controls of ritual. It is a solemn occasion, marked by the
invitation of the deity to share the feast (for discussion, see Chapter 4,
§3.c; Chapter 5, §l.a; Chapter 6, §l.d).
There are also ambiguities among the wild creatures. The most
obvious is that some wild beasts are hunted for food, in some places
being sacrificed. These are, by and large, those large herbivores that
had always formed part of people's diet in this area, and closely
resembled the domestic stock in appearance and manner of life and
diet. This could be understood in terms of the structure of thought
that we have begun to trace: certain wild beasts, because of their diet,
behaviour and mode of life, could be seen as domestic animals in an
honorary sense, as it were; and this would be a popular attitude
directly undergirding the more formal Levitical rule. So far as the
evidence of actual practice goes, and it is very limited, birds might be
treated analogously. We saw (Chapter 4, §2.b.5) that in the very
thorough analyses of the material from Heshbon and the Ophel, the
only wild bird species found in significant quantity was the partridge,
a ground-feeding, chiefly graminivorous bird like the pigeon, the
goose and the domestic fowl. This was not, however, developed into a
rule in our texts, which limit their rejection of birds mainly to those
that can be seen to be predators or carrion-eaters or are associated
with desolation; this last certainly a late literary development. There is
virtually no direct evidence that could enable us to say how the
smaller creatures, falling into the category of seres, were treated;
only the indirect evidence of Leviticus 11 enables us to guess that with
the exception of locusts they were, to use Leach's term, unconsciously
tabooed.
The main classification of animals that I have established for P and
paralleled from Egypt (Hornung 1967; Chapter 2, §l.c.2) is not likely
to be a purely learned classification; I also paralleled it among the
Rangi (Kesby 1979). And it clearly affects the likelihood of creatures
being accepted as food; of the three groups of land animals, the
proportion of acceptable creatures declines as one proceeds down the
scale from the birds of the air, to the beasts, to the creeping things of
the ground. The conclusion that should perhaps be drawn is that birds
raised less tension than beasts, that they were less significant overall to
society and consequently were less likely to be ambiguous and neede'd
to be surrounded by fewer restrictions.
2. Parallels
a. Leach on Animal Categories
There are a few studies that may be helpful in paralleling and hence
illuminating the pattern of associations we have been working out.
First we ought to say something more about the very well-known
paper by Leach (1964) which I have already referred to, to see if it
has anything to contribute to our understanding of this pattern. It is a
wide-ranging paper linking observations on language use in English
(in England) with his field work among the Kachin of Burma, and
drawing general conclusions with his characteristic acuity and equally
characteristic rashness. The significance of this work from our point
of view lies in its establishment of the notion of 'social distance' as a
key element in the understanding of taboo, whether the taboo is
expressed in linguistic or in behavioural terms. He argues that animals
tend to fall into groups according to their closeness to human society
and the degree of significance that they bear for it. Thus there are in
English society pets, whose place is in the home; farm animals; pre-
served game, which is in a half-way position between tame and wild
animals; and unequivocally wild animals. Taboo ideas tend to be con-
centrated on those animals that are in ambiguous situations as between
the categories—this is a familiar idea in social anthropology that goes
back to Radcliffe-Brown. For Leach taboo is not necessarily a matter
of dietary prohibition, but may be expressed in the use of the
animals's name for verbal abuse or sexual allusions, or in the sur-
rounding of its hunting or eating with ritual. And the idea of social
distance in animals may be linked up with such an idea in relation to
marriage rules. This is worked out in a quite unconvincing way as
regards English society, but the example from the Kachin carries a
certain degree of conviction. He shows that the designations of some
significant female relatives in Kachin tend to have homonyms broadly
designating those areas of social distance for animals that can be seen
as analogous to those of the relative in the field of marriage rules.
Thus ni means 'mother-in-law' (with whom relations are incestuous)
and 'near' of those animals such as the dog or the rat which live in the
house and which normally cannot be eaten; na means an elder sister—
and with a classificatory sister illicit relations are acceptable—and also
a sacred holiday, an occasion on which farm animals are sacrificed, a
necessary condition of their being eaten; nam means a cross-cousin,
the privileged category of woman for marriage, and also the forest,
from which animals may be eaten without ceremony; raw means to
cease to be related, and also a tiger, the type of the remote large
animals that are never eaten (Leach 1964: 61-62) There is an obvious
inconsistency here: the woman with whom the ceremonial relationship
of marriage may be contracted does not correspond to the animal cat-
egory that is eaten with ceremony. But as far as the pure idea of
'distance' is concerned, there is a certain degree of plausibility.
How far is this an illuminating model for our study? It clearly is not
going to account for the binary opposition that is the basis of the
system in the Old Testament in its developed form. Leach himself
considers the value of his own paper to lie in the development of
Levi-Strauss's theories of binary opposition in the direction of a
graduated scale (1964, 62-63). But it is true to say that in practice
there is a graduated scale in Israelite thinking, and that the same four
main categories of animal can be recognized: inedible (close) domestic
animals, domestic animals edible after sacrifice, edible wild animals,
and inedible wild animals. It could be argued that all the inedible or
reprobated domestic animals are associated too closely with the human
community or its rejected wastes. We can also recognize a category of
'vermin' (cf. 1964: 45) in the eight unclean creeping things of Lev.
11.29-30, which obviously are those that are most likely to be encoun-
tered in the house and in cooking vessels. Though there can be no
question of eating swarming things of any kind, this group are given
special attention and laden with particular ritual consequences, doubt-
less because they draw attention to themselves in much the same way
as the dog or pig: their proper place is outside the human community,
but they invade not just the settlement, but the very houses and the
holy place.
This means there may be some value in Leach's theory with regard
to the kind of relationships and attitudes we have been considering.
But it is a little difficult to argue that the difference between edible
and inedible wild animals in Israel is that of 'social distance'. Gazelles
are no less 'socially distant' than jackals. Certainly also the idea of
ambiguity as the basis of taboo is useful; we have already used it in the
case of the pig, the dog, the eight unclean creeping things, and in a
different way with other domestic animals. But we should be careful:
the ambiguous status of these animals is not the result of natural facts
in relation to a particular scheme of classification. It is rather some-
thing imposed on them by the way in which they are kept and used in
that particular society. Hence I would prefer to say that ambiguity is
associated with their taboo status rather than that it is the basis of it.
It is much more speculative, as we have seen with Mary Douglas, to
link the categorization of animals with social relationships. Leach had
at least a plausible linguistic basis for such speculation; none such
seems to exist in Hebrew, if we except the obscene use of keleb, 'dog'.
Moreover, there is a theoretical objection to attempting such a link.
The marriage systems of the Kachin on the one hand and the Israelites
and most other Near Eastern peoples on the other are radically differ-
ent. The Kachin have the widespread institution of the exogamous clan
that intermarries with other such clans, but between whose members
marriage is forbidden. But the Israelites, as we have seen (Chapter 3,
§2.d.2), practised endogamy. At every level of the social system a
wife from within the same group was preferred to one without. If
Leach is right in making a connection between the Kachin animal
categories and their social categories, it is difficult to see how a very
similar system of animal categories could be linked with a completely
different marriage system. It would however be possible to argue that
the much narrower list of permitted beasts in the Israelite system is
related to the tendency to look inwards rather than outwards for
marriage partners and in many other areas of life. This would be
closely related to Mary Douglas's argument (Chapter 3, §2.d.2), and it
is open in a similar way to the objections of Sahlins (1976: 118-19)
and Hallpike (1979: 198) that the system of animal categories simply
becomes a system of empty signs related only analogically to the
cognitive appreciation of the animals. We have tried to overcome this
objection by investigating the substantive characters of the animals in
Hebrew thought, and we need now to see if there are other possible
models that could give us some better illumination in applying this
information.
Leach's essay is based entirely upon the language and customs of
long-established agricultural communities with no pastoral back-
ground. But our discussion in the last chapter led us to suspect that the
significance of pastoralism in Israel's life and background could have
had much to do with the development of the dietary law. And there
are in fact a number of possible parallels in the modern literature
concerning pastoral peoples. It can be argued that these parallels are
more significant than any that can be found with customs among
settled peoples.
b. Game and the Pastoralist

Long ago Frazer (1918: III, 158-61) noted the resemblance between
the limitations placed by certain pastoral peoples of East Africa, the
Masai (now usually spelt Maasai) and Bahima, on their hunting of
game for food, and the rules about clean and unclean animals in the
Old Testament. Both tribes lived almost exclusively on the milk and
meat of their cattle (never mixing the two, another parallel: 1918: III,
150-54). The Masai despised game in general, but made an exception
for the eland and the buffalo, apparently regarding them as kinds of
cattle (1918: III, 159, citing Hinde and Hinde 1901: 84, 120); the
Bahima allowed a slightly wider range, 'though these are limited to
such as they consider related to cows, for example buffalo and one or
two kinds of antelope, waterbuck and hartebeest' (Roscoe 1915: 108,
in Frazer 1918: HI, 159-60). Frazer himself relates this custom to the
separation of milk and meat practised by the same peoples, 'from a
belief that cows are directly injured whenever their milk comes into
contact with the flesh of wild animals in the stomachs of the tribes-
men' (1918: HI, 160), which appears illogical, since he has told us
only a few pages earlier that they made a strict separation between
beef and milk, so that the wildness or cattle-likeness of the animals can
have nothing to do with it. More reasonably, he concludes that 'the
Hebrew usages in all these matters took their rise in the pastoral stage
of society, and accordingly they confirm the native tradition of the
Israelites that their ancestors were nomadic herdsmen' (p. 161).
Frazer's method of culling likely-looking parallels from the four
corners of the world is not that of the modern anthropologist, and
does not help us to understand the meaning of the custom among the
Maasai and Bahima, still less among the Israelites. But all observers of
the Maasai are agreed that they are a people whose involvement, and
even identification, with their cattle, which are the foundation not only
of their livelihood but of their entire social system, is profound.
'Cattle are objects of affection and supreme religious significance. To
the Maasai cattle give meaning to life; they mean life itself (Arhem
1985: 17). In such conditions it is understandable that the possibilities
of wild animals in general as a source of food should be ignored or
rejected, an attitude found among another East African pastoral
people profoundly identified in many complex ways with their cattle:
the Nuer (Evans-Pritchard 1956: 266-67).1 As Evans-Pritchard shows
in the same chapter, although the Nuer like eating meat, and all cattle
eventually find their way into the pot, they do so only by way of
sacrifice, as in old Israel, and 'it is regarded as a fault to kill them
"bang lora", "just for nothing", the Nuer way of saying that they
ought not to be killed for meat' (1956: 265). When cattle offer the
religious and social benefits of sacrifice with the following feast, in
addition to the physical pleasure of eating meat, it is clear that the
eating of game could only be a pale shadow of that. The attitude of the
Maasai is perhaps only a variation on this; the buffalo obviously, and
the eland slightly puzzlingly (why the eland in particular, rather than
any other antelope?), could be understood metonymically, because of
their outward appearance and manner of life, as acceptable, though
scarcely adequate, substitutes for cattle.
The parallels do undeniably suggest that such a restriction of game
as is implicit in the material evidence from the Levantine Bronze and
Iron Ages and explicit in the Levitical and other dietary codes may
arise from a pastoral people's strong self-identification with their
cattle. One finds such an identification among the East African pasto-
ralists, and we have found features in the Old Testament above that
suggest a similar identification between the people and their cattle, and
that therefore tend to suggest at least a strong pastoral aspect to the
Israelite culture.
c. Pastoral Livestock Codes

But the restriction on game is only one aspect of the dietary codes we
are examining. Equally striking is the contempt for, and ultimate
rejection of, the pig. Now since the pig is not kept by exclusively
pastoral people, this is likely, as we have suggested, to be related in
some way to the interaction between pastoral and agrarian elements in
the population.
There are two studies of transhumant pastoral peoples who also
engage in some agriculture that may well throw some light on this
1. 'Usually they only pursue those graminivorous animals which come to drink
near their camps and seem to offer themselves for slaughter. It is not that it is thought
to be wrong to kill them, but that except in time of famine, Nuer are little interested in
hunting. They speak of it as a Shilluk or Dinka practice beneath the serious attention
of a Nuer who can boast of a herd' (Evans-Pritchard 1956: 267).
aspect of the matter. The earlier is J.K. Campbell's book (1964) on
the Greek mountain shepherds known as the Sarakatsani; the other is
Peter Parkes's study (1987) of the only remaining non-Muslim people
in the Hindu Kush, the Kalasha. Despite the great differences in their
way of life and especially in their religion (the Kalasha are polytheists
and the Sarakatsani are of course Christians), these peoples have a
great deal in common. Their life is based on the herding of animals
that move from the valleys to the mountains for the summer. In the
Hindu Kush the men go up alone with the goats, and the women
remain in the valley. Sarakatsani families, on the other hand, move as
a whole with their flocks of sheep. Yet they are very similar in the
sharp dichotomy they make between the sexes in economic function
and ideological status, which is associated with a dichotomized view of
the world. In each case the men have the exclusive care of the animals
that have the highest regard: the goats among the Kalasha, the sheep
among the Sarakatsani, while the women may look after the other
animals and carry on agriculture, which is of some economic impor-
tance for the Kalasha, but very low in esteem. In each case women are
held (at least by the men!) to be impure, and polluting in relation to
the sacred herds. And the animals that they look after are corres-
pondingly impure or at any rate of low esteem.
According to Parkes, among the Kalasha, goats are 'conceptually
opposed to women as respective embodiments of the "pure" and
"impure" ritual spheres' (Parkes 1987: 640). Women are forbidden to
approach the goat stables,
lest their sexual pollution should attract spirits of ill-health towards its
herd. Goats, particularly male goats, are treated as the most sacred of
animals: to be tended by herdsmen under conditions of ritual purity and to
be sacrificed exclusively for male deities.
However, the Kalasha also keep cattle and sheep. Cattle are impure; in
the past the Kalasha avoided all cattle products and the shaman still
does so. Cattle are kept in the village stables all year round, fed on
waste fodder, and are required mainly for draught. Sheep do go up
the mountains with the men and the goats in the summer, but they are
kept separate from the adult goats, and may be kept with the cattle in
the winter. They are the sacrificial animals of women, and associated
with the valley demons. But the truly polluting animals are domestic
fowl, which are generally associated with Muslims and thought to be
dirty. Parkes goes on to list a whole series of pairs of contrasting
concepts that exemplify and reinforce the basic dichotomy between the
sacred and the polluting which are related to male and female spheres
of association. The mountains and their pastures, with their typical
vegetation of juniper and holm-oak are opposed to the valleys with
their onions and garlic and rhong (a dyestuff); goats, with certain wild
animals such as markhor, and honey-bees, which exemplify the co-
operation and solidarity of the men in their summer encampments
over against the family disputes of the village where agriculture is
organized by households, are opposed to cattle, to hens and eggs, and
to some extent to sheep. Even within the valleys the goat stables and
the altars are opposed to the basdli house, where women are segregated
in menstruation and childbirth, and to the graveyard (1987: 649).
This last point provides particularly strong points of comparison
with ancient Israel. The Kalasha say the basalt house and the grave-
yard are haunted by demons who are constantly seeking to enter
human life and cause illness, and female sexuality and death are their
best points of access. Women spend six days in the basdli house for
menstruation and twenty to thirty days after childbirth. They may not
touch anything associated with the goat stables; an unwitting breach
requires a purificatory sacrifice. But prepubescent girls and post-
menopausal women may approach their relatives' herds. On ritual
occasions young boys may milk the nannies, but adult men require
purification from their contact with women (1987: 651-52).
There are similar livestock codes among neighbouring peoples, but
the particular species may be shuffled round (1987: 654). Among the
Sarakatsani it is the sheep that are sacred (a sheep is an iero prama—
Campbell 1964: 277), and the goats exemplify the pollution of the
women's sphere. The Sarakatsani keep goats to exploit grazing that is
unsuitable for sheep, but except for the grazing it is the women who
look after them, milking them, shearing them, delivering the kids.
Conversely women, particularly married women and girls in their
periods, 'do not approach the sheep unnecessarily' (1964: 31).
For the Sarakatsani, sheep and goats, men and women, are important and
related oppositions with a moral reference. Sheep are particularly God's
animals, and their shepherds, made in His image, are essentially noble
beings. Women through the particular sensuality of their natures are
inherently more likely to have relations with the Devil; and goats were
originally the animals of the Devil which Christ captured and tamed for the
service of man... Sheep are docile, enduring, pure and intelligent.. .To
match [their] purity and passive courage shepherds ought to be fearless
and devoted guardians, and clean in the ritual sense. After sexual inter-
course a shepherd must carefully wash his hands before milking sheep
and it is generally preferable that the two shepherds of a flock of milking
ewes should be unmarried men (1964: 26).
Goats are unable to resist pain in silence, they are cunning and insatiate
feeders. Greed and cunning are important characteristics of the Devil...
Women are not, of course, simply creatures of the Devil but the nature of
their sexuality, which continually threatens the honour of men, makes
them, willingly or unwillingly, agents of his will (1964: 31).
Anton Blok (1981) adds to this the observation that an opposition
between sheep and goats, more specifically between rams and billy-
goats, is widespread among pastoral communities in the Mediterranean
area, in relation to the code of honour. The ram represents the power-
ful man who protects his honour, and the billy-goat is the cuckold and
the symbol of shame; this reflects an observable fact of the sexual
behaviour of the two species (1981: 428), and accounts for the very
widespread connection of horns with cuckoldry.
The specific opposition of sheep and goats is not reflected in the
biblical world. Blok is mistaken here: he has misread the instructions
about sacrifice, as it is so easy to do, through not being familiar with
the context. He reads the fact that billy-goats are prescribed for the
purification offering and for the bearing of sin in the 'scapegoat'
ritual (Lev. 16) as reflecting the goat's status as a a symbol of shame.
He has simply omitted to read Leviticus 4, dealing with occasional
purification-offerings, where a private person brings a female goat or
a ewe-lamb for a purification offering (Lev. 4.28, 32), and a priest or
the whole community a bull (vv. 3, 14); only in the case of a chief
(nasT) is a male goat offered. Moreover, the fact that a goat is pre-
scribed to bear the transgressions of the entire community on the Day
of Atonement bears witness rather to the honour accorded to this
animal than the reverse. In Leviticus 4 it seems to be rather a question
of the monetary value of the respective animals. A whole-offering
(Lev. 1), which is the most honorific type of offering, may be made
from any of the herds or flocks, provided that it is a male.
The importance of these studies for our own is rather, in the first
place, that they provide us with clear examples, from an appropriate
kind of society, the pastoral, in one case with an agricultural side to
the economy, of a code of oppositions being structured round animals
actually kept by the society, so that animals that they keep and use and
perhaps eat may be despised in relation to others. This offers a possi-

ble parallel to the opposition between pigs and other animals that is
suggested by the material remains from Palestine as well as the writ-
ten evidence from Egypt and Mesopotamia, with pigs being kept and
yet given very low esteem and certainly never being offered in sacrifice
to the acknowledged gods of state or tribe. As this situation must lie in
the background of the sharper opposition found in the Old Testament
texts, the parallels indirectly illuminate the proper subject of our
study. And the whole series of oppositions worked out in these studies
is rich in suggestive parallels to Israelite social and ritual customs, and
may therefore help us in elucidating the place of animals in that
culture.
The societies studied by Campbell and Parkes are structured round
a profound and far-reaching opposition between the sexes. In a society
where women themselves are regarded (by men!) as dangerous and
corrupting, the animals associated with them share their taint. And it
is fairly clear that women were indeed viewed as dangerous and cor-
rupting by a strong current of ideology among men in ancient Israel.
This is suggested (not to mention a strong trend in the narrative of the
Old Testament—Eve, Delilah, Jezebel and the rest) especially by an
institution with close parallels in the pastoral societies of the Kalasha
and the Sarakatsani: the uncleanness of menstruation and childbirth.
While we cannot say how old this is, it is surely unlikely to be simply
an exilic priestly invention (as for example Leonie Archer regards it,
[1990: 38]); cf. 2 Sam. 11.4.1 Mary Douglas has convincingly argued
that where men's determination to control their women is not suffici-
ently single-minded, but in conflict with other aims, sexual pollution is
likely to be believed in.
Sex is likely to be pollution-free in a society where sexual roles are en-
forced directly... But the principle runs into trouble if there is any other
principle which protects women from physical control. For this gives
women scope to play off one man against another, and so to confound the
principle of male dominance (Douglas 1966: 141,149).
There is, however, no direct evidence that the sexes in ancient
Palestine were associated with particular animals, at least not in the
strict sense we find among the Kalasha and Sarakatsani. Certainly it is
1. Though this might conceivably derive from the sixth century or later (cf. Van
Seters 1983: 277-91).
not the case that women were kept away from the flocks. Shepherds
were usually male, but in a couple of places in Hebrew narrative we
find women in charge of the watering of the flocks: Rachel in
Gen. 29.9, who is explicitly described as 'a shepherdess' (ro'a\ and
the daughters of Reuel in Exod. 2.16ff. (Song 1.8 should also be com-
pared). In both these places the women find themselves in difficulty,
Rachel because only the men can roll away the stone from the mouth
of the well, the daughters of Reuel because they are harrassed by the
men; they are rescued in each place by the hero. Robert Alter has
suggested (1981: 51-52) that we have here examples of a literary
'type-scene' (Gen. 24.10-61 is another), the conventional prelude to
the hero's betrothal, which might suggest that we need not take their
data all that seriously as social insight. But the situation presumed in
any realistic narrative must be plausible to the reader; hence we can
safely assume that girls did look after their father's flocks, but we
have no evidence that married women might be shepherdesses.
Whether the development of the situation in Exodus 2, with its sug-
gestion of sexual antagonism on the part of the male shepherds, should
also be seen as a common event, or whether it is simply there for the
sake of the plot, is a more obscure question. It is also unclear whether
communities existed or were common in which, as among the Kalasha,
a large proportion of the men engaged in transhumance, leaving the
women and the weak in the village, or whether transhumant pasto-
ralism as part of a mixed economy was always only the work of a few
specialist shepherds. We have even less information about the keeping
of cattle, and still less of pigs, but it is safe to say that these were
never taken away from home. And if, as I have supposed, where pigs
existed they were mainly raised on domestic waste, they would almost
certainly have been kept by the women; and this would have been even
more likely where the men were absent for long periods. There is
therefore at least some possibility that the pastoral contempt for swine
was developed in the context of a sexual dichotomy for which other
evidence exists. But this certainly cannot have been as strong or pre-
cise in relation to the animals as among the Kalasha or Sarakatsani.
The importance of these studies may then be not so much in sug-
gesting a very precise social situation out of which the pig taboo (and
others) in Israelite society might have arisen, as in simply offering
suggestive analogies to the situation that we can detect in that society.
The key point is the development of a social dichotomy that is
symbolized by particular animals seen as opposed to each other.
Although there is a distinct possibility that a gender-based dichotomy
lies somewhere in the background, there are more obvious ones
suggested by the gradually emerging history of the distinction between
clean and unclean animals. One is that between pastoral and
agricultural communities, or within the same community where both
'clean' animals and pigs were kept. Since the most interesting parallels
we have found have been in predominantly pastoral communities, it is
this dichotomy that most obviously occurs to us. We can imagine that
unfavourable comparisons (as among the Sarakatsani) could be made
between the diet of pigs and those of the clean-living grazing animals
(and that the omnivorous voraciousness of goats would be overlooked),
and perhaps also between the ferocity of pigs, animals who will even
eat their own offspring, and the docility of the shepherd's flocks. This
would then offer a basis for linking the various wild animals with
either sphere through the associations of ideas that we explored earlier
in this chapter. Yet the dichotomy between city and village, suggested
by significant aspects of the contemporary evidence, seems to be
equally important, but it is not likely to be so closely illuminated by
the Kalasha and Sarakatsani parallels, since it would have been a matter
of unilateral city contempt for pigs without a dual symbolization of
the two spheres.
Let me make it clear here that when I speak of dichotomy, I am not
speaking of communities alien to each other and in a state of open
hostility. That would obviously not be true of the sexual dichotomy of
the Kalasha or Sarakatsani, and it is also by no means often true of the
dichotomy between pastoral and agrarian elements (Gottwald 1979:
437ff.), nor of that between city and village (Lemche 1985: 164ff.),
even though in this case the relationship of mutual economic benefit
frequently turns into one of exploitation. The right conditions for the
emergence of cosmological dichotomizing as a reflection of social
dichotomy occur when we have two elements that need each other,
cannot live without each other, and hence can never be separated, and
yet despise each other. That is unfortunately only too often the
position between the sexes, and not only in a society like the Kalasha,
and it may also be the position between economic classes or groups.
Impurity is often an expression of tension or conflicting goals within
society (Douglas 1966: 140-41). We may very well imagine, for
example, that if economic configurations like that of Tell Jemmeh or
the Refa'im valley were common, where communities depended both

on pastoralism and on pigs in some measure, and if there were pres-
sures driving the community towards the nomadic life (cf. Coote and
Whitelam 1987: 113), the pigs and their keepers would easily become
a source of tension.
Whatever the source of social tension, attitudes of contempt only
develop into formal taboos when a religious factor intervenes, and this
is what we find when the pig is regularly excluded from the sacred
offerings. Since it must have been city-based priestly elites who decreed
this, it is not a direct reflection of the divide between pastoralists and
pig-keepers, but it might possibly be an indirect result. At the end of
Chapter 3 I suggested that while the Israelite priestly systematizers
could not have imposed an entire body of custom upon a nation de
novo, they could have supported one tradition against another within
it. If we look at the whole body of customary avoidances codified in
the Levitical and related codes, not only that of the pig, we are, I
think, confirmed in our assumption that the pastoral tradition is their
ultimate source. The principle of social distance, typical as Parkes
notes (1987: 655) of agricultural communities, seems to be less signifi-
cant, and the most suggestive analogies appear to be found in pre-
dominantly pastoral societies. At the very least, we may say that
because of objections to non-ruminant game traditional in communi-
ties with a strong pastoral element or background, it was easier for
the priests to enforce a code that distinguished among wild animals in
the same way as among domestic ones.
3. Developments
The evidence we studied in the last chapter suggests that the official
cult throughout the West Semitic world adopted a code of meanings of
this kind. It is striking how widespread is the agreement on the cultic
unacceptability of the pig, and how different are the cults where the
pig or indeed all non-ruminants are prohibited for food: those of the
worshippers of one God at Jerusalem, of many gods at Harran, of the
syncretized goddess at Hierapolis. Indeed, wherever we have explicit
information of the presence of such dietary codes in the ancient Near
East, they are connected with cultic situations: the only exception
appears to be the reports about the Phoenicians. The precise Sitz im
Leben in each case is surely likely to have been the pilgrimage festival.
Both Jerusalem and Hierapolis were important pilgrimage sanctura-

ries; perhaps Harran was once before the restriction of its cult to the
city. The restrictions would have applied for the duration of the feast,
even if not longer.1 The evidence also suggests that those populations
who lived permanently within the influence of such cultic places, for
example at Jerusalem, always observed the restrictions.
Whatever the customary avoidances on which the priestly directors
of these cults built, for them it served as a means of exalting the dig-
nity of their divine patrons, protecting the holiness of their sanctuaries
and controlling their worshippers. The dignity of the gods demanded
that no contemptible victims should be offered to them, and that
pointed to the pig, well-known as an eater of refuse. For the sake of the
holiness of the sanctuaries, purity was demanded of the worshippers;
this included abstinence from all flesh meats other than the sacrificial
victims and a limited range of others that could be recognized, by the
associations we have explored, as similarly acceptable. The confirma-
tion of this range of associations by the supreme deities of these
influential sanctuaries, who were frequently associated with state or
nation, reinforced their protection of the social order by identifying
the sacrificial victims and some like them with human society and con-
demning others as associated with the enemies of humanity.
At some stage, however—the evidence is only late—those sanctuaries
where one or more of the Semitic goddesses were worshipped elabo-
rated this system in a novel direction. In their system, where doves or
fish, or both, are avoided in honour of one of the goddesses, there are
not two opposed groups of animals, but three, for it clearly cannot be
said in this case that doves or fish are unclean; they are in fact holy.
At the same time, so we are told, those who observed these avoidances
also observed others more in line with the Old Testament system, and
presumably regarded their objects as unclean. It is true that Lucian
reports that devotees of the Dea Syria were disagreed on whether the
pig was holy or unclean (see Chapter 4, §3.b.3). Perhaps a more
1. There are many parallels outside the immediate cultural region. In Babylonia
gods had each their distinctive taboos, by which particular animals were not to be
offered to particular gods (Saggs 1988: 306); a stronger parallel is afforded by the
fifth oration of the emperor Julian (173d), in which he discusses the dietary require-
ments for the worshippers of the Magna Mater, introducing them under the heading
•urcep TTJ<; ayiotemq aurfji; icai xfiq ayveia*; ('on her ritual and the purity she
requires')-
complex system is more open to misunderstanding, or perhaps Lucian

(if it is he) is simply being satirical (cf. Oden 1977: 16-17). At least
there can be no doubt that the origin of these respective avoidances is
different. Yet we have not a totally independent tradition, but a
development of the same one in a different direction. In the matter of
the sacrifice of pigeons, Jerusalem preserves the ancient custom
attested at Ugarit, and the worshippers of Ashtart are the innovators;
they select the same bird to be given a different kind of symbolic
significance: to represent the goddess rather than the worshipper, and
therefore to be exempt both from sacrifice and from the table. Here
we may perhaps detect the operation of the mechanism of self-defini-
tion by opposition to which I referred above (Chapter 3, §2.e.3); see
further below, Chapter 6, §2.a.3. The avoidance of fish also seems to
innovate as against ancient custom, though it is possible that particular
species of fish, as in the (also late-reported) custom in parts of Egypt
(Herodotus 2.77, Athanasius Contra Gentes 23), had been sacred since
earlier times. However, the selection of scaly fish as against other
water creatures is only found in the Old Testament, so we cannot say
how old or widespread it is.
This system, in contrast to the one we have been studying, with its
simple dichotomy, suggests a cosmology in which there are three
centres of power; crudely one might call them the powers of order,
represented by the clean animals, fertility, represented by the sacred
animals, and death, represented by the unclean animals. It would not
perhaps be surprising if Lucian's informants disagreed about the status
of the pig, since there is in this system a close analogy between the
holy and unclean animals; they each represent their own set of cosmic
powers and are untouchable in virtue of that fact.
One might speculate that this system developed out of a simple
dichotomy because of the need for a more positive group of symbols
to represent women and their sphere of life, a development much
easier within the cult of the goddesses than where a male high god
such as Yahweh was entirely dominant. There is some evidence that
the worship of the goddesses was particularly widespread among
women (cf. Jer. 7.18; 44.15 (17), Winter 1983: 564, 668).1
The deep chasm that opens up between this and the Jewish priestly
1. Schroer (1987: 41) points further to 1 Kgs 15.13; 2 Kgs 23.6 as suggesting
that 'the cult of Asherah appears to have offered women particular opportunities for
cultic activity'.
system is created beyond anything else by the demand for the worship
of one God alone. The system appears to have developed in the great
urban centres of Syrian paganism, which had always been markedly
polytheistic as against the cults of the tribally based nations of Israel
and Transjordan (Halpern 1987: 84). F. Stolz (1980: 148) suggests
that there is a structural correspondence between the complex social
structure of the city, with its many cooperating and competing centres
of power, and the complex relationships of the gods within the pan-
theon: 'The gods form an articulated plurality, which is represented
primarily as a kinship structure'.1 One might suggest that there is a
similar relationship between the simple patriarchal structure of tribal
society, whether nomadic or village-based, and the dominance of a
single high god among subordinates (so Halpern 1987: 84); and the
correspondence may then be extended to the dietary systems related to
the respective cults; the complexity of the system of dietary taboos
that developed in connection with the polytheistic system on the one
hand, and on the other the simple opposition of clean foods acceptable
to the deity and unclean ones that are not. The correspondence is more
than merely structural or 'good to think'; the practical requirements
of particular social groups lead, if only gradually, to the development
of symbolic systems that serve their needs and enable them to express
their individuality.
The structure of meaning we have elucidated, whether or not modi-
fied in this manner, was ancient, generally accepted (it would seem)
and dominant in most of the official places of cult. But the official cult
was not the only means by which the divine could be approached in
the old Semitic world. There is much evidence (see e.g. Albertz 1978,
Holladay 1987) of types of personal, private devotion carried on in
private houses and other unofficial meeting places, which did not—
this is the important point—necessarily accept the standards and values
of the official cult. Holladay, for example, shows from the archaeolo-
gical record that in Israel the worship at the official sanctuaries was
'essentially aniconic' (p. 280), whereas at unofficial cult sites we find
plentiful examples of female figurines, horse-and-rider models and so
forth. It is probably somewhere within this range of unofficial (but
not necessarily officially condemned)2 cult practices that we should
1. 'Die Gotter bilden eine gegliederte Vielheit, welche sich zunachst als
Verwandtschaftsgefuge darstellt.'
2. To give such an impression would be to generalize the very unusual situation
place the eating of unclean meat as a cultic act which we investigated

in the last chapter (§3.d). The structure of meaning, even if accepted,
might be used in a different way from the official cult. Pigs were
raised and eaten in many places, even in Iron Age Israel. Wherever
they were eaten it is natural to suppose that deities were invoked, since
that was the general custom where animals raised on the farm were
slaughtered. But they cannot have been the official deities of the state
or tribe—in Israel certainly not Yahweh. Rather, since they sym-
bolized a side of life seen as opposed to that blessed from above, they
are likely, as the evidence we have looked at suggests, to have been the
powers of the underworld, or else, perhaps, deities peculiar to the
women's world within which the practice may have found a place, as
among the Kalasha. Originally this will have been a natural and quite
untendentious practice; but when, as in postexilic Judah (if not before),
there was pressure to leave off the eating of 'unclean' beasts, it may
have acquired the character of a ritual deliberately opposed to the
official cult, and deliberately inverting the way in which it used the
symbolism. It would then derive its significance from that of which it
was an inversion, not primarily from its internal oppositions. For the
purposes of this particular cult, clean is unclean and unclean is clean,
just as Sheol is opposite to heaven and death to life.
It is surely understandable that the tensions engendered by a fairly
strict system of purity should require an occasional release, that the
reality of the unclean powers should be acknowledged by for once
submitting to their power rather than for ever keeping them at bay.
Mary Douglas once again has written illuminatingly on this, in the last
chapter of Purity and Danger (1966: 159ff.). A cult of the kind that
appears to have existed may be compared to the Lele mystery cult in
which a pangolin is sacrificed and eaten, the pangolin being the most
anomalous of all animals ('an animal with scales like fish which lives
in a tree'), and the Lele normally avoiding such anomalies.
Throughout their daily and especially their ritual life the Lele are preoccu-
pied with form... Then comes the inner cult of all their ritual life, in which
the initiates of the pangolin, immune to dangers that would kill uninitiated
of postexilic (probably we should say post-Ezra) Judaism. To some extent Holladay

falls into this trap by using the question-begging term 'nonconformist' rather than
'unofficial' or 'private'. The word 'nonconformist' implies a standard to which
people are required to conform, and it is not demonstrable for monarchic Israel and
Judah that the avoidance of images was required in this way.
men, approach, hold, kill and eat the animal which in its own existence
combines all the elements which Lele culture keeps apart... If they
consistently shunned ambiguity they would commit themselves to division
between ideal and reality. But they confront ambiguity in an extreme and
concentrated form (1966: 170).
Similarly the Nyakusa reject everything that they see as filth, and say
that madmen eat filth. 'But in spite of this normal avoidance the cen-
tral act in the ritual of mourning is actively to welcome filth. They
sweep rubbish onto the mourners' (1966: 176-77). Douglas sees this as
an acknowledgement that the ritual avoidance of all forms of danger
in the striving for blessing does not necessarily achieve its goal; death
is an inescapable reality, and at some point its power must be acknowl-
edged. (Turner's concept of rituals of communitas ought to be com-
pared [Turner 1969: 96ff.]; below, Chapter 6, §2.a.3.) The parallel
may be particularly relevant if the ritual eating of unclean meat is an
occasional or regular part of the cult of the dead or the powers that
control them. One of the features of the Levitical system that will claim
our attention is its rigid exclusion of this way of acknowledging evil,
in its concern for the unbroken holiness of all and everything that is
consecrated to the Holy One who alone may be worshipped as God.
But with this we reach the subject of our next chapter, in which we
return to the texts and try to assess their significance against the back-
ground that, to a small extent, we have uncovered.
Chapter 6
PURITY AND MONOTHEISM
1. The Literary Contexts

a. Introduction
We must now return to our texts, to Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy
14, and try to work out their meaning against the social background,
material and cultural, so far as we have been able to determine it, and
in relation to their wider literary contexts. We are in one respect on
safer ground here than we were in the last chapter, where we could
only hazard the vaguest speculations about the significance of dietary
and ritual practices themselves very imperfectly known from our
investigations in Chapter 5. We have the advantage in the Pentateuch
of having in each case a detailed body of material setting out an
understanding of the cosmic, social and ritual world: a 'world of
meaning' to use the expression of Frank Gorman (1990: 15); and in
these it is relatively easy to place the rules about clean and unclean
food. In the broadest sense these contexts may be defined respectively
as the Tetrateuch, or effectively the priestly writings, including the
Holiness Code (for useful descriptions from various points of view, see
Haran 1983, Milgrom 1970, 1983, Gorman 1990, Jenson 1992);1 and
the Deuteronomic literature (see especially Weinfeld 1972); each of
these of course not a unitary work from a single pen but an accumula-
tion of material evolved over a long period from a distinctive tradition
with a characteristic ideology, whatever the variations of expression
in successive strata.
The texts are not related in the same way to these two contexts. In
Deuteronomy 14, vv. 4-20 is alien to its context in style and concep-
tual structure, but the closely related text of Leviticus 11 is entirely at
1. I should particularly like to draw attention to the last two for their extensive
illumination of the subject through anthropological models.
6. Purity and Monotheism 219
home in Leviticus. This might suggest that there is no real need to set
the text in Deuteronomy against the background of the book. How-
ever, this would deprive us of any chance of answering the question
why it is there, unless indeed the answer is simply that a late reviser
of the whole Pentateuch was disturbed at the absence of any definition
of 'abomination' in the matter of food. But even if this is true, there is
sufficient importance in the genuinely Deuteronomic vv. 3 and 21 a to
require us to reflect on their relation to the ideas of Deuteronomy in
general.
There are indeed profound differences, as well as obvious similari-
ties, between the theology and ideology of P and Deuteronomy. They
share a thoroughly monotheistic faith and an ethnocentric application
of expressed, in both sources, in variations of the formula 'Yahweh
the God of Israel—Israel the people of Yahweh'. Both are strongly
nationalistic in feeling; at a period of great external influence in Judah,
first from the Assyrians, then from the Egyptians, and then from
Babylon, they are marked by their resistance to such influence and by
pride in the Israelite national identity, shared by the two kingdoms.
Both envisage a single sanctuary, though in the case of the priestly
work this may not be true of the earliest levels (see Weinfeld 1972:
218, who refers to Kaufmann 1937: I, 124, and Elliger 1966: 317).
But from the point of view of this study the differences are equally
significant. An initial sketch will be followed by a more detailed treat-
ment of each system in turn. The difference may be summed up in the
theme of 'demythologization and secularization', as Weinfeld chooses
to term it (1972: 190), or, in the terms used by Belo (1981: 38ff.), the
'system of pollution' as against the 'system of debt'. However, the latter
opposition does not precisely correspond to the contrast between the
two works, and describes their interests rather than their approaches,
while the term 'secularization', if taken in its usual modern sense,
exaggerates the profundity of the revolution sought by the Deuteron-
omists; it needs to be taken in conjunction with Weinfeld's detailed
description (1972: 191-243), though even here we find some exagger-
ation. Nicholson's term 'desacralization' (1991) is more precise.
It is stating the obvious to say that the central interest of P is in
ritual; more interestingly, everything else of which it treats is seen
from the point of view of ritual or in ritual terms. Thus, to take an
example treated by Weinfeld (1972: 238-39), warfare is a sacral under
taking in P (as in early Israel and in many primitive and less primitive
societies):
the holy vessels were brought into the battle with horns and trumpets
(Num. 10.9; 31.6 [etc.]); and a portion of the war spoils was set aside as
a gift for the LORD to be disposed of by the sanctuary (Num. 31.50-4
[etc.]). According to P the returning warriors were required to purify
themselves (Num. 31.19 and 24) and cleanse their clothing and utensils
(w. 20-3) (1972: 238).
The conception of warfare in Deuteronomy contrasts with this, in
that, as Weinfeld notes, all these sacral features are missing. Deut.
23.10-15 however does provide for the purity of the military camp in
a way that is only explicable in terms of sacral purity; Weinfeld here
overstates a strong case when he says that 'there is no Biblical
reference to the effect that human excrement defiles'. As we have seen
(Chapter 1, §2), Ezek. 4.12-15 refutes him. Generally, however, it is
perfectly fair to say that Deuteronomy sees war, although commanded
by Yahweh (7.1-5, 17-26; 20.16-18) or seconded by him (20.1, 4, 13-
15), and in that sense 'religious', as in itself an activity not constrained
by ritual, but only by ethical considerations, for this surely is how the
rules in 20.5-15, 19-20 should be seen (cf. Houston 1985: 16ff.). And
the same could be said of a wide range of other activities, including
the administration of justice (Weinfeld 1972: 233ff.) and the concep-
tion of sin and punishment (239ff.).
It is correct to note against Weinfeld that a good part of the differ-
ences he notes is traceable to the different purposes of the two codes:
Deuteronomy is law in the ordinary sense (German Recht or Heb.
miSpaf), while P is concerned above all to govern the cult and what
bears upon it; they are concerned in Belo's terms with the systems of
debt and pollution respectively, and Deuteronomy is not necessarily
opposed to the implementation of the latter—see, for example, 24.8;
'leprosy', a purely ritual matter, is simply not its concern, but rather
the concern of the Levitical priests. But it is also, and vitally, true that
when Deuteronomy deals with the cult itself, it radically desacralizes
many of its most basic features. The sanctuary itself is no longer, as in
the Psalms as well as P, the dwelling of God himself but 'the place that
he shall choose to put his name there'; tithes are not 'holy to the LORD'
(Lev. 27.30-33), but remain the property of the original owners, who
consume them themselves with those whom they invite (Deut. 14.22-
27); the contrast of Deut. 15.19 and Lev. 27.26 shows that 'in the
deuteronomic view, sanctity is not a taboo that inheres in things which

by nature belong to the divine realm but is rather a consequence of the
religious intentions of the person who consecrates it' (Weinfeld 1972:
215).
b. The Priestly Writings

The world-view of the priestly writings not only revolves around the
ritual of the sanctuary, but is dominated by a conception of order that
extends through the cosmos, the sanctuary and human society. It is
expressed in two main forms. The first is that of binary opposition, as
we see it in Leviticus 11, or in the account of creation in Genesis 1,
which is initiated by a series of separations: light and darkness, water
below and water above the firmament, land and sea. The second form
of order is that of concentric grades of holiness (cf. Jenson 1992). In
so far as this relates to the sanctuary in the priestly picture of Israel's
wandering with the tabernacle in the wilderness, it is carefully
described by Haran (1985: 175ff.): within the tabernacle there is a
gradation of holiness from the Holy of Holies, or Most Holy Place,
where God himself appears above the Ark, through the Holy Place, or
outer chamber of the tabernacle (and the altar) to the court, and so to
the camp in general. The outer boundary of the camp is as far as the
field of holiness extends, and it is appropriate that the leper and the
scapegoat should be sent out of it. For each spatial grade there is the
corresponding group of personnel: high priest, priests, Levites,
Israelites; and there are also other homologies. From another point of
view, characteristic of the Holiness Code but not exclusive to it, the
Land of Israel may be seen as holy; see Num. 35.33-34; Lev. 18.24ff.
These passages warn against the defilement of the land by bloodshed
or sexual misconduct. Presumably the holiness in danger of such
defilement extends only to the borders of the land, but it is not clear
how it relates to the greater sanctity of the sanctuary within it.
All the concerns of the priestly work are embraced in the pro-
grammatic statement of Lev. 10.10 (cf. Ezek. 22.26) that the priests'
duty is 'to distinguish between the holy and the common, and between
the unclean and the clean'. For these are undoubtedly ritual terms, the
first pair in origin, the second as P uses them. The term 'holy' (qados)
and its cognates are in constant use to express the monotheistic and
ethnocentric emphases of the priestly world-view in the Holiness Code
and elsewhere, including the conclusion of our chapter; and the terms
'holy' and 'unclean' encapsulate and bring together the concern for
order in its different forms, since the binary opposition of holy and
common defines the boundary between each concentric grade and the
one within it, and the binary opposition of unclean and clean defines
what threatens the order of each grade from within or without. While
the term 'unclean' seems to have a reference that can be defined abso-
lutely, in that certain objects and processes are unclean in all circum-
stances, the term 'holy' is always relative. How seriously uncleanness
is viewed depends on the grade of holiness that is in view, so that
some things may be acceptable for a layman that are not for a priest.
For an example compare Lev. 22.8 with 17.15-16: the layman is per-
mitted to eat carrion provided that he purifies himself afterwards, but
the priest, who belongs to a higher grade of holiness, is absolutely
forbidden to do so.
While it may be true, as Weinfeld suggests, that holiness is viewed
in P as an inherent character of certain things and places, or of things
in specified relationships, we should note that in the Holiness Code, in
relation to priests and people, it is not inherent. It is a status given by
God to his priests in his good pleasure, as in the repeated phrase 'I am
the LORD who sanctifies (you, [etc.])' (21.8,15,23; 22.9, 15, 32). Once
(20.8) this is said of the people; but more frequently in this connection
holiness is to be striven for and preserved by human effort to be sepa-
rated from impurity and sin—an imitatio del: 'You shall be holy as I
am holy' (or variations: 19.2; 20.7; 20.26). In these passages holiness is
no longer a technical ritual category; it concerns the relationship of
the people of Israel to Yahweh, and has a strongly ethical character. By
remaining faithful to their God and keeping themselves free of
offences against the good order, purity and justice of society, Israel
may achieve that character of holiness that inherently is God's alone.
Constantly, then, the priestly work concerns itself with structure,
with internal boundaries, and not only those relative to the sanctuary,
for it is the Holiness Code, not Deuteronomy, that gives the incest
rules (Lev. 18), and P that gives the rules of inheritance (Num. 27.1-
11; 36), which Deuteronomy refers to only in passing (21.15-17).
Many of these are doubtless ancient; some can be shown to be so by
evidence elsewhere (see Weinfeld 1972: 233ff.); others may be the
fruit of the authors' Utopian imagination, or of practical accommoda-
tion to modem developments, as in the permission for women without
brothers to inherit, which argues some assimilation of the advance of
women's rights seen in Deuteronomy (see below).

There is always some relationship between culture, 'an ordered
system of meaning and symbols, in terms of which social interaction
takes place' (Geertz 1975: 144), and the social system itself, but, as
Geertz reminds us, the precise relationship varies widely in different
situations, is subject to strain and incongruity especially in situations
of social change and social conflict (pp. 144-45), and, in the case of
ancient literature, often cannot be determined for lack of evidence. But
while we cannot uncover the precise relationship of the priestly authors'
ideas to the social system, and without question it will have differed in
different periods and for different subjects, we can still say a good
deal about their social setting. It is generally agreed that it lies among
the priesthood of the Jerusalem temple; that priests were the authors is
obvious enough from the interests of the material, and no candidates
from other sanctuaries are in view for the final composition of mate-
rial that certainly in its present form postdates the exile, because of
the abandonment of all other official sanctuaries. Even if similar
works were in process of formation at other sanctuaries, and even if
the impression given by 2 Kings 23 of their destruction by Josiah is
misleading, they would not have survived the exile, which was
followed by the re-establishment of Jerusalem alone as the centre of
the restored community. (It is of course possible that material origi-
nating from other sanctuaries had been included in the Jerusalem
work before the exile [Porter 1990: 392b].)
The priestly work represents the official religion of Judah, whether
the state religion under the monarchy or the continuation of that reli-
gion after the exile. I have already (Chapter 5, §3) referred to
J.S. Holladay's (1987) distinction between 'establishment' and (what
he calls) 'noncoTnformist' sanctuaries and shrines in Israel and Judah.
He shows (pp. 270ff.) that such a distinction can be drawn on the
basis of the archaeological record; the sanctuaries at Arad and Dan,
for example, are clearly marked out as of an official character by their
size, mode of access and so forth, as against such sites as Jerusalem
Cave 1, and furthermore, as we have seen, 'establishment' worship, so
far as present discoveries show, is 'essentially aniconic' (p. 280),
against the frequent appearance of female figurines, horse-and-rider
models and the like, in 'nonconformist' sites and domestic assem-
blages. This provides a useful pattern; the aniconic character of the
'establishment' worship, though it raises certain problems in relation
to the biblical record (pp. 295ff.), certainly corresponds well with the
monotheism of the priestly work, given the close relationship between
the 'first' and 'second' commandments of the Decalogue.
We need to be careful in making this distinction. As I have indicated,
I do not accept the word 'nonconformist', which implies a social
schism that cannot be deduced from the finds—and only doubtfully
from the Bible—for the monarchic period. Those who specifically con-
demned unofficial worship need not initially have been more than a
party (so M. Smith 1987 and Lang 1983). Moreover, there is a great
deal in the biblical record to show that official worship in the monar-
chic period was not monolatrous (see now M.S. Smith 1990, who details
the evidence thoroughly). It might however be definable as mono-
theistic in the sense defended by Halpem (1987: 78ff.), appealing to the
authority of Kaufmann, which does not exclude the offering of cult to
lesser divinities who are not seen as being God in the same sense. (It is
interesting that this is precisely what Evans-Pritchard [1956] does with
Nuer religion.) Though this is certainly not the monotheism of P (or of
Deuteronomy), which strikingly excludes all supernatural powers
other than Yahweh, it could have been the formative background
from which biblical monotheism developed intellectually.
There can in any case be no question that the cult promoted by the
priestly writers of the Pentateuch was, or was derived from, the
'establishment', state-sponsored cult of the monarchy, and further that
they were in fact among those who rejected all unofficial cults as
illegitimate (cf. e.g. Lev. 17.7). It will be important to trace the
respective effects of the official and monotheistic aspects of the
priestly socio-religious position on the text and practice that we are
examining. But there will be no surprise that men in such a social
position, officials and leaders in the most conservative of all social
institutions, at a time when the traditional social structure was coming
under tremendous pressure, or, still more, at a time when it had to be
constructed anew out of the ruins of occupation and deportation,
should seek to mark out an area within society where role and action
could still be governed by position and by traditional expectation, so
that old symbols could still retain their meaning, and pollution could
be understood as something objective. (Cf. Eilberg-Schwartz 1990:
195ff., who links the understanding of purity and impurity as objective
and unconnected with human intention especially with the ascriptive
understanding of status in a hereditary caste). Others at the same
historical turning point, their own roles governed far more by per-
sonal achievement and moral choice, saw salvation in attempting a
very different kind of social patterning.
c. Deuteronomy
The concept that Israel is a people holy to Yahweh, his exclusive pos-
session (segulld), is one of the dominant themes of Deuteronomy. Less
easily noticed is that Israel is virtually the only thing in Deuteronomy
that is pronounced holy.1 The word is not even used of God himself,
which is a marked contrast with the Holiness Code and with Lev.
11.44-45, where the holiness required of Israel is defined by the holi-
ness of Yahweh. A further contrast, given much weight by Weinfeld
(1972: 225-26), is that the holiness of Israel is not a requirement, as in
the Holiness Code, but a decision of God that cannot be affected by
human action; it cannot be threatened but it must be respected. The
passage on the purity of the camp, already referred to (23.10-15), is
perhaps the only one that throws doubt on Weinfeld's analysis; it
would appear that the holiness of the camp, if not of the people them-
selves, is threatened by impurity. Otherwise it is true that where the
holiness of the people comes into the argument, as it does in our
chapter, the argument is not—as in the Holiness Code (and Lev. 11.44-
45), 'You shall be holy as I am holy; so (to achieve this) be removed
from impurity'—but 'You are holy to Yahweh; so (to respect this)
avoid abomination'. It clouds discussion to treat holiness in these pass-
ages as if it were the same concept as in the Holiness Code or in P; in
P holiness is related to the cult, marks degrees, distinguishes some
among the people from others, creates structure; in the Holiness Code
it is a character that can be achieved by the people by human effort to
avoid sin; in Deuteronomy it defines a permanent characteristic of the
entire nation as against the rest of humankind and has nothing to do
with the cult, even though the word is used in a technical cultic sense
1 The root «hp is used at 5.12; 7.6; 12.26; 14.2, 21; 15.19; 22.9; 23.15; 26.13,
15, 19; 28.9; 32.51; 33.2. Quoted texts (5.12; 32.51; 33.2) can obviously be left out
of consideration; 26.15 may reasonably be counted in the same category, since it is a
poetic expression (Driver 1902: 292). At 12.26, 15.19, 22.9 and 26.13 the technical
vocabulary of the sanctuary is used of that which is dedicate to it. 23.15 requires the
Israelite camp to be 'holy' (afnp) because of the presence of Yahweh, and seems to
be the only place where the concept is deliberately applied to something other than the
people themselves, as is the case in all the remaining examples.
elsewhere in Deuteronomy. It is in fact a term borrowed from the cult

to define something quite different, and different also from the Holiness
Code's conception: that Israel, all Israel and Israel alone, belongs to
Yahweh as his personal property and is his personal representative on
earth; this is clear in 28.9-10.
This boundary, between Israel and all other nations, is the one bound-
ary that Deuteronomy is concerned to celebrate. No other deserves
ritual protection; there are no privileged castes in Deuteronomy's
Israel, no powers sacrally derived. Israel as envisaged by Deuteronomy
is not a structured society where relationships are governed by degree,
family relationship and traditional legitimacy, but 'a single nation of
brothers' (Perlitt 1980).1 The relationship between one Israelite and
another is that of brotherhood; even where it is a question of a king,
the king is 'not to be exalted above his brethren' (17.20). There are, it
is true, authorities in the commonwealth, but they are simply people
with a particular function, not possessing sacrally derived powers.
Perlitt (1980: 50-51) observes that the idea of brotherhood in
Deuteronomy is not derived from the 'nomadic' idea (actually not
only nomadic, but general in segmentary societies) of the literal blood-
relationship of the whole tribe to each other by way of the genealo-
gical relationship of families, but is rather an ethical concept, which is
first clearly delineated in ch. 15, not in the collective exhortations to
faithfulness in chs. 6-11. 'The Deuteronomic nucleus of the book
acknowledges no subdivision of Israel into families and tribes'
(p. 51). This is doubtless an exaggeration, but an illuminating one, like
Weinfeld's. It is quite true that in Deuteronomy 15 (contrast Lev.
25.25), no special responsibility to the family is recognized, only to
'your brother' (vv. 2, 7, 12), defined by v. 3 as a fellow-Israelite, this
expresson itself in v. 12 defining 'Hebrew' (cf. Exod. 21.2). Further,
in ch. 19, the role of the next-of-kin (never defined as such) as 'the
avenger of blood' is not so much laid out as limited: the institution of
asylum (not a sacral institution as in Num. 35 or Exod. 21.13-14) is
intended to thwart his vengeful fury. Finally 13.6-11 makes it entirely
clear that family loyalty ranks nowhere in relation to loyalty to the
God of Israel. Although the ger or resident alien is not a 'brother', the
duty owed to him is ethically identical; see 24.14. And in spite of the
use of the masculine term 'brother' the brotherly duty is owed to
1. 'Ein einzig Volk von Briidem'.

women as well as to men (cf. Weinfeld: 1972: 291-92); some older

laws have been specifically altered in this sense (cf. 15.12-13 with
Exod. 21.2-11).1 There is, moreover, a strong case for maintaining
that the addressees of Deuteronomy are all free adult Israelites,
women as well as men; this is argued by G.A. Smith (1918; supported
by Weinfeld 1972:291-92) on the grounds that 'your wife' is not men-
tioned in the lists of persons participating in the pilgrimage festivals,
though 'your daughter' and 'your maidservant' are. Obviously the
wife was not expected to stay at home while everyone else went off to
the Temple, but must be included in the address. The presence of
women at the festivals is itself a departure from the older custom
(Exod. 23.17), though the older law is quoted at 16.16.
Israel then in Deuteronomy may be seen as a single people under a
single God, bound by no traditional or sacred ties, but an assembly of
individuals bound together solely by the choice of their God and recog-
nizing no special individual duties (except to the members of their
immediate household) but the universal moral obligations of love,
justice and generosity owed to all their brothers. Within this unitary
world the cult does not, as in P, form a privileged enclave with a
complex structure, nor is there, except marginally, a special class of
ritual activities that are not related to the fundamental themes of
Deuteronomy's theology: the one God and the one nation of brothers.
The law of the one place for pilgrimage and sacrifice appropriately
underlines the unity of the one nation under its one God. The removal
of the other sanctuaries where Israel had been accustomed to sacrifice
and to celebrate festivals removes sacral validation from local and
familial groups, as well as a potential point of entry for the worship
of other gods. Blessing is secured not through the presence of the
deity in his temple, but through faithfulness to his commandments,
that is, through loyal love of Yahweh and the practice of righteousness
towards the brothers. The very purpose of ritual action is redefined as
'rejoicing before Yahweh' (12.7, etc.) with charity towards those in
need of material help (16.11, 14). Throughout the book we find the
approach of rationalizing intellectuals to whom the ancient ritual
symbols have ceased to appeal in the original way, but who wish to
1. In Deut. 15.12, Exod. 21.2 is simultaneously supplemented, by identifying

the 'Hebrew' as 'your brother', and extended to females, producing the awkward
phrase mayn IN '-o^n -prw which, whatever its grammatical deficiencies, makes it
as clear as could be that 'your brother' is not necessarily male!
preserve them because they are useful in the rational enterprise of

strengthening national unity and enhancing the dedication of the nation
to its sole God.
Ernest Nicholson, in a recent essay (1991), has fruitfully drawn on
Mary Douglas's ideas in Natural Symbols (1973a) to illuminate the
ideology of Deuteronomy. It may be seen as a case of that type of
response to social change that finds old rituals and symbols inadequate
because they no longer correspond to social reality. It does not indeed
seek to destroy institutions but to give them a new rationale based on
loyalty to the one God of Israel and on love to the fellow-Israelite, the
brother, and the ger who is equally deserving of compassion. This
may be described as a moralizing of rituals and other institutions. As a
response to social disruption, it is the antithesis of the priestly attempt
to retain the ritual with its original ritual significance. The Holiness
Code may be seen as taking a middle line. It is clearly, in parts at
least, influenced by Deuteronomy (Perlitt [1980: 46-50] shows how
Lev. 19.11-18 assumes the Deuteronomic reinterpretation of 'brother'),
above all in its placing of the symbolic weight on the external bound-
ary, but at the same time it retains much of the sacral symbolism of
the priestly tradition.
Much fruitless discussion has raged round the question of the circles
in which Deuteronomy was composed (von Rad 1953; Nicholson
1967; Weinfeld 1972). It ought to be clear from what has been said
that the question is in principle unanswerable, since the authors, with
whatever institution they may have been connected, took up the classic
position of the reformer, a position of sympathetic but critical detach-
ment from all institutions, which were all in need of reform. It seems
likely that their own position would owe little to traditional structures,
but beyond that we can say little. They cannot be described as revolu-
tionaries; they supported the official cult and other institutions in their
outward form, but wished to renew them by giving them new meaning.
d. Sacral and Secular Eating of Flesh

The general characterization I have given to the two large bodies of
material in which the law we are concerned with is found is well
illustrated as we move closer to our specific subject. I have already
(Chapter 4, §3.c; Chapter 5, §l.a) defended the widely accepted view
that in early Israel the custom was not to slaughter domestic cattle
without a ritual dedication, that is, without at least offering the blood
to a deity. Every meal where the family's own beast was eaten was
thereby a a ritual occasion, on which consecrated flesh was eaten and
blessing was received from the deity. I have also pointed out that it
would generally only be on ritual occasions that animals were slaugh-
tered; some religious justification by way of public feast or personal
crisis was required to slaughter and eat one of the flock or herd.
This confronted the monotheistic reformers, priestly or secular,
with a problem, which is simply expressed in Lev. 17.7: the promis-
cuous slaughtering of beasts over the countryside meant that all kinds
of unofficial deities could be being honoured in this way, as seemed fit
to the individual head of household. Both groups tried to deal with this
problem, each in its own way—Leviticus 17 and Deuteronomy 12.
There has been disagreement over which of these texts has the priority.
Classical Wellhausenian criticism has seen the Deuteronomic move to
secularize slaughter as prior, and the Holiness Code as responding to a
misuse of the privilege given by Deuteronomy by restricting slaughter
to the temple in Jerusalem (Wellhausen 1885: 50). The Jerusalem
school (Kaufmann 1961: 180-81) has replied that once slaughter had
been secularized its re-sacralization would be impossible, suggesting
that in its original form and setting Lev. 17.3-4 referred to a plurality
of sanctuaries, and hence predates the Deuteronomic reform. But it
ought at least to be considered whether it does not make most sense to
see the two texts as essentially contemporary responses to the same
situation.
Thus, the priestly approach was to retain, and indeed enhance, the
sacral character of the slaughter of flesh, but to restrict its occasions
to the worship of Yahweh and its place to Yahweh's sanctuary, whereas
the Deuteronomic solution was to restrict all sacrificial worship to a
single site and permit the secular slaughter of domestic animals else-
where. On the face of it, the permission for secular slaughter given in
Deut. 12.15-16 and 20-25 is simply a consequential adjustment
required by the removal of the country sanctuaries; but in the light of
our foregoing discussion the whole chapter has to be seen as a
profound challenge to popular custom and feeling, not least on this
particular point. The suggestion that no special occasion is required
for the eating of meat, but that appetite alone may govern it (esp. v.
20); the specific statement that ritual conditions need not be observed
and the assimilation of the meal to the eating of game (vv. 15, 22);
and the prohibition of any ritual focused on the blood—'like water',

vv. 16, 24; and Chapter 5, §l.a—all these would radically impoverish
the symbolic density of the common people's life, and indeed there is
no probability that so radical a sweeping away of custom could have
been achieved before the trauma of the exile—which is not to say that
it was not proposed before the exile. It is certainly all of a piece with
the general approach of Deuteronomy that we have been discussing.
These local popular ceremonies were a threat to the radical insistence
of the reformers on the sole legitimacy of one God and one people.
They celebrated different and divergent boundaries and values: the
village and the clan, the local hero, the local holy place, and indeed
holy places and people in general; if these were useful for particular
aims from time to time, they could not be sacrally celebrated. Ritual
sanctification must be reserved for the commitment of the whole
people to their one God.
2. The Texts
I now proceed to examine our texts in the light of their social and lit-
erary context. In effect, my treatment concentrates on each of the four
main parts of Leviticus 11 separately: the main text in vv. 2b-23; the
section on ritual uncleanness in vv. 24-40; the sermonic conclusion in
vv. 41-45; and the editorial framework in vv. l-2a, 46-47.1 deal with
the Deuteronomy text immediately after Lev. 11.2b-23, to which it is
parallel. However, it is not so much the literary units that I am inter-
ested in here as the themes that they encapsulate or point to, and these
are not necessarily strictly confined to the units I have indicated.
Respectively they are: the prohibition of the eating of particular
animals; unclean animals when dead as ritually polluting; abstinence
from unclean flesh as a mark of the holy people of Yahweh; and the
cosmic and ethical themes raised by the inclusion of the chapter in the
Pentateuch as a whole.
We have detected a process of redactional construction in Leviticus
11, and I shall make use of this in describing its literary and social
relationships. But each of the elements in the chapter arises out of and
finds its place in the same broadly consistent world-view and ritual
system, and the chapter as a whole contains no striking inconsistencies;
indeed I believe I have shown that the general effect of successive
supplements has been to reduce ambiguity and enhance consistency. It
is therefore possible to describe the intention of the chapter as a

whole, as well as in its successive elements. I shall argue that each of
the themes, except the first, may be associated with a broader literary
context within the priestly corpus and that each of the four may be
associated with a particular setting in life or history, which illuminates
the purpose of the authors in taking over, developing and transmitting
the widespread understanding of the cleanness or uncleanness of par-
ticular kinds of creatures that is found here. It is the third element that
binds the whole composition into a unity, and it will be most appro-
priate to consider the chapter as a whole in connection with it.
a. The Prohibition of Unclean Fesh

1. General. We note first the learned character of our text. It does not
represent primitive thought, but learned reflection by men with at
least basic zoological knowledge. At least four characteristics of the
text may be seen as reflecting their traditional learning and scholarly
interests. The first is its use of 'Aristotelian' classification. The text as
a whole relies on a fourfold division (Chapter 2, §l.c.2) of the entire
field of living creatures that is found elsewhere in the priestly writings
of the Pentateuch, and also in Egypt. Further, the clean animals are
defined by the use of precise morphological criteria applied on three
occasions to animals within previously defined groups, creating defini-
tions per genus et differentiam. The second is the comprehensive cover-
age of the definitions. In the text's final form no animal of any kind is
overlooked or left in doubt; all are explicitly or implicitly defined as
clean or unclean. Undoubtedly this was the intention, though, as we
have seen (Chapter 2, §3), it took some time to become fully expressed.
But since only a minute proportion of all animal species were ever
normally used for food (Chapter 4, §2), the practical significance of
this drive to comprehensiveness was small. It reflects simply the
resolve of an intellectual circle of authors to extend the logic of their
classifications as far as it would go. Thirdly, we have noted (Chapter
2, §l.c.5) that the number of species in each of the lists in the chapter
is divisible by four. This interest in what I have called numerical
symmetry is again the mark of an intellectual circle.
And fourthly, the chapter can be seen as presenting in Hebrew dress
a body of internationally shared knowledge. I must emphasize this as a
corrective to those views, true so far as they go, which present the
text as a unique expression of Yahwistic monotheism, 'an all-encom-
passing classification scheme of singular significance that is without

parallel in the ancient Near East' (Firmage 1990: 185). In fact, as we
have seen (Chapter 4, §3.b.3), there are parallels within our knowl-
edge. True, the comprehensive character of the text is not paralleled,
but one must point out that Judaism is the only system of thought that
has survived with its scriptures from the Near East of the first mil-
lennium BC—that we know of any parallels at all is a matter of sheer
luck. So, positively, we must say that the identification of clean beasts
is identical to that accepted at all major sanctuaries in the Syro-
Palestinian area for at least a thousand years before the present law
came into existence, and that the classification of unclean birds is
paralleled at least at Harran; and we have just noted the corres-
pondence of the classification system to one used by Egyptian scribes.
From the evidence we have seen at Harran, in Lucian and in
Porphyry, the text is likely to be a surviving example of the kind of
teaching given by the priests at many ancient sanctuaries in the Syro-
Canaanite area in order to ensure the purity of their holy places and
congregations at the time of festival. In its present context its purpose
obviously goes beyond that, yet I do not think it unreasonable to sup-
pose that such was the original Sitz im Leben of some form of this
teaching. We noted in Chapter 2, §l.c.3, that the best explanation of
v. 8a{3, forbidding Israelites to touch the dead bodies of unclean
animals, is that it applied for the period of the festival at which they
had to show themselves in the holy courts (and of course permanently
to the priests and Levites who served there). It would seem probable,
in consequence, that the original Sitz im Leben of all the dietary
restrictions also is priestly instruction given to those who came to
Yahweh's pilgrimage festivals, to inform them of his requirements of
his worshippers. This would be likely to be true even if vv. 4-8 are, as
I suggested, a supplement to the original text, for in view of the gene-
ral development of the rules it seems unlikely that a supplement would
apply to a more restricted situation than the original text. In the
development of the text the consciously national character of Yahweh's
worship comes to the fore, and the rules are applied to Israel in their
daily life. But I shall go into this below.
2. The Development of the Rules. The relation of the rules defined in

this chapter to the surrounding culture is most easily seen in connec-
tion with the beasts. They can be related in a general way to dietary
custom, and more precisely to cultic practice. The beasts permitted

correspond to those normally eaten in Israel, with the exception of
some limited use of the pig, which seems likely in any case not to have
been customary in early Israel for both cultural reasons (their pastoral
background) and environmental ones (they lived in the highlands with
their problematic water supplies); see Chapter 4, §§2.b.2, 4.b. It
would be tempting to argue from this that the text here expresses the
characteristic ethnocentricity of the priestly work, and simply throws
the weight of a religious law behind the early practice of the people.
But it is also true that the clean beasts correspond morphologically to
those accepted for sacrifice according to Leviticus 1-7; so that Firmage
would have some support for his view (see Chapter 3, §2.e) that the
criteria are intended to define as clean for eating the same or similar
kinds of beasts as are acceptable for sacrifice.
The full range of the evidence examined above suggests that, while
both these views have a measure of truth, they are too simple. Our
researches have shown that the text here formulates a widespread
understanding of the ritual status of the domestic and larger wild
beasts found well beyond the borders of Israel and established long
before the nation came into existence. So far as domestic animals are
concerned, all the beasts prescribed as victims for the regular public
cult of the Semitic peoples are here permitted as food, all those that
are not normally found as such are forbidden, regardless of their use
as food elsewhere or indeed in Israel itself. This cannot conceivably
be a coincidence. All wild beasts permitted for food are closely related
to the animals that belong to the ritual repertory, and one of them, the
fallow deer, is found as a sacrificial victim, both within Israel
(Chapter 4, §3.b.l) and outside (Chapter 4, §3.b.2). Thus we have not
(against Firmage) in the rules as such a distinctive expression of
monotheistic Yahwism.
The criteria for cleanness in beasts are doubtless designed, as
Firmage suggests (1990: 187), to be applied by lay people, and to that
end are formulated as simply as possible, in a way that would enable
them to be applied by simple inspection. They are derived, as I sug-
gested above (Chapter 3, §2.e.2), and as I think the evidence of prior
custom suggests, by comparison between the characteristics of the
known sacrificial beasts, cattle, sheep and goats (and fallow deer?),
and the known non-sacrificial beasts, particularly, it would be natural
to expect, the domestic ones: dog, ass and pig. Each of the three
criteria eliminates one of these in turn, first the dog, then the ass,
finally the pig; of course the dog and the ass are also excluded by the
succeeding criteria. The camel is a little more problematic; the fact
that it is not in reality excluded, as the text asserts, by the criterion of
hooves (or either of the others; see Chapter 2, §l.c.3), may indicate
that the criteria were formulated before the camel became an often
used animal in Israel. For as we see from the Talmud, it is possible to
formulate criteria that genuinely exclude it. The fact that in the
supplement, vv. 4-8, care is taken to exclude the camel explicitly per-
haps suggests a relatively late date for the supplement, and certainly
shows that the conviction that the camel was cultically unacceptable is
prior to the formulation or application of the criteria. This would of
course be a necessary consequence of the conservatism of the cult,
since the camel was a relative newcomer to the scene in settled Israel
and Judah, and for some time must have continued to be associated
mainly with foreigners.
Milgrom's question (1990: 184), 'Which came first, the taboos or
the criteria?', is now on the way to being answered. At least for the
beasts the answer is that some 'taboos', or rather a general pattern of
cultic and dietary custom, came first. The associations of the dog and
the pig (Chapter 5, §l.b), and in a different way those of the donkey
(and the camel), made them unacceptable for sacrifice, or for food and
sacrifice, while the associations of cattle, sheep and goats made them
unacceptable for food without prior sacrifice, and the only wild beasts
commonly eaten were the fallow deer and the gazelle. The criteria
developed to protect the worshippers from impure food were cast in
such a way as to include cattle, sheep and goats, fallow deer and
gazelle, and to exclude dogs, donkeys and pigs. The effect of this was
to exclude a vast range of other beasts, so that there is also a sense in
which we can say that the criteria came first. Because of the desire for
comprehensiveness, the harmless hare and hyrax fell under the ban;
but we have to repeat that there is virtually no evidence that they, or
any other 'unclean' animal was ever normally eaten in any case. If
they had been, the criteria would have had to be formulated differ-
ently, as the case of the locusts clearly shows.
It is possible on the basis of the desire for comprehensiveness in the
authors, and by analogy with what has happened with the beasts, to
offer an explanation for the criterion for water creatures, which has
otherwise eluded our investigation. We have to assume (cf. Chapter 2,
§l.c.4) that the otherwise learned authors knew little about marine
zoology. What they did know was that most of the fish normally eaten
by Jews came from creatures that had scales and fins, and also perhaps
that many others would be likely to be unacceptable because of their
feeding habits (cf. Levine 1989: 246; Chapter 5, §l.c). Hence, simply
in order not to say nothing about a great section of the animal king-
dom, the criterion of scales and fins was laid down. In this instance it
may actually be the case that a number of relatively common food
species were excluded, for example catfish (Hiibner 1989: 228; Chapter
4, §2.b.6), probably in ignorance. But the effect would at first have
been very limited, especially if we can assume a pre-exilic origin for
the rules. Few Jews in that period, certainly in Jerusalem, ever saw
fish in a form that would enable the criteria to be applied (Chapter 2,
§l.c.4). However, the growth of the Jewish communities in Mesopota-
mia and Egypt must have changed that. I discuss shortly below the
question whether opposition to the pagan taboo on fish is to be traced
here.
We have throughout found it difficult to discuss the section on birds
because of the lack of criteria. We need to confront this problem
directly. Why are there no criteria? Our attribution of the text to a
learned priestly circle makes the question more difficult to answer. I
have already expressed the opinion (Chapter 2, §l.c.5) that if there
were any rationality in the prohibitions, the authors would have
expressed it; we cannot assume with Firmage (1990: 191) that merely
because a criterion might have been difficult to apply they would have
suppressed it. The difficulty must have been with them and not with
their presumed readers.
It would be reasonable to assume that limits derived from cultic
practice in some way lie behind this section, as that of the beasts. But
if the rules on beasts could be linked with cultic practice throughout
the cultural area, so may these. The difficulties are that practice seems
to have varied more, and that we know less about it. At Ugarit
(Chapter 4, §3.b.2) doves were sacrificed, and occasionally geese, but
also other unspecified birds; at Harran 'all birds without talons' were
accepted, according to al-Nadim (Chapter 4, §3.b.3), and Gen. 8.20
appears to assume the same kind of range; and we do not know pre-
cisely what birds were covered by the Marseilles tariff. The evidence
indicates that it would be unwise to assume with Firmage (1990: 190-
91) that we should begin from the paradigm of the dove. It would be
more fruitful to begin from the other end, with the unclean birds that
are actually mentioned. The parallels from Harran and Egypt suggest
that an international cultic tradition lies behind some of these
identifications of birds as unclean. This is likely to be true at least of
the original eight (see Chapter 2, §l.c.5). No doubt they would be
taken as representative of all birds with associations with bloodshed
and the eating of blood and waste matter (cf. Chapter 5, §l.c), which
made them unacceptable within the sacred sphere, and thus dangerous
to the purity of the congregation; the number is not the total possible,
as the later addition of others makes clear. The expanded list is
considerably more heterogeneous in character, and we have detected
literary motives in its composition (Chapter 5, §l.c), though doubtless
it can be taken for granted that the birds mentioned were in fact avoided
by people at the time. Once again, there is a markedly theoretical
character to the list—it must be comprehensive, and therefore includes
creatures that nobody who was not starving can have had any mind to
eat, such as hoopoes and bats! I will discuss shortly the possibility of
an opposition to the pigeon taboo.
We have to attribute once again to the impulse for comprehensive-
ness the inclusion of a prohibition of flying insects. In this case the
impulse overreached itself, and the original form of the prohibition as
found in Deut. 14.19 excluded a very popular supplement to the
country diet. The concession of locusts was inevitable, and clearly
illustrates the limits to priestly systematizing. As I have already empha-
sized, the text is not concerned to impose a system on the populace in
defiance of current custom, but rather to integrate custom into its
system. However, the concession gives an opportunity for another
attempt, not this time very successful, at developing a morphological
criterion to identify the permitted creatures. The lack of success is
indicated by the necessity to supplement it with a list, though once
again the influence of the learned numerical obsession means that we
cannot be sure it is complete.
I discuss the prohibition of all 'swarming things of the ground'
below in connection with the Holiness redaction of the chapter, with
which it is closely associated. As I shall show there, the prohibition is
more than simply the completion of the system, but is tied up with the
preaching of the avoidances as a way of holiness for the people of God
in daily life. At this point, all that needs to be said is that so far as we
can tell the prohibition conforms with common custom—so common
and actually unquestionable that the earliest version of the rules saw
no necessity to mention it. The reference in Isa. 66.17 is to something
totally out of the ordinary (see Chapter 4, §3.d.2, and below, §2.d).
3. Interpretation. I noted above (§l.b) that the priestly concern for

order is expressed in two main forms: binary opposition and concen-
tric grades. The text we are dealing with overtly expresses its concern
for order in the form of a binary opposition: animals are either clean
or unclean, either to be eaten or to be abominated. But more than one
student has observed that this superficial binary structure reveals an
underlying concentrism as soon as we reckon in the rules defining
which animals are acceptable for sacrifice (cf. Douglas 1975b: 263ff.;
Chapter 3, §2.d.2; Milgrom 1990: 179ff.; 1991: 721ff.). Not all
animals are fit for the table; not all that are fit for the table are accept-
able for the altar. The concentrism of animals is echoed by other con-
centrisms in the priestly system.1 As Israel is required to make a strict
separation between animals that may be eaten and that may not, so
(Lev. 20.24ff.) there is a strict separation between Israelites and all
other nations; and the distinction between animals that may be eaten
but not sacrificed and ones that are accepted on the altar is echoed in
the distinction between lay people, who may enter the court of the
tabernacle, and priests, who (if unblemished and in a state of ritual
purity) may perform ritual duties at the altar. A finer analogy may be
drawn between animals of a kind acceptable for sacrifice which may
nevertheless not be sacrificed because of blemishes (Lev. 22.22-25),
and people who may not enter the sanctuary because of ritual impurity
and priests who may not serve because of blemishes (Lev. 21.16-23;
Milgrom draws particular attention to this). The sanctuary itself, with
its successive domains, each holier than the one without, provides the
spatial model for these analogies.
Douglas argues (p. 269) that
The sanctity of cognitive boundaries is made known by valuing the integrity
of physical forms. The perfect physical specimens point to the perfectly
bounded temple, altar and sanctuary. And these in their turn point to the
hard-won and hard-to-defend territorial boundaries of the Promised Land.
Israel is the boundary that all the other boundaries celebrate.
1. Douglas makes a number of mistakes in her description on pp. 267-68,

which are corrected by Milgrom.
Yet while I would certainly agree with the last sentence as an interpre-
tation of the chapter in its present form, the rules as such, which are
our present concern, do not reveal a concern with that boundary.
Lev. 20.24ff. is, like 11.44-45, part of the stream of theological
reflection that has made the dietary rules symbols of the holiness of
Israel. But the rules themselves are older than that theology, and, if I
am right, shared in a general way at least with other priestly elites
throughout the region. If my analysis of their origin is correct, it is
not the outer boundary—among the animals, that between clean and
unclean—that is the key to their meaning, but the inner one, that
marking off the sacrificial animals and the sacred realm. It is not so
much that the sacrificial animals are a subset taken out of the edible
animals (though this may be true in a historical sense), but that the
edible animals are an extension of the set of the sacrificial animals at a
lower level of significance. Since we find wild animals accepted for
sacrifice at several other sites, it is likely that the whole set of clean
animals are those accepted for sacrifice somewhere, though Jerusalem
restricted victims to domestic animals. The altar, the victims offered
upon it and the priests who dash the blood against it, guarantee the
blessing of the deity. In order to share in that blessing, the laity are
required to restrict their eating of flesh to such creatures as are
acceptable within that cultic setting, a selection limited, so far as beasts
are concerned, to such creatures as conform to the model of sacrificial
animals. The deity who dwells in the Most Holy Place is the source of
blessing, and blessing is mediated by way of the Holy Place and the
altar to the congregation in the court outside. This concentric
structure is mirrored in the concentric structure of the sets of animals
called for in sacrifice and permitted on the table.
But if the concentric structure conveys meaning in this way, this
does not leave the binary opposition of clean and unclean without
meaning, even before the specific theological development in the
redaction of this chapter. We may quote Mary Douglas once more
(1975b: 273):
the boundary that divides edible from inedible bounds the area of struc-
tured relations. Within that area rules apply. Outside it anything goes...
the ordered structure which is a meal represents all the ordered systems
associated with it.
The associations of the animals that we explored in the last chapter
indicate how the individual species could have been lined up in this
way to symbolize the order of society or the disorder that surrounds

and threatens it. The respect for God represented by abstinence from
unclean flesh is at the same time respect for the explicit structure of
society and acceptance that God's blessing is reserved for what is
righteous and ordered according to traditional norms.
I speak of explicit structure in contrast to what Victor Turner
(1969: 94-95) has termed 'communitas': 'society as an unstructured or
rudimentarily structured and relatively undifferentiated comitatus,
community, or even communion of equal individuals' (p. 96), which
emerges in liminal situations, but also among millenarian or subver-
sive movements or licensed jesters in more complex societies. It is at
least possible that this idea may help us to understand some of the
evidence, limited as it is, of practices contrary to the official rules,
and also perhaps the rules themselves in so far as they appear to set
themselves explicitly against such subversive practices.
So far the meaning we have found in the rules as such flows very
much more from the character of priestly religion as official—and
therefore in support of the state and the traditional orders of society—
than from its character as monotheistic or monolatrous. But a further
point needs to be raised in connection with the meaning of the rules. It
is arguable that what is left unsaid in the two sections on creatures of
the water and the air is more important than what is said. For the
permission given here to eat fish contrasts with the prohibition of fish
associated with the worship of Atargatis, and probably Asherah before
her (Chapter 4, §3.c); and similarly the pigeon taboo associated with
Astarte (Chapter 4, §3.c) finds no place here and contrasts with the
prominence of the pigeon in the sacrificial prescriptions earlier in the
book. There is no question that from a 'reader response' point of
view, assuming a reader who observed one or both of these taboos or
knew of others who did, the clash is plain: these rules, in opposition,
say, to those adopted at Hierapolis, deny the category of 'holy' animals,
and with them the power and dignity of the goddess. There is a simple
dichotomy between clean and unclean. That is, there is no centre of
holiness other than Yahweh; Yahweh has no consort and there are no
powers governing fertility other than the ordering will of Yahweh.
Fertility and order (cf. Chapter 5, §3) are not to be separated into
independent spheres, but are bound up together in the will of Yahweh.
In this respect we may then say that the rules as such, seen in opposi-
tion to rules in other sanctuaries, do represent a monotheistic vision.
But we have also to say that in seeing doves and fish as ordinary edible
animals, Yahwism was holding to the ancient custom, which we may
trace at Ugarit (Chapter 4, §3.b.2). So it could also be understood as
expressing opposition to unofficial religion which was perhaps trying
innovatively to express other values than those lying within the orbit
of the official cult with its support of publicly recognized values and
structures, and, possibly on behalf of women in particular (cf. Chapter
5, §2.c), serving to express a sense of 'communitas' (cf. Turner 1969:
96ff.) that could not find expression in the official cult. But such
worship could only have had such significance where it was unofficial;
where, as in the Syrian cities, it was part of the official cult, it could
not have expressed anti-establishment values. Hence its rejection in
priestly Yahwism would not there be felt as expressing official values,
but very possibly nationalistic ones.
There may thus be a great variety of readings of the apparent
opposition here disclosed. But when we come to the historical question
whether such an opposition was intended, there may be only one
answer in theory, but we cannot say what it is, because of our igno-
rance about the temporal and geographical spread of the taboos, and
because it is the cults of the goddesses that are the innovators in this
respect, and not the cult of Yahweh. There is not even any agreement
on whether Asherah was worshipped in monarchic Israel, or even
known at all in Iron Age Canaan. It is quite impossible to go into the
question here,1 and even if we settled it its bearing on our problem
would be far from clear. On the other hand there is no question that
Astarte was known in Israel, and not just as the name of a Phoenician
goddess (1 Kgs 11.5, 33; 2 Kgs 23.13); the name occurs several times
in the plural in the Deuteronomistic history as the female counterpart
of 'the Baalim' to whom the Israelites are said to have apostatized
(Judg. 2.13; 10.6; 1 Sam. 7.3-4; 12.10; cf. 31.10). It is rather difficult
to assess the significance of this idiom. But it does seem to suggest that
'Ashtart was understood around the seventh and sixth centuries as the
1. It may be studied, to name only some of the more recent treatments, in Oden
1977: 88ff.; Winter 1983: 483ff.; 55Iff.; Day 1986; Holladay 1987: 278; McCarter
1987; and particularly Olyan 1988 and M.S. Smith 1990: 80ff. Olyan decides for, and
Smith against Asherah as a goddess worshipped in Israel. For myself, I have to say
that I do not find impressive the attempts to explain away such texts as 1 Kgs 15.13;
18.19; 2 Kgs 23.4, 7 as references to the cult-object of the same name or confusions
with Astarte.
typical name of a goddess as Baal was of a pagan god.

It would be more important to establish whether the fish and pigeon
taboos already existed at the same period. This we cannot do. How-
ever, Xenophon appears to allude to the fish taboo, so that it must
have been in existence by the fifth century; it is at least possible, then,
that by the time the chapter reached its final shape the contrast was
conscious. The pigeon taboo, however, is not attested so early. The
only other kind of evidence that can be cited is iconographic, and that
is very indirect. Silvia Schroer can cite many examples of models of
doves from Iron Age Israel (1987: 119-20), though their function as
symbols of the love-goddess is not in my opinion unequivocal. Fish are
equally common as decoration (71), but Schroer admits in this case
that there is no clear sign of cultic significance. There is then no strong
evidence that these taboos existed early enough to have influenced the
actual development of the Yahwistic dietary rules, and it is much
more likely that the influence (by reaction) was in the other direction,
with worshippers of Astarte for example objecting to the use of her
bird as a sacrificial victim. However, it is rather more possible that in
the period when the rules were being set forth as the badge of Yahweh's
holy people, a conscious contrast with the taboos of the goddesses was
intended or at least perceived.
b. Deuteronomy 14
We need not follow up the details of the text of Deut. 14.3-21a once
again here; in substance and in structure most of it is identical to
Lev. 11.2b-23, apart from the failure to permit locusts. Our purpose
will be rather to draw out the significance that this essentially priestly
set of regulations may have in the theological and ideological setting
of the Deuteronomic work.
The trend towards secularization in Deuteronomy, and in particular
the secularization of the very act of flesh-eating which this text is con-
cerned with should make us want to ask why it should be concerned to
place any ritual restrictions at all on it. If 'unclean and clean may eat
of it' (12.15), why should there any longer be any concern for the
cleanness of the flesh itself? Why does Deuteronomy not abandon the
very notion of unclean flesh? This question must be particularly insis-
tent if, as it appears, the torah used by the redactor in vv. 4-20,
closely parallel to Lev. 11.2b-23, has a Sitz im Leben in the cult and
bears no traces of adaptation for life outside the pilgrimage setting
such as is implied by the final verses of Leviticus 11 or by v. 3 here.
The immediate context provides an answer to this initially puzzling
question. The chapter opens:
You are sons to Yahweh your God...for you are a people holy to
Yahweh your God, and you Yahweh has chosen to be a peculiar people to
him, out of all the peoples that ate on the face of the earth.
This is one of the most elaborate and emphatic statements of the

doctrine anywhere in the book, and is immediately followed by the
opening injunction of our text: 'You shall eat no abominable thing*. At
the conclusion of the text, the command concerning carrion is again
followed by 'for you are a people holy to Yahweh your God', in this
case closely following the source in the Covenant Code (Exod. 22.30
[Eng. 31]). It is thereby made clear that the traditional distinctions are
to be put to a new use (not indeed quite new, since the Covenant Code
was already moving in that direction): to symbolize, celebrate and
reinforce the one structure of meaning in the Deuteronomic universe:
the dedication of the people of Israel to their God in contrast to all
other nations, and their honour, dignity and self-respect. Like other
institutions, this ancient custom of distinguishing clean and unclean
meat is not abandoned but given new meaning.
How is it possible for it to attain this meaning? Mary Douglas has
drawn attention (1966: 114-15) to the function of purity rules in
defending the boundaries of a people or caste under real or imagined
external threat. The body becomes an image of society, and all that
passes its boundaries is watched as the bearer of threat to the people as
a whole. We have referred to this idea already, and there can be no
question of its relevance to such a text as Lev. 20.24-26. But I should
like to question whether it truly represents the state of ideas in
Deuteronomy. So far as I can see there is no anxiety about external
boundaries in Deuteronomy. No obstacle is put in the way of third-
generation immigrants from Edom or Egypt entering the 'assembly of
Yahweh' (23.7-8), and the only nations for which this is prohibited
are Ammon and Moab. Marriage with foreign captives is not
discouraged (22.10-14). What there is anxiety about is contact with
idolatry: hence the strict demand for the total destruction of the
Canaanites and their gods in ch. 7. Almost the entire book breathes a
spirit of national self-confidence that fits ill with such a 'theatened
boundaries' view of the significance of the law of unclean flesh (and
also with the increasingly popular view that Deuteronomy is
predominantly a work of the exile). Either we must suppose that the
verses are an exilic supplement, which is of course perfectly possible,
or that it has a different significance. I believe that the latter can be
convincingly argued. Douglas's attempt (1975c: see Chapter 3, §3.d.2)
to forge an essential link between the structure of Israelite animal
symbolism, the structure of their society, their fear and rejection of
foreigners and their monotheistic religion founders on several rocks,
but most obviously here on the fact that the men who wrote
Deuteronomy did not fear or reject foreigners, but simply believed
that God had chosen Israel in preference. There can be no one
generally valid interpretation of similar ritual observances in different
cultures. Elsewhere where purity rules defend group boundaries there
is no connection with monolatry. Given the generally accepted
conception of a distinction between clean and unclean animals, it lent
itself as naturally in Israel to symbolize the demand upon the holy
people to cleave to one God alone as more widely to symbolize the
defence of the boundaries of the holy people. So, more precisely, how
is this achieved in Deuteronomy?
Although there can be no certainty that vv. 4-20 were in any early
redaction of the text, it is most likely that the theme of 'abomination',
to'ebd, stated in v. 3, always implied a traditional understanding of
unclean flesh, as also that of carrion dealt with in v. 21. I adopted
above (Chapter 2, §2.c.l) Weinfeld's definition of this word as 'that
category of things which the delicate find odious or abhorrent'
(Weinfeld 1972: 226; detailed discussion above)—in other words, a
secular rather than a ritual or theological understanding. Unclean
meat is 'abomination' in the sense that self-respecting people, regard-
less of their religious allegiance, do not touch it. I would consider that
some of the evidence rehearsed in the last two chapters goes to sup-
port this, particularly the evidence from important urban centres
(Chapter 4, §4.a) that urban elites avoided pig meat as carefully as did
the cult. We have noted something of the range of meaning that the
cultic distinction between clean and unclean meat engendered. In ordi-
nary life it will have at least implied the associations we worked out in
the last chapter, and even if these were of little account to the average
peasant simply concerned to keep himself and his family, they would
have been important to those who perceived themselves as well-brought-
up people. The difference between the priestly and the Deuteronomic
approaches is that for P the cultic unacceptability of the meat is the
basis for its dietary rejection, while for Deuteronomy its general
cultural disapprobation makes it unacceptable for Israel as an honour-
able nation and the special possession of Yahweh.
There is therefore a large element of what Douglas calls 'self-
evidence' (1975c) in the Deuteronomic concept of abomination. While
she would find that self-evidence mainly in the pure structure of the
opposition of clean and unclean, we have been able to show it in the
associations of the animals. And at some level in the background those
associations still remain in the social consciousness, as is plain in Lev.
11.41ff. (see below, §2.d). There is no explicit use for them, but they
are likely to be implicit in the minds of the readers. 'Abomination'
implies unofficial rites involving unclean flesh, dealing with the powers
of death, the subversion of proper social order. To reject 'abominable'
food would be equivalent to rejecting all these things, supporting
traditional social values, rejecting the search for power in dangerous
places. Consciously or not, the Deuteronomists are able to support
their call for loyalty to Yahweh alone by linking it with these traditional
values.
The passage concludes with two further dietary rules derived from
the Covenant Code or a parallel law. The contrast with the priestly
law arises naturally out of the contrasting interests and ideologies, as I
have already shown (Chapter 2, §2.c.3). Once again the rule in
Deuteronomy reinforces the commitment of Israel, and Israel alone,
as a people, to their God, underlining the external boundary, while
that in the Holiness Code and P protects the purity of the sanctuary
and of the land, hence it must apply to native and alien indifferently;
the rule in Deuteronomy is absolute, because it is a matter of absolute
commitment and self-respect, while the priestly rule is a technical
ritual matter and so can allow for ritual purification.
c. The Theme of Contact Impurity

The theme of ritual pollution by the dead bodies of unclean animals
(and of clean animals when not ritually slaughtered) appears in Lev.
11.8, 11, 24-40 and it is also probably responsible (see Chapter 2,
§l.c.4) for the use of the expression tame' rather than Seqes for the
prohibited animals in the clarifying supplement vv. 4-8. It aligns this
text with the concerns of the series of toroth on purities in the
following four chapters, and with the concern for corpse pollution
that is alluded to in Leviticus (21.1-4, 11; 22.4) but not dealt with
systematically until Numbers 19. As in those other texts, uncleanness

is thought of here as a contagious force, which may be transmitted
from objects to people, and from the source of uncleanness to vessels.
In dealing with unclean animals in this way, the text puts them in the
same category with sexual sources of pollution, with 'leprosy', and with
human corpses. There is of course no surprise in this; the 'implicit
meanings' of unclean animals in the cultural background embrace those
dangers perceived as most serious within the explicit social structure
(cf. our discussion in the last chapter), and it is entirely to be expected
that, in a systematization of pollution ideas, animal uncleanness should
be placed alongside the pollution sources that represent some of those
dangers more directly.
However, it is also to be expected that the systematizer should turn
the whole idea of purity towards his own concerns. In the case of the
priestly system, that concern, though not immediately apparent here,
is the defence of the sanctuary; see Lev. 12.4, 15.31, Num. 19.13, 20.
The vision of order underlying the priestly work is, as we have noted,
a concentric one. There is one source of holiness, blessing and order,
threatened on every side by a great variety of pollutions. It needs to
be protected against these threats, especially by warning the Israelites
about the dangers of unpurified pollution. To defile the sanctuary by
failing to make use of the available means of purification is to risk
death. It is the more remarkable in that of these four texts, three appear
to assume that the sanctuary is defiled whether the defiled person
approaches it or not: Lev. 15.31 and more explicitly Num. 19.13, 20
(cf. Milgrom 1983b). How is this thought of as possible? It seems to
me that the key lies in the words in Lev. 15.31 'in defiling my taber-
nacle [or more literally 'my dwelling-place': miskani] that is in their
midst'. Yahweh dwells certainly in his own dwelling-place, but that is
now not on Sinai but in the very middle of the camp (cf. Exod. 29.45),
and to a certain degree the whole camp partakes of the holiness of the
tabernacle.
The camp boundaries form a basic division between those areas affected
by the holiness radiating from the holy of holies and those areas outside
the camp. The camp boundaries thereby establish a basic line of demarca-
tion between the realm of the holy and the realm of the profane (Gorman
1990: 208).
In a certain sense the whole camp forms a single holy area, so that
Yahweh's tabernacle, or rather his tabernacling, is defiled by pollution
anywhere within it. However, it should not be deduced from this, as a

superficial reading of Gorman would suggest, that it is the camp
boundary (in settled Israel the city wall would correspond to this; cf.
Lev. 14.40, 45 with 13.46) that is the key boundary defended by the
purification of uncleanness. It is after all the tabernacle that is said to
be defiled, and it is its holiness that is the main concern. The various
boundaries, both external and internal, that are defended or symbol-
ized by the various pollution threats doubtless remain present in a more
or less conscious way, but they are dominated by and subsumed in the
boundary of the Tabernacle, which preserves the presence of Yahweh
among Israel and the blessing that flows from him. But the very fact
that the priestly work can conceive of Israel under the image of a
military camp gathered closely round the tabernacle implies a very
high degree of connection between the holiness of the tabernacle and
the holiness of the people. There is a clear connection between the con-
tact impurity theme and the holiness theme that follows, as we shall see.
In this section, however, this ultimate significance of ritual impurity
seems far away. There is no direct mention of the sanctuary, and more-
over there is a distinction to be drawn between uncleanness trans-
mitted by the bodies of beasts or crawling things to persons (vv. 24-28,
31, 39-40) and the uncleanness contracted by vessels and food from
the bodies of crawling things (vv. 32-38). It is only the uncleanness of
persons that is ever said to defile the tabernacle simply by being in the
camp (cf. Milgrom 1976: 397), and the latter type of uncleanness is
not said to be transmissible to persons any more than the uncleanness
of unclean beasts is transmissible by eating them.
Very much closer at hand, therefore, is the symbolism of vermin as
breaching the boundaries set within human society. The eight selected
Seres—pursuing the numerical symmetry set in the main text—stand
for any creatures that may invade the home or storeroom though they
belong, ideally, elsewhere. They therefore serve to recall any bound-
ary that may be of particular significance; in the context of the priestly
work this must ultimately be the tabernacle, but, since the vermin
cause particular problems with food that is prepared for eating by the
addition of liquids (vv. 34, 38), we are bound to recall Mary Douglas's
comments on the importance of purity in cooking food in Hindu castes.
Before being admitted to the body some clear symbolic break is needed to
express food's separation from necessary but impure contacts. The cook-
ing process, entrusted to pure hands, provides this ritual break. Some
such break we would expect to find whenever the production of food is in
the hands of the relatively impure (Douglas 1966: 127).
While ancient Judaism hardly provides a close parallel to the Hindu

caste system, there are important analogies that are often overlooked.
The most significant is the purity rules that surround the priestly lin-
eages (Lev. 21-22). The marriage rules (especially 21.14 requiring
the high priest to marry within his lineage) give the priests some of
the characteristics of a caste. The strict enforcement of purity rules
required if the priests were to carry out their duties (Lev. 22.1-9)
created just such a break between priests and laymen, and because
'relatively impure' hands were certainly involved in the production of
food for priestly families, it was all the more important that care
should be taken to preserve purity at the final point of preparation.
Thus it could well be that the boundaries symbolized by the unclean-
ness of vermin are not simply those of the sanctuary as such but also
of its sacred personnel.
Thus a traditional concern for the purity of sanctuary and priest-
hood is reflected in the selection of material in relation to purity such
as that which we have before us here, but its broader context is more
striking. What situation can we envisage in which this vision could
have arisen of the people of Israel as an armed camp surrounding the
tabernacle of the God of Israel in close array and living so closely
within the influence of its holiness that any pollution pollutes the
sanctuary itself? Certainly not one in the loosely governed realms of
monarchical Israel and Judah. But the vision could have found its
place in the programme of a priestly elite of the gold who in exile laid
plans for the restoration of the community after a new Exodus (cf.
Clines 1978: 97ff.). The extraordinarily compact view of the people's
relation to the sanctuary certainly reflects anxiety about external
pressure on the boundaries of the people (cf. Douglas 1966: 114ff.),
but also perhaps a visionary conception of the return of Israel through
the wilderness to regain the promised land as of old. On this journey,
a sacred religious and military undertaking, similar standards of
purity would need to apply as on military campaign or on pilgrimage,
though because it would be a long-term undertaking concessions would
need to be made—there could not be abstinence from sexual intercourse
(cf. Exod. 19.15; 1 Sam. 21.6), but there could be purification after it
(Lev. 15.18). While there can be no certainty that this is indeed the
context in which we should understand the priestly work, it has the
advantage of giving more practical significance to the historicizing
form in which it is set than any other view.
d. The Holiness Redaction

I have given this title to the redaction evidenced in the sermonic con-
clusion to the chapter, for it employs terms and conceptions that are
typical of the Holiness Code in chs. 17-26 of Leviticus; in particular
the whole formula 'You/he shall be holy for I am holy' occurs at 19.2;
20.7, 26 (this also in the context of unclean food); 21.7. It has been
suggested that the chapter was actually once part of the Holiness Code,
but has been moved to its present position in order to form part of the
code of purities. If I am correct in my view that the section on contact
impurity was already present when this redaction was undertaken, this
is perhaps unlikely, and it in any case attributes greater coherence to
the Holiness Code itself than it actually possesses; but it is at all events
clear that the appropriate literary context within which to interpret
this conclusion, and therefore the chapter as a whole, is the Holiness
Code, or at least some parts of it. The closely related passage 20.24-26
needs to be given particular attention.1
The fundamental term used in Lev. 11.44-45 is qadol, 'holy'.
Yahweh is holy and therefore his people must be holy. I have analysed
the meaning of this term above (Chapter 2, §l.c.7). Its use in this
context extends the ritual situation to the continuous life of the people,
rather than implying an ethical reference, as in the Holiness Code
itself. In the ritual situation purity is demanded so that the people may
be sanctified to the deity (e.g. Exod. 19.14-15). Those objects and pro-
cesses and situations that are generally seen as polluting, such as the
eating of unclean meats, are to be avoided when God is approached;
and I have suggested that this is the original setting of the dietary
rules. As now redacted, specifically through its conclusion in vv. 4Iff.,
the chapter demands that the state of purity to be maintained con-
tinuously for the sake of holiness is that state appropriate to one who
approaches the deity. It is to be maintained by the people of Israel as a
whole, and in perpetuity, because this people is to be permanently
dedicated to Yahweh, to one single deity. The fundamental motivation
for the demand for abstinence from unclean foods made in the chapter
1. Moreover, it is worth drawing attention here to the view of Knohl, followed

by Milgrom (1991: 13-14,696), that H is a widespread redactional layer in P and not
simply to be identified with the main material of the code of chs. 17-26.
as it now stands is thus the demand for the worship of Yahweh alone.
The holiness redaction thus takes up the call made in Deuteronomy.
The symbolic weight laid on the observance closely parallels that in
Deuteronomy, and is probably traceable ultimately to its influence. It
could be described as the Deuteronomic air transposed into a priestly
key. In both texts the eating of (self-evidently) unclean meat is pro-
nounced unfitting for a people dedicated to Yahweh—in Deuteronomy
because it is unfitting for anyone with any self-respect, in Leviticus
because it is cultically unacceptable.1
Within the chapter as a whole, closed as it is by this holiness redac-
tion, the previous section on contact impurity has also now to be under-
stood from this point of view. It is concerned with the preservation of
the purity of the people. Whereas the toroth on purities in their own
context are rooted implicitly or explicitly in the need to preserve the
integrity of the sanctuary, the centre of interest here is different; it is
the people rather than the sanctuary, and the language is corres-
pondingly different. The sanctuary is holy because God is present
there, and, as long as he is present, there is no question of its losing its
holiness; the danger to the people in the camp lies in the clash between
holiness and uncleanness, and because of this they must preserve or
continually restore their purity. But the people have no such automatic
claim to holiness; they must continually make that good by maintain-
ing their purity and their single-minded devotion to God.
Undoubtedly the conception of holiness itself is different; it is here
not a force or influence that spreads by geographical proximity from
the holy of holies outwards, but a spiritual or moral characteristic that
can be gained or at least preserved by action. Spatial proximity does
not come into it; it is clearly demanded of the whole people wherever
they may be. It thus involves a distinct and important development of
the original ritual conception. This becomes still clearer in the
Holiness Code itself, where this precise language of the demand for
holiness is used in relation to the requirement of moral uprightness
and faithfulness to Yahweh. I shall shortly come to consider the precise
relationship between such 'ritual' and 'moral' conceptions of holiness.
It is of course basic to any cultic conception of holiness that what is
holy should be separated from what is not. Thus the way in which the
1. I cannot here deal with the proposal of Milgrom (1991: 13ff., 696) that the
bulk of Holiness redactional work dates from the late eighth century and has
influenced Deuteronomy, not vice versa.
exhortation on the same subject is framed in 20.24-26 is related to
what is said here. But different aspects are emphasized. This passage
emphasizes the vertical bond between God and the people; that in
ch. 20 emphasizes the separation of the people horizontally, as it
were, from all other peoples. They are of course two sides of the
same coin, so far as the Old Testament is concerned. Sociologically,
however, we may well wish to lay some stress on the situation of the
people of Israel that may be suggested by the emphasis laid on this
symbolism—a people under external pressure and concerned to
defend the integrity of their national existence more particularly by
stress on the national cult. Unlike Deuteronomy, Leviticus does con-
tain some evidence of anxiety about national boundaries; Lev. 20.24-
26 certainly suggests it. Is there any more particular evidence which
might suggest the setting of the redaction of Leviticus 11?
We have noted (Chapter 2, § 1 .c.7) that in this final section of the
chapter the warning to abstain from all creeping things, which fills up
a lacuna in the provisions of the main text, leads naturally into the
general exhortation, with which it is inextricably bound up. We must
suppose that the material completion of the subject and the formal
peroration are the work of the same hand and the same occasion.
Abstinence from the swarming things of the ground serves as a
metonymy for the whole range of abstinences demanded of Israel for
the sake of holiness. But is it not rather remarkable that the metonymy
selected should be the apparently least likely of all possible breaches
of the law? Apart from some unusual ritual situation, it is hard to
envisage an occasion on which the consumption of such small creatures
could have been considered worthwhile, as Harris would emphasize.
It is true that it could be explained as something of an accident. The
main text omitted the swarming things of the ground because, I have
suggested, it could be taken for granted that such things are not eaten—
'implicit taboo' in Leach's terms. The redactor taking up this text was
concerned both to add a suitable exhortation and to ensure that the text
itself was as complete as possible. Having noted an obvious deficiency,
he then proceeded to kill two birds with one stone by writing his
exhortation as a sermon on the text of the swarming things of the
ground. But it would have been as easy, and more appropriate, to base
the exhortation on the whole range of abstinences, like 20.24ff. The
fact that he did not do this suggests to me that there was some real
concern behind the addition of the swarming things of the ground,
that it was more than simply the technical completion of the system.
Milgrom (1991: 685-86) explains it on the grounds that the land
swarmers are the only one of the four main groups of animals that are
without exception forbidden, and this because of their connection with
the earth, the realm of death. But we have noted possible evidence of
an immediate reason for such concern in Isa. 66.17; see Chapter 4,
§3.d.2.1 argued there that Isa. 65.3-5 and 66.17 offer some consistent
evidence of a cult of the dead carried on in cemeteries and marked by
the deliberate sacrifice and consumption of unclean food. In the case
of 66.17 this would appear to have gone to the extreme of eating not
just food generally recognized as unclean, like swine (65.4), but food
not generally recognized as food. Of course, an interpretation is pos-
sible (cf. Hanson 1979: 197ff.) that takes Lev. 11.41-42 as prior (cf.
Volz 1932: 292, and other authorities noted above) and Isa. 66.17 as a
satirical and ironic inversion of priestly standards. But assuming that
my interpretation can be sustained, the priestly author may be seen as
reacting against a particular extreme of an unofficial cult of the dead
that did indeed involve the eating of such things as mice. The prohibi-
tion of their eating would then be required not just by system but by
the real necessities of the day.
And that day would of course be postexilic (not necessarily very
late) and in Palestine, in line with the evident setting of the last chap-
ters of Isaiah. Since we have established that this section must be dated
subsequently to the section on contact impurity, and since we have
aligned that with the exilic material in P, this comes as no surprise.
There is no other evidence for the use of 'swarming things' in a cult
of this kind in the immediate area. We may regard it as the intensifi-
cation of the kind of practice using mainly pigs for which we did find
some slight evidence, and we might hold that such intensification is a
characteristic expression of anomie, in this case arising out of the dis-
orientation caused by the severe disruption of society by the defeat
and deportations of the sixth (and possibly the early fifth) centuries.
As the restrictions of ordinary life reflect the power of the social
system to regulate and confine, but also to provide security, so the dis-
ruption of the social system and the decline of its power create insecu-
rity, one reaction to which may be to attempt to seize on, or bow to,
the power of disorder, which has obviously been successful. This
power is seen in unclean food; and the search for a stronger power led
to the choice of food that no-one had previously regarded as edible. In
reaction, those seeking by contrast to rebuild society with its tradi-
tional structure and values on the basis of monolatrous Yahwism had
to say that mice and all such creatures were seqes. This whole class of
creatures, 'implicitly tabooed' before, leaps into consciousness as an
affront to Yahweh's holiness.
The prohibition—implicitly all the prohibitions—can then be seen
as a strong assertion that the powers of death and disorder must be
excluded from the realm where the people of Israel dwell with their
God. In confrontation with those who were employing the same sym-
bolism in the opposite sense it functions as a call for the restoration of
the traditional order of society with the proper relations of power and
the traditional sexual restrictions. The generalization of the demand
for purity excludes even the ritual reversal of normal values. At a
time when the official cult at Jerusalem had become firmly monola-
trous, this was effectively to demand the acknowledgement of Yahweh
alone as the recipient of any form of worship. Israel cannot be renewed
by such methods; devoted to Yahweh alone, they must see any other
power only as a threat. The cult deals with the problem of the demonic
by simple denial.
In this light the connections that the rhetoric of the chapter sets up
with various parts of the Holiness Code take on a new significance.
Just as the second part of the chapter aligned animal uncleanness with
other forms of ritual impurity, the use here of language related to that
of the Holiness Code aligns the deliberate defilement of the eating of
unclean flesh with such serious crimes—from the point of view of the
committed Yahwist—as the devotion of one's children to Molech and
the use of wizards and mediums (20.1-7), sexual wrongdoing such as
incest (ch. 18; 20.10-21), breaches of basic social morality (ch. 19; cf.
v. 2), and the pollution of the serving priest (ch. 21; cf. v. 8). A
widespread rabbinic view (Levine 1989: 243; cf. b. Seb. 3a, 7a;
b. Hul. 7la; and Maimonides' Code [Chapter 3, §l.d]) makes this
categorization explicit, placing forbidden food, sexual offences and
idolatry in the category of turn'at qodes—'uncleanness that relates to
holiness'. What all these have in common is that they are breaches of
the fundamental duty owed by Israelites to their God to maintain their
state of devoted commitment to him. It should no longer be surprising
that the law of unclean flesh is placed in the same category as these
fundamental moral and religious demands.
Clearly the alignment depends on a symbolic understanding of the
demand for purity. We can now see that both in Deuteronomy and in
Leviticus there are two aspects to this; the symbolism works on two
levels. On the one hand, there is the function of the symbolism of sepa-
ration from unclean food as a bare sign; separation as such recalls the
separation demanded from all strange gods and all immoral behaviour,
and the cleaving to Yahweh alone. But it should by now be amply
evident that the symbolism of unclean flesh is more than a bare sign, it
is a true symbol, that is, a motivated sign, which carries its meaning
within itself. The committed servant of Yahweh, the true Israelite as
defined by the priestly writer, must abstain from creeping things and
all unclean flesh because they are excluded from the cult of God, and
also because the untrue does not—because the unclean uses unclean
things in the service of unclean gods—because there is an ineradicable
association between unclean flesh and the unapproved worship of
unacknowledged gods and spirits. Thus the law functions not merely to
symbolize but to enforce the separation of Israelites from all such
unofficial cults.
It should be noted that this is not the same as the older view, suffici-
ently refuted above (Chapter 3, §l.c), that the unclean animals are
those honoured in the cults of the heathen. It is much closer to
de Vaux's view that pigs were unclean because they were used in a
particular type of cult, not in normal pagan cults. Where I differ from
de Vaux is in my view that pigs and other unclean animals were used
in these cults because they were considered unclean rather than the
other way round.
e. Leviticus 11 in the Priestly Story

The editorial framework of the chapter identifies the torah in question
as having been given by Yahweh to Moses, and in this case also to
Aaron, like all the others, so that they all form a unified mass of mate-
rial given to Israel at a particular moment in its history, the culmi-
nating point of the history that the Priestly work tells. Generally, it is
true, critics (e.g. Elliger 1966: 9ff.; Zenger 1983: 27-28) would see
this and other ritual laws as expansions rather than integral parts of
the basic priestly document, P8 as it is usually designated. Nevertheless,
they stand now together, and there is this intimate connection between
them: that the story culminates in God's coming to dwell with Israel as
their God, while the ritual laws set out the terms on which this pre-
sence may be a blessing to them. It is not unreasonable, I believe, to
read the law in the framework of the story, which is not at all
unconcerned with the relations between human beings and animals. I
have entitled this book, and this chapter of it, 'Purity and Monotheism'.
So far I consider that I have successfully demonstrated that the law of
unclean flesh has a meaning related to the monolatry demanded of
Israel in the Torah. But what about monotheism? This is a cosmic
conception, and is related to the cosmic framework of the entire
priestly work. And within this cosmic framework, God, humanity and
animals all have their distinct parts to play.
In Genesis 1, the one who creates is God, later (Exod. 6) identified
as Yahweh, who can be known as 'God' because there is no other god;
at most the 'let us make' of v. 26 suggests a vague trace of a former
polytheism (cf. Westermann 1984: 144-45 for a detailed discussion).
In contrast to the prevalent myths (prevalent also, it must be empha-
sized, in Israel; cf. Day 1985), he creates by his word alone, without
any conflict with any other power. It is clear from the start, therefore,
that it is a true monotheism that confronts us.
And the one God creates a world that he pronounces good. This
world is in his intention entirely free of violence and killing of any
kind. This may not be immediately obvious. But it has been an impor-
tant theme in a number of recent studies, e.g. Lohfink 1983 (87-90),
Zenger 1983 (especially 11-22, 84-98, 116-24), Beauchamp 1987:
139-82,1 all summarized by Rogerson (1991: 17-25). I have myself
attempted to prove something of the kind elsewhere (Houston 1979:
165-66), but let me briefly summarize the argument. After the living
creatures of every sphere have been created, humanity is created in
God's image to rule over all other creatures. Now this has sometimes
been taken to mean that humanity is created to have licence to exploit
the earth and the other creatures as they see fit. But this is clearly not
so, for v. 29 gives them explicit permission (which would not have
been required on the interpretation in question) to use plants, and
plants only, for food. That the grant of vegetarian food is exclusive is
clear from 9.3, which explicitly varies it. Similar permission is given
to the animals in the following verse, 1.30. Animals are to use the
green parts of the plants while human beings use the fruits and seeds.
It is already apparent that in the world that God has created, there is
to be, according to its maker's intention, no predation, no meat-eating
1. This was not available to me.

and of course no animal sacrifice. But how is this possible? At this

point we return to the commission to rule given to humanity in v. 28.
It is clear from the foregoing that it must be interpreted in line with
the Bible's usual understanding of the rights and duties of kings; and
this of course is anything but a licence to exploit. The most relevant
comparative passage is Isa. 11.1-9. Here the rule of the messianic king
creates justice and peace throughout the world, even in the animal
kingdom—the lion no longer preys on the lamb, just as human oppres-
sors are repressed. It is reasonable to suppose that this Utopian vision
of the future draws upon the same mythical source ('shepherd of the
animals': Zenger 1983: 92-93) as Gen. 1.30. It is clear from this that
the rule of humans in Genesis 1 must be interpreted in a sense similar
to the rule of the Messiah in Isaiah 11. Creation as originally intended
is a harmony inconceivable in the postdiluvian world—humanity as
the regents of God rule in peace over creatures who live in peace.
But it was not to be. 'All flesh (kol basar) had corrupted its way
upon earth' (Gen. 6.12). The phrase 'all flesh' often means 'all
humanity', and that is how it is often taken here. But in the light of the
foregoing discussion, of the destruction of all creatures in the Flood,
and of 9.2, 5 and 10 (to be discussed), it is much better to take it, with
Lohfink, for example (1983: 87), as 'all creatures'.1 Human beings had
allowed their lives to be lived in 'violence' (see footnote), and animals
had begun to prey upon other animals. Although God deals with this
by sweeping away all flesh in the Flood, things are not to be the same
again; the primitive idyll has gone for ever. When Noah comes out of
the Ark, God announces to him that the limits on the human exploita-
tion of the world have been removed: "The fear of you and the dread
of you shall be upon all creatures of the earth...into your hands they
are delivered' (Gen. 9.2). J.A. Baker (1975: 96) notes that this is the
1. This is the more general opinion (cf . Westermann 1984:414), but Westermann
himself, following Hulst 1958, dissents, apparently on the grounds that ntoa ^3 in
prophecy 'means only humans where it occurs in the context of guilt and judgment'
(p. 414), and that oan (v. 11) is never used of animals. The former point seems to
have little weight, certainly in the present context the phrase is frequently used of all
creatures (human and animal) as Westermann admits (6.17; 9.11,16,17). The latter
is weightier, and undoubtedly the sense 'cold-blooded and unscrupulous infringe-
ment of the personal rights of others, motivated by greed and hate and often making
use of physical violence and brutality' (TDOT, IV, 482) applies most obviously to
humans. But I see no reason why P should not have applied it in a transferred sense
also to the predatory activity of animals.
language of military conquest.1 Humankind is still in charge, but is

now a military governor rather than a peaceful sovereign, a 'lord'
rather than a 'shepherd' (so Zenger 1983: 118). This arises from the
fact that violence has now spread among the animals, and humans
must protect both themselves and the weaker animals against the
stronger (p. 118). They have the power and the need to treat animals
with violence lest they treat them with violence (cf. v. 5), and they
are entitled to use them for food. 'I give you for food every moving
thing that lives' (9.3); there are no exemptions and only one proviso:
that the blood is not consumed.
But though human beings in general are permitted to eat any
animals, animal sacrifice, in the priestly conception, is still no part of
life. We must speak cautiously here, since obviously the priestly
redaction of the Pentateuch as a whole includes many narrations of
animal sacrifice from Abel onwards (cf. Firmage 1990: 203). But if
we may assume that the distinctively priestly passages, if they do not
form a complete story, at all events offer a coherent viewpoint, they
do not give us any account of sacrifice until at Sinai God establishes
the means whereby he may be Israel's God and they his people,
whereby his glory may be present in Israel and the means of blessing
to them. Essential to this is the sacrificial system, and bound up with
this is the distinction among animals as food. After the sacrificial
system has been established and inaugurated in Leviticus 1-10, the
first thing that follows is the chapter on clean and unclean animals.
This is a law addressed to Israel alone. It says nothing about the
intrinsic character of the animals mentioned (which have all been
called good by God himself), but simply lays upon Israel the responsi-
bility of distinguishing the meat they may eat from that which they
may not, so that they may take an active role in sanctifying themselves
as his people, and so enabling him to continue as their God.
Now the triple pattern of vegetarianism followed by unrestricted
1. Many interpreters agree with this assessment, e.g. Lohfink 1983: 87-88;
Zimmerli 1967: 323-24; Beauchamp 1987. Zenger (1983: 117ff.) resists it, and
claims that Pg remains 'true to its pacifist tendency', on the grounds that the closest
parallels (Deut. 2.25; 11.25) speak of the fear of God enabling Israel to take over the
promised land without using force. But his subsequent account of the myth of the
'Heir der Tiere [Lord of the animals]' undercuts this position, since it contains clear
elements of coercion. Moreover, Zenger fails to explain the permission to use the
animals for food within his view of the text.
meat-eating followed by restricted meat-eating is a typical example of

the pattern of two extremes and a mediating position that is found
again and again in the myth and ritual of many peoples (cf. Leach
1983). The ideal is vegetarianism, which enables humanity to rule the
earth as God's representative, as the princes of peace. But because of
sin this is an unstable condition. 'Man will have meat and will kill to
get it' is Milgrom's arresting opening to his first essay on the dietary
laws (1963: 288 [= 1983: 104]). But this means a world with the
minimum of law (Gen. 9.4-6) and without the presence of God. There
is so little restraint on our destructive tendencies that God cannot
inhabit this world, and we cannot rule it in peace. The solution to the
dilemma is found in God's election of Israel to be holy to him, to
observe the restraints that make it possible for a sanctuary to be built
and institutions established so that God may dwell with his people.
Central to these restraints are the restrictions on the eating of meat—
which themselves, as we have seen (Chapter 5, §1), echo the schism in
the cosmos brought about by the presence of violence in the animal
world. Both the primitive vegetarianism and the postdiluvian omniv-
orousness are of course myths. They enable the dilemma to which the
priestly institutions are the mediating solution to be presented in
narrative form.
Firmage's quite different conclusion (1990:198) that the three stages
represent successively closer approximations to the practice of God
himself, who receives the flesh of the clean sacrificial animals, is
unacceptable because, like his view on the significance of clean meat as
such, it implies a degree of anthropomorphism that is unlikely for P.
It also implies that God's original creation was imperfect, a direct
contradiction of the repeated divine assessments in Genesis 1. The
same objection may be raised against Lohfink's view (1983: 89) that
the 'war of humanity against animals' is intended by God as the neces-
sary condition for the establishment of the cult, rather than being, as I
have suggested, part of the state of things that creates the necessity for
the cult.
Milgrom (1983: 288) may thus be seen to be correct in attributing
an ethical purpose to the dietary laws, as they now stand in the
Pentateuch and certainly as they are in practice observed by Jews (cf.
Chapter 3, §l.d). The law with which we are concerned inculcates
restraint in the use of animals for food, and Milgrom may surely be
allowed to have a strong case in saying that some of the others are
based on humanitarian considerations. While it is unlikely that the law

on the kid in its mother's milk had originally a humanitarian purpose
(cf. Keel 1980 and Knauf 1988), it could certainly be held to do so in
its context in Deuteronomy (14.21b), which contains other humanitar-
ian laws on the treatment of animals (22.6-7; 25.4), and certainly at a
later stage.1 And without doubt such postbiblical laws as that requiring
the slaughterer's knife to be sharp and to have no irregularities have
such a purpose. But, as I have shown, the priestly law of unclean flesh,
in so far as it has an ethical purpose, derives it from a narrative
setting that enables profound reflection to take place on the relations
between human beings and animals and the conditions on which God's
presence in this world of violence may be sustained.
3. Conclusion
Judaism inherits from the development of custom and thought in pre-
biblical and biblical times a law of animal kinds that summarizes in
itself a great richness of symbolic themes. It stands for the order and
peace of civil society over against the disorder and violence of the wild;
for the just and traditional ordering of society against anarchy; for the
purity of the sanctuary against the permanent threat of pollution; for
the holiness of the people of God as his devoted ones; for their protec-
tion against pressures from without, and their separation from all that
would threaten their dedication to their one God; for the possibility,
not confined to Israel alone, of living in peace with God's creatures and
in the experience of his presence. It does not merely symbolize these
things; by the constant practice of the rules it actually inculcates them,
as Milgrom argues (1991: 736): 'In the biblical view the Decalogue
would fail were it not rooted in a regularly observed ritual, central to
the home and table, and impinging on both senses and intellect, thus
conditioning the reflexes into patterns of ethical behaviour'.
When early Christianity abandoned the law of forbidden food it
rejected, to all appearance, all these good things. What did it get in
return? To this and related questions our last chapter is devoted.
1. Milgrom now (1991: 740-41) concurs with Keel in seeing the kid law (and
the other apparently humanitarian laws in Deuteronomy) as prohibiting the symbolic
confusion of the source of the animal's life (mother's milk) with the process of its
death. But this is still, he would argue, bound up with the reverence for life, and is
therefore an ethical concern.
Chapter 7
MONOTHEISM WITHOUT PURITY
I could not, even if I had wished, follow out in detail the appropriation
of the biblical rules in the course of Jewish history. I have already
trespassed on too many fields that are not my own in the course of this
study. But as a Christian acknowledging the Bible, Old and New
Testaments, as my scriptures, I am under an obligation to do more
than would be expected of a neutral investigator. I need to examine
what it means that I, along with nearly all other Christians, do not
observe these rules while Jews do. The last three words of that sentence
are vital. There exists of course a large literature going back to the
earliest days of Christianity on the interpretation of biblical law, and
to what extent and how it need be observed by Christians; but with
few exceptions it is based on the assumption that how Jews treat the
same body of Scripture may be condemned or ignored; that the Law
meant one thing before Christ and now means another thing, ignoring
or deprecating the continuing existence of a people to whom the Law
still means essentially what it always meant. (And unfortunately, as
E.P. Sanders has observed, this approach has invaded ostensibly criti-
cal works written by believing Christians [1985: 278 and n. 42]; such
writers as Goppelt speak of Jesus 'putting an end to Judaism', 'shattering
the Law' and so forth.) But since the laws we have been studying are
bound up almost more than any others with the very existence of this
people, what Christians' abandonment or repudiation of the observance
of this law might mean for the understanding of their relation to
Judaism cannot be ignored here. Moreover, the insights that we have
gained in the course of this study need to be applied to the question.
Not only the function of the law as a boundary marker, but the fact
that it serves to represent a wide range of social and religious
structures, needs to be taken into account.
1. Erasing the Boundary, or Redrawing it?

As I observed at the very beginning of the book, for Jews the discrimi-
nation of clean and unclean flesh is part of their national and religious
identity. As I have now shown, it defines and protects equally their
'vertical' relationship to God and their 'horizontal' difference from all
other peoples. It is generally true that the observance of this law does
not long survive the abandonment of either of these dimensions of
identity by individuals or families. In Israel today there is or used to
be a flourishing trade in what is delicately termed 'white meat' (i.e.
pork) for secular Israelis who have abandoned their religious faith and
for whom the difference from other peoples of the earth has become a
political matter, identified with the tenaciously defended physical
borders of the state of Israel. But even in the diaspora, while a first-
generation secular Jew may continue to eat kosher, it is unlikely that
his son will continue to set much store by it. At the time of the emerg-
ence of the Christian church, such phenomena did not exist. There was
no dispute about the observance of the law against eating unclean
animals within Judaism, though the laws on contact uncleanness, like
others of the same kind, could be sources of dissension and in their
various interpretations markers of party or sectarian identity (Neusner
1973: 32ff.; cf. Sanders 1990: 13Iff.; Dunn [1990: 72ff.] emphasizes
the factional character of purity disputes; and cf. Countryman 1989:
64-65). Even if other purity laws tended to divide Jews, this one
united them and marked them off simply as Jews, not as Pharisees,
Essenes or 'am ha-ares. In the Hellenistic world, where pig meat was
common and relatively cheap (Sanders 1990: 278), it was a more
effective marker than in the Levantine world before Alexander.
It is not therefore necessary to search far for the most obvious
interpretation of the fact that Christians do not observe these laws:
Christians are not Jews. Jews do not eat pork; Christians do: there-
fore, Christians are not Jews, not part of the community of Israel. The
syllogism may be reversed to give the subjective point of view:
Christians are not Jews, therefore they eat pork. Now, it is true that
an individual Christian might well be surprised to be told that the
reason she ate pork was to show that she was not a Jew, and of course
it would not be true so far as she personally was concerned. If of some
theological literacy she would be likely to protest that she ate pork
because others around her did, and that Christians are not called to be
7. Monotheism without Purity 261
separated from the world, though they are called not to be conformed
to it in things that matter morally. Such a case might of course be
criticised in several points, but what matters to us here is to note that
the assumption that the people of God are not called to be separated
from the world by 'merely' ritual observances is in itself a specific
rejection of a biblical principle (not just of particular observances),
that of Lev. 20.24-26, and may be justified either on the ground that
this has been superseded, or on the ground that it only ever applied to
Israel after the flesh. In either case a separation from Judaism is pre-
supposed. This is nothing more than the fact as it is at the present day
and for ages past. Jews see Christians simply as goyim; Christians see
Jews as adherents of another religion. (I am not of course referring to
members of either church or synagogue who are more conscious of
the historic relationships between the two faiths and ready for
rapprochement and dialogue; I am painting with a very broad brush).
However, it might be held that a slightly different picture emerges
from those passages in the New Testament that address the subject. I
referred in Chapter 1 to Peter's vision in Acts 10, in which the eating
of unclean flesh is used explicitly as a symbol of the crossing of the
boundary between the Jewish and Gentile world by the Christian mis-
sion, with the consequent entry of Gentiles into the Church on terms
(Acts 15.20, 29) that may be defined (Malina 1981: 146) as those
purity rules held to be binding on strangers in Israel, gerim1 (see Lev.
17.8, 10, 13 and 18.26). Unlike these, the law of unclean kinds
marked the separation between Israel as a nation and all other peoples,
whether settled in the land of Israel or not, and it is therefore the one
that Luke selects to symbolize the breaking down of the wall of parti-
tion. But Luke does not suggest, in his picture of the first-century
Church, that any Jewish Christians ceased to be Jews, or even to
observe the Law; in fact he is at pains to portray Paul as a faithful Jew
who undertakes pilgrimage and discharges vows. Clearly the Christian
Church in Acts is not a non-Jewish body but one in which Jews and
Gentiles participate on equal terms and which is the true successor to
the promises to Israel (28.25-28). The book skates lightly over the
practical problems of table-fellowship that this would have caused,
which emerge clearly enough in the letters of Paul.
There are at least three places in the New Testament where different
1. In the biblical sense, not in the rabbinic sense in which it is applied to prose-
lytes, those who became full members of the community.
authors declare that the distinction between clean and unclean foods is
now abolished (or never existed): Mk 7.19 (the interpretation by
Mark of an alleged saying of Jesus); Acts 10.15 (11.9); Rom. 14.14.
All these passages have some direct or indirect bearing on the issue of
relations between Jews and Gentiles. I need say no more about Acts
10. The Marcan pericope says nothing about Gentiles itself, but is
immediately followed by the story of the Syro-Phoenician woman
(Mk 7.25-30; the collocation is noted by Belo [1981: 145], Wenham
[1981] and Lindars [1988: 69]), where Jesus responds to the challenge
of a Gentile by letting blessing flow to her. The text does not let us
forget the issues raised in the previous pericope, both by using bread
as a metaphor (so Lindars) and by calling the Gentiles 'dogs' (cf. our
discussion of the dog in Chapter 5, §l.b). Lindars comments, "The
episode is intended as a pointer to the Gentile mission of the Church'.
In Romans 14 there is no overt reference to tensions between Jews
and Gentiles in the church, and indeed at first sight the reference to
vegetarianism (v. 2) moves in a different circle. But Dan. 1.12 should
be compared (with other references: see Dunn 1988: 801; and in gen-
eral 799ff. for the following); many scrupulous Jews may have cir-
cumvented the problem of obtaining kosher food in a Gentile envi-
ronment by abstaining from meat altogether (so Dunn 1988: 801, who
points to the situation in Rome after Claudius's expulsion of the Jews;
but more generally Sanders 1990: 279). When we come to vv. 14 and
20 there can be no doubt about it: the issue is one of purity, and there-
fore of the Jewish law, since there was no category of impure food in
Greek culture (Parker 1983: 357), and the use of koinos is distinctively
Jewish (Dunn 1988: 830). Paul's theoretical position here is quite
uncompromising: nothing is impure of itself, impurity is a purely
subjective matter. But the practice that he recommends shows that the
main issue is good relations within the church. He urges the 'strong'
(those who agree with his own theoretical position) to take care not to
offend the conscience of the 'weak'; thus paradoxically the purity rule,
while disappearing in that it symbolizes the barrier between Jew and
Gentile, is retained in practice in order to raise no barriers of a
different sort, presumably between Jewish and Gentile Christians1.
1. It has been widely assumed that the 'strong' and the 'weak' both here and in
1 Cor. 8-10 effectively mean Gentile and Jewish Christians respectively. But in
relation to 1 Corinthians Theissen (1975), largely followed by Meeks (1983: 68-69),
argues that this distinction is likely rather to have corresponded to differences of
In Chapter 1, I spoke of 'the erasure of the boundary' which the

distinction between clean and unclean meat celebrated and maintained.
But erasing boundaries is not in itself an unambiguous operation. The
abolition of the boundary between Jews and Gentiles could mean a
number of things: ignoring purely artificial possibilities, it could
imply either that the Christian Church is a new entity including both
Jews and Gentiles; or that it consists of Gentiles, its Jewish members
ceasing to be Jews (in this case the boundary persists but is of no
significance for Christians); or that Israel is being reconstructed in a
way that no longer excludes outsiders.
This last possibility can be argued for and does seem to be suggested
by certain passages. The New Testament throughout maintains that
Jesus is the true Messiah of Israel and the true fulfilment of the biblical
promises, but at the same time he is the saviour of all. Occasionally
language that normally refers to Jews is used of the Christian Church
as a whole (see Phil. 3.3, 1 Pet. 1.1), and at least once (Gal. 6.16; cf.
1 Cor. 10.18; also probably Rev. 7.7) the name Israel appears to be
used in this way (Burton [1921: 358] argues against this as regards
Gal. 6.16). But far more frequently the distinction between Jew and
Gentile is maintained, however much they form one church and main-
tain table-fellowship. Apart from the passages referred to, 'Israel'
always means the physical nation, the Jews. But even where a purely
Gentile church is addressed, as apparently in Galatians, Ephesians or
1 Peter, it is always assumed that within the wider church they share
fellowship with Jews, and in Ephesians this is made a subject of
specific celebration (2.11-12). As regards the alternatives offered in
the last paragraph, the text here is somewhat ambiguous, since
expressions suggesting that the Gentiles have come to be part of the
existing divine community alternate with ones asserting the emergence
of a new society out of the two. But the weight is surely on the second
income and status: the relatively well-off with active business and social contacts
would have found them awkwardly hampered by having too fine a conscience about
meat sacrificed to idols, while the poor, who rarely ate meat, would have done so
mainly on cultic occasions and so associated it with the worship of the pagan gods.
But it seems doubtful whether we can apply this distinction to the different issue dis-
cussed in Rom. 14, and it seems much more probable that Paul is using vocabulary
developed at Corinth in a somewhat transferred sense. It remains most likely that the
issue of dietary purity at Rome was one which divided Jewish and Gentile Christians.
of these two alternatives: 'that he might form the two in himself into
one new humanity* (v. 15), through the destruction of 'the law with
its rules and regulations'. The cornerstone of the new temple is Christ
Jesus (v. 20); and in Gal. 2.15ff. the problem of how Jews can have
fellowship with Gentile 'sinners' is solved by the principle that
Christians live not by 'works of the law' but by faith in Jesus Christ.
'Works of the law', as Dunn argues (1990: 220), following Lohmeyer
(n.d.: 67), is to be taken 'in the sense of obligations set by the law, the
religious system determined by the law'—and this of course is the
system that identifies the Jew as a member of the covenant community.
The nub of the matter is that the key term in the religious system,
alongside God, is not Israel but Christ (Sanders 1975, passim); and in
Phil. 3.4ff. Paul declares his entire Jewish heritage written off for the
sake of Christ. Hence the relationship of the Church to the existing
Israelite nation does not need to be precisely defined; what matters is
the relationship to Christ.1 This means that the first of our three
alternatives is the one that comes closest to the predominant sense of
the New Testament—certainly of Paul, and arguably of the rest of the
New Testament also—that the church is a new community.
However, socially speaking, this was an unstable and temporary sit-
uation. Paul's advice in Romans 14 seems not to have been followed,
at least not after a generation or less had passed. After the catastrophe
of 70 AD Jews were in a much more defensive posture and probably
providing far fewer converts to Christianity; the birkat ha-minim
shows that Christianity was formally rejected as a legititimate part of
Judaism in a way that does not seem to have happened to sects before.
Hence, within the Church, the idea that it included Jews became pre-
carious. In the sub-apostolic literature there are traces of conflict on
the food laws and other issues affecting relationships with Judaism,
and the view that predominates, for example in the so-called Epistle of
Barnabas, was not merely that Christians have no need to observe the
'ritual law', but that they positively must not do so. Thus Christians
were encouraged in the belief that they need not care what Jews might
think about their lifestyle, and Christians of Jewish origin began to
cease to think of themselves as Jews. The first possibility had been
1. So Eilberg-Schwartz (1990: 140) associates the rejection of the dietary rules

in Paul, as an exemplification of animal metaphor, with the move to a new 'root
metaphor', that of the body of Christ; so also the role of animal sacrifice is taken over
by the Cross.
abandoned and the second embraced, for good. The abandonment of

kosher, which in the New Testament implies the abolition of the
boundary between Jew and Gentile, had come to mean the drawing of
the line anew, with the Church on the other side of it. Though this was
and is the empirical reality, that Christians are non-Jews, simply, the
brief glance we have given to the New Testament's witness on the
issue must lead us to doubt whether Christians have any right to
regard the situation as normatively justified.
2. Forbidden Flesh and Other Structures

We have noted the wide range of symbolic associations evoked by the
law of unclean flesh; its function as a boundary marker of Israel is
only one. To what extent are these involved in its rejection? Would
not the abandonment of dietary purity threaten the entire range of
social and moral structures with which it is associated? This might
well be suggested by Mary Douglas's view that a whole series of
purity laws constructed analogically
set up the great inclusive categories in which the whole universe is hierar-
chised and structured... the classification of animals into clean and
unclean, the classification of peoples as pure and common, the contrast of
blemished to unblemished in the attributes of sacrificial victim, priest and
woman, create in the Bible an entirely consistent set of criteria and values
(Douglas 1973b: 139).
It is not simply the external boundary, but the entire internal structur-
ing of the people that is supported by these rules. To remove one
major prop of this cultural universe must cause the whole structure to
fall in ruins. Now of course, early Gentile Christianity was not a
moral and social chaos. It was a new community with its own struc-
tures, its own standards and its own boundary markers (cf. Meeks
1983). But to leave it at that would give a very misleading impression.
None of the structures, standards and boundary markers were minted
from virgin metal. To a very large extent they were carried over
from Judaism into the new community that was still able to conceive
of itself as Israel. A few reflections will be in order on the way in
which structures and ideas associated with purity in Judaism are used,
rejected or transformed in the construction of the new moral and
social universe.
To begin with, as has been argued by Fernando Belo (1981) and
William Countryman (1989), purity and impurity are not, as Mary
Douglas maintains (1973b: 138), the only 'dominant contrastive cate-
gories leading to holiness' in the Old Testament. One would not gather
from reading Deuteronomy or the prophets (other than Ezekiel) that
purity and impurity were the dominant categories. Righteousness and
wickedness would be much more like it. No Jew depended solely on
the notions of purity and impurity to understand the world. Belo
(1981: 37-59) has persuasively argued that there are in fact two
systems of contrastive categories in the Old Testament: what he calls
the 'system of pollution' dominant in P, and the 'system of debt' over-
whelmingly dominant in Deuteronomy, where the main categories are
gift (the form that blessing invariably takes in Deuteronomy) and
debt, Belo's preferred term for the sin of injustice that infringes the
rights of others. Countryman (1989), dealing with sexual ethics, and
apparently in independence of Belo, speaks of the ethics of purity and
of property. My own preference, like Countryman's, would be for
positive rather than negative terms, but 'property' is too narrow a
term; far better and undoubtedly central in the Old Testament both as
an ethical and a cosmological term (cf. Schmid 1974) is 'righteousness'
(sedeq, sedaqa), perhaps better translated 'justice' in relation to the
strictly ethical sphere. However important purity may seem to be in
Second Temple Judaism, particularly as a source of dissension within
the community, it is never the idiom in which all social discourse is
conducted; that much Douglas ought to have gathered from reading
Neusner 1973, to which her critique is appended. Destroy that system,
and there still remains the other; Atlas has yet a Hercules to sustain the
pillars of the world. Nevertheless a world sustained by the rule of
justice looks a very different place from one sustained by the purity
rule. This is part of Douglas's argument in Natural Symbols. For the
individual, the weight of responsibility tends to move, from a
structure that prescribes behaviour according to understood and
invariant rules, to his or her own personal moral decision. Now this
can easily be exemplified from the passages that declare the annulment
of dietary purity. If we return to Mk 7.15ff. with its authorial
interpretation, 'thus he declared all foods clean', we find that it sets
against the annulled system of purity in food a different kind of
purity: it is 'what comes from within, from the heart' that really
defiles. And as Belo puts it, the evils that 'really' pollute one 'belong
to the debt system (theft, murder, adultery, and avarice; the others are
variants that can be easily inscribed in these four), a fact already

indicated by the seat assigned to them, namely the heart' (1981: 143);
for the heart is 'the site of the strategic choices that...give rise to
practices (good or evil)' (1981: 144). And 'purity of heart' is a meta-
phor; this is rightly emphasized by Countryman (1989: 86). We tend
to assume that 'purity' of heart is real purity, and physical purity only
a symbol of this. But the essential meaning of purity and impurity
relates to what physically passes the boundaries of the body, while
'purity of heart' relates to the moral choices of the individual within
what Belo calls the debt system and I prefer to call the justice system.
That physical purity may be understood as symbolic does not mean, as
Mary Douglas emphasizes (1973b: 138), that it is a metaphor for
goodness. Nevertheless this metaphorical understanding of purity is
already a cliche at the time of Jesus; it is a commonplace in the Old
Testament itself (Neusner 1973: 12ff.), and is the dominant under-
standing in Philo (Neusner 1973: 44ff.). It was also a commonplace,
as Neusner shows (1973: 76ff.) to criticize opponents on the ground
that they neglected 'true' moral purity in the pursuit of physical
purity. The vital difference in the New Testament is that Philo (for
example), while interpreting the purity laws as an allegory of virtue,
keeps them literally because they are commanded, while Mark (at
least) regards them as annulled. Thus in Philo purity continues as a
symbolic system as well as a metaphor (which it had always been),
while in Mark, and the New Testament generally, the metaphorical
understanding of purity replaces the symbolic. As memory of the
metaphor's vehicle faded, we may say that it ceased to be understood
as a metaphor, as is true today.
Similarly with Paul. When in Rom. 14.14 he implies a systematic
rejection of the entire category of purity, he does not leave the
individual without a basis for action, but substitutes the basis of con-
sideration for others; that is, he relies on the individual's moral
responsibility. It is true that purity themes are frequent in Paul's
language. They are exploited by Michael Newton (1985: 52-53), who
argues that purity is vital to Paul's understanding of the church, which
he sees as the temple whose holiness must be preserved. Countryman
is clearly justified, however, in his comment (1989: 98 n. 2) that
Newton has failed to distinguish between purity in its physical and its
metaphorical sense. In fact practically all the uses of purity language
in Paul that Newton discusses are metaphorical; they are concerned
with morality. And when Paul argues that the Law is not binding on
his Gentile converts, of course he does not mean that they are not
bound by the moral requirements of the law, that is, primarily those
that are inscribed in the system of property/debt/justice.
Secondly, the general expression 'purity' conceals distinctions that I
have been at pains to make throughout this study (cf. Chapter 2,
§l.c.6; Chapter 6, §§2.c, 2.d). I have distinguished between on the one
hand those aspects of purity associated with the dietary rules by
Lev. 11.24-40, that is, purifiable bodily impurity generally suffered
unintentionally or necessarily, the subject matter of Leviticus 12-15
and Numbers 19, and on the other hand 'impurity related to holiness',
in which Lev. 11.41-44 includes the dietary code, and the Holiness
Code the laws against idolatry and sexual immorality. These are
concerned with deliberate offences that cannot be purified. But that
does not mean that 'impurity' is here simply being used in the meta-
phorical sense of moral wrongdoing, for we are here concerned with
offences that for the most part do not form part of the justice system.
Eating unclean meat, partaking in sacrificial meals in honour of pagan
gods, and committing incest do not infringe the rights of others, but
are symbolic ways of denying the consecration of the people of Israel
to their God, and each is a violation of a prescribed boundary that is
basic to the structure of the community. But there are distinctions to
be made even within this group. As we have noted in connection with
the so-called Apostolic Decree of Acts 15, the law of unclean meat
applies only to Israel as a people, but most of the other laws apply
both to Israelites and to genm; they are derived from the Holiness
Code, which is concerned with the Land as a sacred space comparable
to the Temple (Lev. 18.25ff.).
Now a study of key passages with these distinctions in mind reveals
important differences. In the first place, no part of the New Testament
shows much interest in the first type of impurity. In the Synoptic
Gospels the leprosy rules are alluded to without comment (Mk 1.44
and parallels), and Luke in a similar fashion makes Mary bring the
offering for her purification from childbirth, without criticism. But
all this is purely on the level of narrative, so it is not possible to say,
for example, with Countryman (1989: 87), 'Mark does not reject all
observance of the purity code by Christians'. In general these rules
were of significance only in relation to the sanctuary, and would be of
little interest in the diaspora. Their disappearance therefore neither
deepened the breach between Jews and Christians nor threatened the
social structure of the emerging Christian community, which repeat-
edly refers to itself as the temple of God.
The treatment of turn'at qodel is far more important and more
interesting. The rejection of the law of forbidden flesh carried with it
a potential inconsistency, which may well account for much of the
growing bitterness between church and synagogue. As we have seen, it
had a vertical as well as a horizontal dimension; before it symbolizes
the separation between Israel and the nations, it symbolizes the con-
secration of Israel to their one God. It is because of its horizontal
dimension that it has to be rejected—but what then becomes of the
vertical? But since the symbolism of holiness reappears in the Holiness
Code in a form that includes Gentiles as sharers in a sacred space with
Israel, the possibility remained of using those laws as markers of the
purity and boundaries of the new comunity. And to some extent this is
actually what we find, certainly in the Apostolic Decree, which has a
logic intelligible in terms of an Old Testament understanding of purity.
As the terms in which that decree is couched already make clear,
the main forms in which this issue will confront the Gentile church
are 'meat sacrificed to idols' andporneia, that is, sexual immorality of
any kind.1 The discussion of the first in 1 Corinthians 8-10 is complex
and at times seemingly contradictory. There is a helpful treatment in
Meeks 1983: 97-100. What seems to come out of it is that Paul is
unwilling to allow the 'strong' to treat the matter in absolutely the
same terms as he himself treats unclean meat in Rom. 14.14. 'Nothing
is impure of itself, but he draws back in the end, despite his initial
assertion in 8.4, from saying that 'an idol is nothing'. To partake in a
cultic meal in a pagan context is to share your meal with demons
(10.19ff.). However, the final advice does largely depend on the
subjective aspect; you may eat meat from the meat-market without
worrying about whether it has been sacrificed, and eat as a guest of a
pagan without asking questions, but if someone draws attention to the
cultic character of the meal, you should not eat, to avoid giving the
impression that you do in fact 'eat with demons'. The alternative
approach in Rev. 2.20 simply rejecting, like Acts 15, the eating of
such meat, should also be noted; that verse clearly shows that it
1. The eating of blood does not emerge as an issue, probably because, as Sanders
observes (1990: 278-79), Greeks used the same slaughtering technique as Jews, so
that meat sold in the Greek world would normally be free of blood in any case.
continued to be a matter of dissension in the church at least up to the

end of the century.
If on this issue the New Testament speaks with a somewhat ambigu-
ous voice, so that it is unclear whether it could function as a clear
purity rule, actual worship at pagan shrines is absolutely excluded,
and becomes in the relations of the Church to state and society over
the next few centuries the one great boundary-marker for the sake of
which men and women give their lives as gladly as Eleazar did for the
dietary law.
When it comes to sex, the issue is relatively clear, despite
Countryman's quixotic attempt (1989: 97-98) to prove that Paul
rejects all purity rules in relation to this as to all other subjects. The
laws and ethical perceptions in Judaism about sex were rooted in
cultural features that were seen (for the most part rightly) to be
common to all humankind, and they were therefore held by Jews to
apply to all human beings, whether gerim or not. Even if such per-
ceptions did in fact divide Jews from Greeks, they did so, in the
Jewish view, because of pagan corruption, not because the rules in
question were designed to make Jews distinctive. It is naturally to be
expected that they should appear in the New Testament, for though
purity-based they are inevitably seen as moral rather than 'ritual'
rules. Their focus, the family, continued to be important, despite
radical assertions like Mk 3.34-35 or Matt. 10.27/Lk. 14.26; and it
would therefore be understandable if it continued to be set about with
the fence of purity. So at 1 Cor. 6.12-14 Paul draws a sharp distinc-
tion between the way food and sex should be understood ethically (cf.
Countryman 1989:104).
But Countryman consistently argues that the New Testament (Paul
in particular) does not retain purity thinking in the realm of sex.
Whenever Paul speaks of some sexual practice as unclean and wrong,
Countryman uses a range of arguments to prove one of three points:
that it is not unclean (i.e. for Paul the objection lies in the 'property'
system), that it is not sexual (he consistently interprets porneia in lists
of vices as a reference to idolatry, though there is generally nothing in
the context to suggest it), or that it is not wrong—this last is how he
treats homosexuality in Romans 1.
This argument fails. It is a very odd reading of Rom. 1.24-27, with
its strongly pejorative language, to say that Paul is not condemning
homosexual activity; and a more general view of what Paul says about
sex shows that he frequently uses purity language about sexual conduct
of which he disapproves. He retains the traditional Jewish abhorrence
of those sexual practices that are condemned in purity terms in the
Law: incest (1 Cor. 5.1) as well as homosexual conduct, and also the
use of prostitutes (1 Cor. 6.12-20), which is not referred to in those
terms in the Old Testament itself, but which in later Jewish thinking is
generally tarred with the same brush. In the Pauline writings the term
akatharsia, 'uncleanness', is used several times in close connection
viiihporneia 'fornication': 2 Cor. 12.20-21; Gal. 5.19-21; Eph. 5.3;
Col. 3.5. It seems doubtful whether in these cases Countryman can be
right in saying that 'uncleanness' is a very general term for immoral,
selfish conduct, and not a reference to the purity system. It is
especially significant that the term 'sanctification' is used three times
in 1 Thess. 4.3-8 in the discussion of this issue, and that Paul calls the
body a temple in 1 Cor. 6.19 in discussing the use of prostitutes. This
is a classic expression of purity thinking. Am I the only reader of that
passage to have been puzzled in the past by the apparent illogicality of
the argument? 'Shall I take the members of Christ and make them
members of a harlot?' If it is a matter of whom Christians belong to
(as Countryman thinks), the argument should rule out sex with anyone
at all. There is of course a suppressed premise: being joined to a
harlot in itself defiles the sanctity of the members of Christ and pol-
lutes the temple of the Holy Spirit, as married intercourse would not.
It is therefore clear that the rules structuring the relations of the
sexes are seen by Paul in much the same light as in Judaism. Certain
forms of conduct are wrong in themselves, regardless of whether they
infringe the rights of others, and they are at the same time threats to
the holiness of the body of Christ. Therefore they may be understood
as breaches of purity. These are rules by which all people ought
to live, but because those outside the holy community do not
(Lev. 18.24; 1 Thess. 4:5), they define and protect its holiness. This
is true even though Meeks (1983: 101) is correct in saying that 'sexual
purity' in Paul 'is defined mostly in terms of values that are widely
affirmed by the larger society'. It is a widespread habit to assure the
identity of one's own community by attributing condemned practices
to others (Oden 1987: 133ff.). But it is clear that sexual purity in Paul
is an ethical principle; it has nothing to do with automatic bodily
pollutions, but is concerned exclusively with deliberate acts, acts for
which the conscience may bring one to account.1
What then remains of purity as a category in the moral world of
New Testament Christianity? First, purity language in the New
Testament is predominantly metaphorical, and points rather to the
system of justice than to that of purity in its literal sense. Secondly,
the entire system of purities in its technical sense as an understanding
of bodily processes disappears. Wherever literal purity survives it is
an ethical principle and never refers to involuntary processes. But as
regards 'purity that relates to holiness', the answer is less clear-cut.
The compromise that, if we are to believe Acts, the Jerusalem church
attempted to impose, whereby Gentile Christians could be conceived
in the same light as strangers within the community of Israel, sharing
in a limited degree of purity in order to inhabit the same sacred space,
did not last; it is not referred to by Paul, whose own solutions are
more radical. For purity considerations in relation to issues of
'unclean' food and food sacrificed to idols, he substitutes consideration
for the conscience of others; in these fields purity has for him no
longer any objective reality: 'there is nothing unclean of itself.
However, in relation to deliberate sexual conduct, this principle does
not apparently apply. In this respect, and this respect only, purity and
impurity as 'contrastive categories leading to holiness' are retained.
To use the vocabulary of Natural Symbols, Paul is at a level of
'grid' well below the priestly writers of Leviticus 15, or of Leviticus
11. He cannot objectify the dangers that threaten the Christian society
in terms of a symbolic system of external impurity, because the struc-
ture of that society is not a traditional objective system that determines
roles by ascription (Eilberg-Schwartz 1990: 204-205); rather, that
society is held together by a personal bond to the Lord, and by moral
appeal to the members. Hence the impurities that threaten it derive
from the moral choices of individuals. And to the moral understand-
ing of purity and impurity corresponds a moral understanding of
purification and sacrifice: it is Christ 'who was obedient even to the
point of death' (Phil. 2.8), who is the means of expiating sin; his death
is understood as a voluntary act of obedience, which stands in implicit
contrast with the unsought death of sacrificial animals. The dietary
system, as we have seen, is closely related to the sacrificial system.
Transform the one, and the other is bound to be transformed as the
1. For discussion of purity as an ethical system, see Countryman 1989: 1 Iff.

community's structure of thought seeks consistency.

But it is important to note also that Paul is at a level of 'grid' well
above his converts, at least in Corinth. He has to struggle not merely
against their natural inclinations to self-indulgence, but against an
antinomian ideology: 'I am free to do anything' (1 Cor. 6.12; 10.23)
appears to be their slogan; it is scarcely Paul's. They have the freedom
of the Spirit, and may be led either to asceticism (7.1) or libertinism
(6.12). What these seemingly contrary attitudes have in common is a
contempt for the body—for their physical bodies as an expression of
the body social, or in theological terms as the temple of the Holy
Spirit (3.16)—and for the social body as expressed in such a basic
institution as marriage. This appears to come out also in their denial
of the resurrection (15.12). Along with this devaluation of the body
goes the high value set on the Spirit, on the gifts of the Spirit and
above all on glossolalia. The mode of worship that they favour is
informal, unstructured (14.26), even undisciplined; apparently two or
more prophets might speak at the same time (14.27ff.); the favoured
forms of expression involve immediate inspiration and bodily dissocia-
tion, and (as Paul sees it) they aim at individual rather than social
edification (14.4). For them the rejection of boundaries and structures
implied in the rejection of the distinction of clean and unclean foods is
total, as it is not for Paul. He has to urge them to take their bodily and
social life seriously, and to make their taking of bread and wine a
symbol both of the Lord's bodily death and of their own unity as a
body. To fail to 'discern the body' is death to them (11.29-30).
Mary Douglas suggests in Natural Symbols (1973a: 99ff.) that
varying levels of bodily control in ritual correspond to the degree of
social control and structure. Extremely unstructured forms of ritual,
and especially a high valuation of forms such as trance and glossolalia,
occur where social structure is loose, roles unascribed and groups not
sharply bounded. She notes that this is clearly true of the Pentecostalists
of Caribbean origin in London studied by Malcolm Calley (1965). It
is also obviously true of the Corinthian church. In place of any detailed
study here I refer to Meeks 1983.
Further, according to Douglas, this style of interaction and this con-
tempt for ritual and symbol is seen (1973a: 18Iff.) as characterizing
the revolt of those who feel themselves excluded within impersonal
mass societies, which leads to millenarianism and utopianism. For
the public symbolic system which has been set up by social intercourse
puts its controlling stamp on individual perception and restricts under-
standing to the possibilities admitted in its own construction of the
universe (p. 182).
The Corinthian church could reasonably be described as millenarian,
for they had accepted a gospel that proclaimed the early coming of the
Lord in power. And it is also reasonable to suppose that their mem-
bers experienced life as controlled by remote and invisible powers.
Power and privilege in the large cities of the Roman world was in the
hands of small self-perpetuating elites, and the rest of the population
tended to be a melting pot of individuals and groups of very diverse
origins, with no shared symbolic system. In the ranks of the church at
Corinth there were 'not many wise according to the flesh, not many
powerful, not many well-born' (1.26); although Meeks suggests
(1983: 51ff.) that there were many people of moderate wealth and of
upward social mobility, he also observes that people of inconsistent
social status are prominent, high on some measures and low on others.
These are the very people who are most likely to experience sharply
their exclusion from real power within the broader community. The
victims of this system react as Douglas predicts they will react: by
expressing themselves in 'inarticulate, undifferentiated symbols'
(p. 183).
They are therefore receptive to a movement that though arising out
of a culture highly structured both socially and symbolically has dras-
tically simplified the symbolism in its message. It is by no means
sufficient that it has abandoned those symbols that underlined the
external boundaries of the group. That was essential, but also required
was the simplification of the purity system as a whole, which also
occurred, as we have seen. The early missionaries to the Gentiles
offered the urban masses Gospel without Law, which for our purposes
means monotheism without purity.
3. Origins
But how were they able to do this? How were they able to separate the
vertical from the horizontal dimension of significance in the food law?
How could a Jew like Paul perform the act of symbolic dissociation
which enabled him to say 'there is nothing unclean in itself?—or, to
put it in another way, how was it that alone among Jewish sects
Christianity was able to cross the divide to the Gentiles without
demanding that they become Jews?
It is not really plausible to regard it as some kind of accident, a
position into which devout Jews were betrayed by the practical
exigencies of their situation, though this is the impression given by
some accounts—that initially the Gentiles were simply invited to join
the Church without becoming proselytes, and therefore not being
committed to the observance of the Law; this in no way affected the
position and practice of Jewish Christians, who continued to be obser-
vant Jews. But once Gentiles had become members of the community
it was necessary to eat with them, and hence Jewish Christians like
Peter found themselves in practice ignoring some of the requirements
of kosher diet for the sake of fellowship. Paul then made a principle
out of what had been a practical step. That account may describe what
happened in an external sense, but it overlooks the meaning of what
was going on. The first step was the decisive one: to invite non-Jews
into the messianic community and to let them remain non-Jews. This
instantly relativized the boundary marked by the food law, and at once
evacuated that law of meaning—in the horizontal dimension certainly,
but also in the vertical, since all were worshippers of the one God in
any case. In congregations formed in this way, it would have been
plain from the start that uncleanness was a matter simply of individual
sensibility and had no collective meaning (except where it had the
character of an ethical principle), which is precisely what Paul says in
Rom. 14.14. The life and reality of any purity system lies in the con-
viction of its objectivity; if pollution is seen as something subjective, it
is not pollution at all. The Jewish Christians who took that first step
were already convinced of the unreality of pollution.
Can this conviction be traced to their founder? To revert to Mark 7,
it would nowadays be widely agreed that even if the saying in v. 15,
elaborated in 18-23, is correctly attributed to Jesus, Jesus himself
cannot have meant by it what Mark takes him to mean. The pericope
is the subject of a detailed monograph by Roger P. Booth (1986), and
has recently been investigated by Lindars (1988) and by Dunn (1990:
37-60). All agree (Dunn 51; Booth 70-71, 219; Lindars 65-66; cf.
Malina 1981: 144; Sanders 1990: 28) that the saying can and, as a
saying of Jesus, should be understood not as a denial of the validity of
the purity laws but as a statement of their relative subordination to the
demand for purity of the heart—and this we have seen was a
commonplace. There are of course a large number of earlier writers

who assert the contrary. But the fact that table-fellowship was without
question an issue in the Gentile mission (Gal. 2.1 Iff.; cf. Dunn 1990:
39; Sanders 1985: 268; Lindars 1988: 66ff.) strongly suggests that the
first Christians had not understood Jesus as subverting the purity laws,
and that these first became an issue when Gentiles began to enter the
congregations. Wenham notes (1981: 12) that the evangelist does not
attribute the conclusion to Jesus, and comments that 'this is of a piece
with the synoptic writers' presentation of Jesus' mission as a mission
to the Jews rather than to the Gentiles'.
But though Jesus cannot be seen as originating the abandonment of
the dietary and other purity laws, there were certainly features of the
movement that he created that are radical enough to make its evolu-
tion into a purity-free Gentile mission intelligible. In the first place it
was of course a 'millenarian' movement, if that is the appropriate
word, looking for an early end to the present world order and its
authorities, the coming of the Kingdom of God, the restoration of
Israel under the Messiah and probably with a new temple (cf. Sanders
1985: 61-62). These ideas it shared with many other movements in the
Judaism of its time. But 'the one distinctive note which we may be
certain marked Jesus' teaching about the kingdom is that it would
include the "sinners'" (1985: 174). Now Sanders argues (1985: 177ff.)
that this term 'sinners' should not be understood, as so frequently, as
the impure or those who sat light to the ritual demands of the Law,
but as the wicked, who have committed serious sins (such as fraud and
oppression, in the case of the tax-collectors)1 and who are therefore
religiously unacceptable without repentance and restitution. Against
this, Dunn argues (1990: 61-88) that the designation 'sinners' is
characteristic of the sectarian denigration of those seen as inadequately
observant. In either case, they are not ideal models of observance for
a community that defines belonging by 'works of the law'; yet Jesus
included them in his fellowship preparing for the Kingdom. Above
all, the movement venerated a Lord who had been rejected by the com-
munity's leaders and executed as a criminal. Even though it shared the
general community's expectation and worship and symbolic systems, it
was marginal to its structure and had its own distinctive symbols.
1. Violations in the debt system, to use Belo's terminology; yet Belo himself,
despite translating auapKoXoi as 'debtors', fails to draw the same conclusion (1981:
109-10).
Thus even though we cannot be certain how much of the distinctive

Christian theology already existed in early Jewish Christianity, that is,
how far the Christian symbols had begun to displace the Jewish ones,
we can say that the Christian movement was a movement of those
marginal to the community, those whom it had in various ways failed
to integrate within its structures, and who were expecting a radical
transformation of those structures in the near future.
It was, consequently, a movement putting a high value on what
Victor Turner (1969: 96ff.) calls 'communitas', that is, a model of
society opposed to the structured and differentiated system of normal
social life, seeing it as an unstructured community of equal individuals
who are directly related to each other as persons rather than in terms
of their status—as brothers, in other words. Such a model of society is
manifested regularly, Turner shows, in the liminal stage of rites of
passage, where all those who are shortly to acquire higher status are
reduced to the level of the lowest. It also is evidenced in a paradoxical
form (pp. 177ff.) in annual rites (such as the Roman Saturnalia, to
take an example better known than most of Turner's) where the status
of the participants is reversed in relation to each other, and the mas-
ters serve the slaves. Turner suggests that both phenomena can be seen
in permanent religious and other movements. There are those like the
Franciscan order (pp. 141ff.), or many millenarian movements, in
which the group sets itself against all status and all personal property—
which if Acts is to be trusted is what happened in the early Jerusalem
church. There are on the other hand some modern movements arising
from among the disadvantaged that have very elaborate hierarchies
(pp. 189ff.); this is true of many of the African independent churches,
and also of a group like the Hell's Angels. Turner calls these 'pseudo
hierarchies', because they are not related to real functioning social
structure, but have a ' "play-acting", fantastical quality'; nonetheless he
is careful to point out that they may come to have real function as
circumstances change (p. 192); and he regards them as taking the
place of an actual exchange of statuses within a 'liminal-religious'
group of equally-ranked individuals usually of inferior status within
the wider society. Would it be too rash to see the Twelve as such a
pseudo hierarchy?1 The two types of movement are quite distinct in
1. Although they may have expected to 'sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve
tribes of Israel' (Matt. 19.28), no one has been able to suggest what their function in
the currently existing Jerusalem church was, and in fact when Paul describes his suc-
Turner's discussion, but the early Church seems to have been

sufficiently diverse to have included groups of both types.
Millenarian, apocalyptic ideology or theology is characteristic of
both (153-54, 189ff.), and this was also true of the early church;
'social structure is intimately connected with history, because it is the
way a group maintains its form over time', therefore structureless
groups expect the end of history shortly. However, it surely cannot
always be certain which is cause and which effect; in the case of
movements arising within Judaism, where there had been a long
apocalyptic tradition, the apocalyptic expectation may well be the basis
of the abandonment of structure.1 The group only awaits the reversals
of the end-time which will truly fulfil the ideal of communitas.
Turner does not deal with the fate of purity systems in groups
embodying communitas as a normative aim, but everything would
suggest that they would be downgraded. In so far as symbolic systems
represent social structure and boundaries, they will naturally fade in
significance in a situation where people have turned their backs on the
official social structure to find reality in their own relatively unstruc-
tured group. It is apparent that Turner is looking from another point
of view at some of the phenomena dealt with in Douglas's Natural
Symbols, and she finds that loose social structure is associated with a
lack of richness in bodily symbolism and ritual. Moreover, as we have
seen, Christians for whom the priestly symbolic system had ceased to
be meaningful still had a rich biblical tradition to fall back on, with its
own symbolic order, including a powerful representation of the ideal
of communitas in the book of Deuteronomy and elsewhere.
The ideal limits of communitas are set only by the limits of the
human race; and there is a biblical theme of the gathering of the
nations to worship the God of Israel in the last days (Isa. 2.2-4; 66.18;
Zech. 14.16ff., etc.; cf. Jeremias 1958; Sanders 1985: 212ff.). A group
that was drawn from 'the streets and lanes of the city' would be natu-
rally disposed to go out into the 'highways and hedges' to 'compel
cessive visits to Jerusalem in Gal. 1-2, he never mentions them; the 'pillars', that is,
the real leaders in the church, were James, Peter and John (2.9). Their institution
therefore seems likely to be more related to the apocalyptic expectation of the church
than to anything functional. (I believe this is what emerges from the discussion in
Sanders 1985:98ff., though Sanders's own conclusions are very vague.)
1. But not a sufficient basis; cf. the Qumran community, with its elaborate (and
real!) hierarchy.
them to come in', and the symbolic configuration that they had devel-
oped served to lessen the significance of the barriers to doing so set up
by the symbolic configuration of the wider society. Even before they
turned to the Gentiles, if they still observed the purity code as a
matter of routine, it no longer carried the main weight of their reli-
gious understanding; they may have had purity and monotheism, but
the link between them was corroded almost to breaking.
4. Profit and Loss

We may conclude by drawing up a profit-and-loss account of
Christianity's independent growth as a religion not acknowledging the
Torah, and specifically the law of unclean flesh, as binding upon it. No
one with any knowledge of Judaism would now speak of it in the
traditional Protestant fashion as 'legalist' in the sense of basing ulti-
mate salvation on obedience to a code. But Sanders's term 'covenantal
nomism' (1975: 422 and passim) seems accurate for at least the great
body of Judaism, which is based on a covenant between God and Israel
that includes God's gracious choice of Israel but on Israel's part calls
for the observance of a law, in which the ritual elements are as
significant as the moral; it is in no less than the whole way of life of a
people that they come to know their God. It is not legalist, but it is
legal; it is not exclusivist, but it is particularist. By contrast, the
Church in its origins is committed to the idea of its Gospel as universal,
meant for all humanity, to the equality of all humanity before God,
and to the relative character of all human institutions and cultures in
the face of the Lordship of Christ. It is clear that a symbolic system
necessarily bound to the life of a particular people and its culture, and
still more one that celebrated and guarded the uniqueness and sepa-
rateness of that people, would have been incompatible with this uni-
versal aim. Old Testament religion, monotheism guarded by purity,
had to lose the protection of the purity system, if its monotheism was
to become the universal religion that it ought logically to be.
Universal monotheism required something of quite a different charac-
ter as the way of salvation. Islam has the Qur'an and the five pillars.
Christianity has faith in Christ. To put it in theological terms, the
Torah's function in the divine dispensation was to create the people
out of whom Christ could come, 'born under the law' (Gal. 4.4); it
was 'our paidagogos to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified

by faith' (Gal. 3.24).
So much is obvious. But it also needs to be stressed that in the neces-
sary process of transformation something of value was lost. A price
was paid for the universal character of the Christian Gospel. I have
already spoken of the separation of the Christian Church from its
mother community as a tragedy, perhaps a tragic necessity, but a
tragedy none the less, which has led in the course of an evil history to
still more tragic consequences, for which the Church must bear most
of the blame. But there is more. 'He who would do good to others
must do it in Minute Particulars; General Good is the plea of the
Hypocrite and the Scoundrel.' Minute particulars are needed not just
for doing good, but for experiencing good and being good. I have said
that Jews know and honour God in their whole way of life, in every
minute particular of their existence. The food laws remind them every
time they take a meal of their election and call to holiness. Christians
have nothing really comparable. More, these laws are a means ever to
hand by which they may learn and exercise moral restraint in the use
of the animal creation—a lesson and an exercise that the Christian
world is only now laboriously learning, a praxis that it is slowly con-
structing from the ground up.
It is obvious that the New Testament is not sufficient as the basis of
a whole way of life; despite its length, roughly comparable with that
of the Torah, it is poor in minute particulars. Pure communitas is
evanescent, for the endurance of a community structures, customs,
symbolic systems are required. Christians must construct these for
themselves, partly by judicious use of the Old Testament as well as the
New, partly by the proper use of the cultures in which they find them-
selves. In the use of the Old Testament the Ten Commandments have
taken a prominent place, as have in a more informal way the prophets
and to a lesser extent the moral and 'judicial' parts of the Torah—the
system of 'debt'. The 'ceremonial' law or system of 'pollution' has
generally been regarded as superseded, though there is some double-
think here, since the fourth of the Ten Commandments is plainly a
ceremonial law. But taking this as broadly true, is it a good thing? I
would hope that if this study has achieved nothing else, it should have
demonstrated (in one minute particular) the utility of ritual; and to
demonstrate this I would take to be the use of the ritual law for
Christians. Once again, in a movement that aspires to universality no
particular rituals can be binding. But any enduring community must

express its self-understanding and its understanding of the cosmos in
some concrete, graspable way. Every particular Christian community
has its rituals, whether intentionally or not and whether it knows it or
not. A study of the Old Testament ritual law helps us to be conscious
of our own rituals and articulate about them. I might suggest that such
a study would be of value not only to Christians but also to humanists
concerned about the integrity of their culture.
The relation of Christianity to culture has been one of the many
things that have divided Christians, often in theory (cf. the classic
study by Richard Niebuhr [1951]) but certainly also in practice. The
universal availability of Christianity, its lack of distinctive rituals and
structures of its own, other than the bare outlines of the two sacra-
ments, has enabled it to establish itself in, and adapt itself to, societies
with every kind of culture—something impossible to Judaism, which
is felt as, and feels itself to be, a foreign body in every society where
it is established. Even Islam is a culturally coherent entity in a way
that Christianity (even 'Christendom') is not. Symbolic structures may
be adapted from the surrounding culture to serve Christian purposes,
or, still more frequently, Christians are simply allowed to continue to
use in their daily life the symbols and structures of their culture
without Christian content. Tension arises when Christians disagree
about particular customs that some feel are unchristian—examples
would be polygamy and female circumcision in Africa. Some customs
are certainly destructive and pernicious, including of course some that
have alwa'ys been accepted in the countries of Christendom; but the
more purely symbolic aspects of culture, it is evident from our study,
have no fixed meaning; they are forms whose contents are mutable
and may be baptized into Christ, if that is what is required. Yet the
'Christ against culture' response (Niebuhr 1951: 45ff.) may insist that
Christians may use only those forms that are specifically Christian. The
result, generally speaking, is a sectarian social formation with a bleakly
impoverished symbolic life—the culture of the Closed Brethren, or of
what in Douglas's terms (1973a: 136ff.) is 'small group' with its strong
outer boundary and constant search for scapegoats in the form of
witches (in Central Africa or in seventeenth-century New England) or
heretics. The opposite error is perhaps more widespread, in which a
universal church or a denomination is content with the formal assent
of its members and does too little to ensure that their lives express the
faith that they have accepted. It is clear that Judaism avoids both these
extremes, the former by the richness of its internal symbolic life, a
small section of which we have investigated in this book, the latter by
the strength of its external boundary, which is marked especially by
the rules we have been studying.
A third possibility is to develop a rich internal symbolic life, and to
believe in its objectivity and forget the relativity of all culture, includ-
ing religious culture, before the Gospel of Christ. This, crudely put, is
what has happened in Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Douglas, a Catholic
herself, values the traditional symbols of her religious culture, such as
Friday abstinence, and puts well the usefulness of these symbols in
establishing identity and enabling members to understand their lives at
a level deeper than moralistic sloganizing (1973a, especially pp. 59ff.).
This point is well taken, but perhaps she forgets the necessary commit-
ment of the Christian Church as such to the search for communitas
and universality. She also forgets the extent to which the advance of
education and mass culture enables people to think articulately about
their culture (cf. again Goody and Hallpike); symbols will always be
useful, but it is very unlikely that there will ever again be a time when
most people, as in the ancient world, believe in the objective reality of
impurity. And as I have said, that means there can never again be a
true purity system.
For my fellow-Christians the moral is this. Our inheritance is given,
and we do well to maintain the fundamental inheritance of the universal
Gospel. But wherever we find ourselves set, we need to develop that
inheritance in particular forms, appropriate to the setting, the people
and the local culture, that enable Christians, and those who become
Christians, not merely to believe their faith but to grasp it in vivid and
concrete ways, not merely to take moral decisions in its light but to
live it, without having to think about it, in the minute particulars of
their lives.
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INDEXES
INDEX OF REFERENCES
OLD TESTAMENT
Genesis 9.5 184, 255, 20.10 184, 186
1 49, 63, 64, 256 21.2 226, 227
254, 255, 9.7 104 21.2-11 227
257 9.10 255 21.13-14 226
1.6-9 33 9.11 255 21.29-32 184
1.20-21 105 9.16 255 22.28-29 184
1.20 104 9.17 255 22.29 184
1.24 33 17.12 184 22.30 53,60, 189,
1.24-25 33 24.4 99 242
1.25-26 104 24.10-61 210 23.17 227
1.26 108, 254 24.15 99 29.45 245
1.28 108, 254 29.9 210 34.19 184
1.29 184, 254 34.5 42
1.29-30 77, 114, 145 34.13 42 Leviticus
1.30 184, 254, 34.27 42 1-7 149, 233
255 43.32 59 1 208
6.7 33 1.3 148, 184
6.12 185, 255 Exodus 4 37, 208
6.17 255 1.7 104 4.3 208
6.20 33 2.16ff. 210 4.14 208
6.21 145, 147 6 25 4.28 208
7.2 182 7.8 32 4.32 208
7.2-3 145 8.13-14 34 5.2 28, 33
7.3 145 8.26 59 5.6 28
7.14 33 9.8 32 5.7 151
7.21 33 9.9 34 7.18 18
7.23 33 9.22 34 7.23-25 188
8.17 34 9.25 34 10.10-11 221
8.19 34 12.1 32 10.10 28
8.20 145, 146, 12.12 34 11-15 13, 28, 53
235 12.43 32 11 13, 15, 19,
9.2 255 13.2 184 20,26
9.3 77, 254, 256 13.13 184 11.1-23 114
9.4-6 257 19.14-15 248 ll.l-2a 32, 230
19.15 247 11.1 84
11.2-23 27 11.21 33, 49, 66, 11.44-45 28, 52, 76,
11.2-8 50 105 245, 248
11.25-23 26, 34, 56, 11.22 29,48 11.46-47 56, 230
60, 63, 230, 11.23 48, 105 11.46 33, 34
240, 241 11.24ff. 52 12-15 52, 268
11.2b-14 65 11.24-40 27, 230, 12.3 184
11.3-8 35 244, 268 12.4 245
11.3 36, 40, 1 15, 11.24-38 27 13.46 246
156 11.24-31 50 14.40 246
11.4-8 36, 39, 41, 11.24-28 52, 53, 246 14.45 246
43, 48, 96, 11.24 33, 50, 84 15 42
102, 104, 11.26-27 36,40 15.18 247
106, 232, 11.26 33, 36, 50. 15.24 53
234, 244 118 15.31 33, 53, 245
11.4-7 43.50 11.27 50, 97, 104 16 208
11.4-6 28, 36, 50 11.29-31 29, 97 17-26 248
11.4 36 11.29ff. 104, 107, 17 52,53, 187,
11.5-6 38 109 229
11.5 35 11.29-30 48, 54, 104 17.3-4 80, 187, 229
11.6 195 11.29 33, 35, 50, 17.4 187
11.8 41,43,50, 254 17.7 196, 224,
244 11.30 35 229
11. 8a 39 11.31-38 27 17.8 261
11.85 53 11.31 246 17.10-14 52
11.9ff. 199 11.32-38 246 17.10-11 187
11.9-12 40 11.36 49,56 17.10 261
11.9 33 11.39-40 27, 52, 60, 17.11 188
11.10-23 54 246 17.13 149
11.10 41,43, 104, 11.39 52 17.15-16 222
105 11.40 18,52,56 17.15 18,56,60-
11.11 40-43, 244 11.40a 53 62
11. lib 53 11.40b 52 17.16 63
11.12 43 11.41ff. 104, 105. 18 42, 59, 222,
11.13-23 33,43 244, 248 252
11.13-19 29, 193 11.41-45 27,54, 115, 18.19 53
11.13 195 230 18.22 189
11.15 195 11.41-44 268 18.24ff. 221
11.16 195 11.41-44a 33 18.24 271
11.16a 65 11.41-42 51,54,65, 18.25ff. 268
11.17 195 251 18.26 261
11.18 195 11.41 34 19 252
11.19 195 11.42 35 19.2 222, 248,
11.20ff. 43, 104, 108 11.42a 54 252
11.20-21 105, 108 11.43ff. 54 19.5-8 70
11.20 48, 50, 65 11.43-45 27,55 19.7 18
11.21-23 34 11.43 27 19.11-18 228
11.21-22 48 11.44ff. 238 20 13, 14, 76,
250
20.1-7 252 31.20-23 220 14.5 36, 196
20.7 222, 248 31.24 220 14.7-8 60, 102-104
20.10-21 252 35 226 14.7 64
20.13 59, 189 35.33-34 221 14.8 60
20.18 53 36 99, 222 14.10 43
20.24-26 24, 75, 76, 36.7b-10a 99 14.11 60,63
98, 146, 14.12-18 193
147, 242, Deuteronomy 14.13 195
248, 250, 2.25 256 14.19 62, 235
261 4.17-18 34,35 14.20 60,62
20.24 13 5.8 34 14.21 53, 56, 57,
20.25-26 13, 237, 238 5.12 225 225, 243
20.26 222, 248 5.14 184 14.21a 27, 60, 219
21 252 6-11 226 14.21b 63, 258
21.1-4 244 7 242 14.22-27 220
21.7-9 42 7.1-5 220 15 226
21.8 222, 252 7.6 225 15.2 226
21.11 244 7.17-26 220 15.3 226
21.13-15 42 7.25 59 15.7 226
21.14 99, 247 7.26 59 15.12ff. 227
21.15 222 11.25 256 15.12 226, 227
21.16-23 184, 237 12 59, 187, 229 15.19 220, 225
21.18-20 184 12.7 227 16.11 227
21-22 247 12.15-16 157, 229, 16.14 227
22.1-9 247 241 17.1 184
22.4 244 12.15 61, 149, 17.4 59
22.8 222 187, 229 17.20 226
22.9 222 12.16 187, 230 18.9 59
22.15 222 12.20ff. 187 18.12 59
22.17-25 184 12.20-25 157, 229 19 226
22.22-25 237 12.20 229 20.1 220
22.22-24 184 12.22 149, 229 20.4 220
22.27 184 12.23-25 187 20.5-15 220
22.32 222 12.24 230 20.13-15 220
25.25 226 12.26 225 20.14-18 98
26.22 184 12.31 58 20.16-18 220
27.26 220 13.6-11 226 20.18 59
27.30-33 220 13.15 59 20.19-20 220
17.15-16 222 14.2 56, 225 21.15-17 222
21.23 222 14.3-21 56 22.9 225
14.3-21a 241 22.10-14 242
Numbers 14.3 56, 59, 107, 23.10-15 18, 220, 225
8.16ff. 184 219, 240, 23.15 18, 225
19 52, 268 243 23.19 189
19.13 245 14.4-20 56, 57, 60, 24.4 42,63
19.20 245 63, 218, 24.8 56, 220
27.1-11 222 241, 243 24.14 226
31.19 220 14.4-8 35 25.16 59
26.13 225 18.19 240 56.10 158
26.15 225 21.19 189, 191 57.5-8 166
26.19 225 21.23 189 57.6 167
28.4 184 21.24 189 59.5-6 166
28.9 225 22.38 189, 191 65-66 73
28.9-10 226 65.3-5 165, 166,
28.18 184 2 Kings 251
28.49 193 5 52 65.3 166
28.50-57 184 6.25 140, 186 65.4 166, 167,
29.16 41 7.3ff. 52 251
32.51 225 8.13 189 66 73, 183
33.2 225 9.10 190 66.3 165-68
9.36 190 66.17 165-68,
Judges 10.15-16 173 237, 251
2.13 240 18.27 167 66.18 278
6.5 186 21.18 166
10.6 240 23 223 Jeremiah
13.7 146 23.4 240 7.18 214
23.6 214 9.10 196
1 Samuel 23.7 240 10.22 196
7.3-4 240 23.13 240 35.6-10 173
12.10 240 44.15 214
14.32-34 187 Isaiah 49.33 196
17.34-35 185 1.29 166 50.39 194-96
17.43 189 2.2-4 278 51.37 196
20.26 52 2.20 195
21.5 52 5.29 193 Ezekiel
21.6 247 11.1-9 255 4 18,71
24.15 189 13.21-22 194-96 4.12-15 220
31.10 240 13.21 195, 196 4.12 18
13.22 195, 196 8.7-13 73
2 Samuel 14.23 196 13.4 196
1.23 193 23.13 196 14.15 193
3.8 189 31.4 185 14.21 193
9.8 189 32.14 195 18 42
11.4 52, 209 34.11-15 194 22.26 221
16.9 189 34.11 45, 195, 196 34 18
17.8 193 34.13 195, 196 34.5 185
17.10 193 34.14 195, 196 34.8 185
34.15 195, 196 38.20 34
1 Kings 34.16 197
3 166 35.7 196 Hosea
5.3 188 40.11 185, 193 2.5 112
11.5 240 40.31 193 7.11 188
11.33 240 45.18-19 167 9.3 146
14.11 189, 193 53.7 185 11.11 188
15.13 214, 240 56.9-57.13 167 13.8 193
16.4 189 56.10-11 189
Amos 74.19 188 Song of Solomon
3.8 193 95.7 185 1.8 210
102.7 194, 195 2.14 188
Micah 5.2 188
1.8 194-96 Job
10.16 193 Ecclesiastes
Zechariah 21.33 167 9.4 189
2.14 45, 194-96 28.4 167
14.16ff. 278 30.1 158, 189 Lamentations
30.29 194-96 5.18 196
Psalms 38.39-39.30 185
7.3 193 40.30 116 Esther
10.9 193 3.8 14
17.12 193 Proverbs 14.17 14
23 185 8.7 59
49.13 34 11.22 191 Daniel
59.7 189 17.12 193 1.8 14
59.15 189 24.9 59 1.12 262
63.11 194 26.11 189
69.32 36 29.27 59 Nehemiah
72.9 196 13.16 116
74.14 196
APOCRYPHA
Judith Tobit 2 Maccabees

12.1-2 14 4.12 99 6.18-31 14
12.19 14 6.24 14
7.1-42 14
NEW TESTAMENT AND EARLY CHRISTIAN
Matthew Luke Romans

7.6 189, 190 14.26 270 1.24-27 270
10.27 270 15.16 89 14 15, 262, 263
15.26 189 14.2 262
19.28 277 John 14.14 262, 267,
23.24 51 19.41 166 269, 275
14.20 262
Mark Acts
1.44 268 10.9-16 14 / Corinthians
3.34-35 270 10.15 262 1.26 273
5.11 89 10.28 14 3.16 273
7.15ff. 226, 275 11.9 262 5.1 271
7.18-23 275 15 269 6.12-20 271
7.19 262 15.20 261 6.12-14 270
7.25-30 262 15.29 261 6.12 273
7.27 189 28.25-28 261 6.19 271
7.1 273 6.16 263 2 Peter
8-10 262, 269 2.22 189, 191
8.4 269 Ephesians
10.18 263 2.1 Iff. 263 Revelation
10.19ff. 269 2.15 264 2.20 269
10.23 273 2.20 264 7.7 263
11.29-30 273 5.3 271 22.15 189
14.26 273
14.27-28 273 Philippians Athanasius
15.12 273 2.8 272 Contra Gentes
3.2 189 23 214
2 Corinthians 3.3 263
12.20-21 271 3.4ff. 264 Deipnosophistae
3.95f.-96a 162
Galatians Colossians
1-2 278 3.5 271 Didache
2.9 278 1 Thessalonians 8.1 122
2.1 Iff. 276 4.3-8 271
2.15ff. 264 4.5 271 Eusebius
3.24 279 Prep. Ev.
4.4 279 / Peter 8.14.64 160
5.19-21 271 1.1 263
CLASSICAL AND HELLENISTIC WRITERS
Artemidorus Justinus Porphyry

Oneirocritica 19.1.10 159 De Abst.
1.8 160 1.14 157, 159
Lucian 2.11 153
Diodorus Siculus De Dea Syria 2.25 186
2.4.3 160 45 160 4.7 156
20.14.4-7 164 54 160 4.15 160
Johannes Lydus Sextus Empiricus
Herodian
De Mensibus Hypotyposes
1.6.22 157
4.65 162 3.223 160
Herodotus Pliny the Elder 3.225 159
2.47 156, 157 Hist. Nat.
2.77 214 29.14 159 Xenophon
Anabasis
Hygenus Plutarch 1.4.9 160
Fabulae De Iside et Osiride
197 160 8 156
OTHER ANCIENT SOURCES

Mishnah 71a 252 Balaam
Hul. 128b 51 1.10-11 195
3.6 46 1.10 195
3.7 40,49 Pseudo-Aristeas 1.11 195
8.6 188 Ep. Arist. Ugaritic Texts
146 46 CTA
Tosefta 4.2.29ff. 160
Hul. al-Nadim
3 (4).20-21 36 Fihrist KTU
3 (4).25 49 9.5.9 163 1.40.26 151
9.7 163 1.40.34 151
Babylonian Talmud 1.40.43 151
Seb. Semitic Inscriptions 1.106.30 151
3a CIS 1.119.10 160
7a 1.165 150 1.119.16 151
Hul. KAI UT
59a 36,38 69 150 62 152
61-65a 46 222.A33 194-96 67.V.9 152
62a 46, 195 1024.rev. 4 152
65a 46 1091.6 152
INDEX OF AUTHORS
Achtemeier, E. 165, 166 Cassuto, U. 146

Adjeman, Y. 140, 179, 180 Cauvin, J. 130
Aharoni, Y. Chan, K.-K. 68, 71, 72, 78
AhlstrOm, G.W. 137 Chaplin, R.E. 125, 127, 148
Albertz, R. 215 Chwolsohn, D. 154, 163
Albright, W.F. 69,72 Clark, W.M. 33, 34
Almagro-Gordea, M.J. 164 Clason, A.T. 180
Alter, R. 113,210 Clines, D.J.A. 247
Archer, L.J. 209 Clutton-Brock, J. 130, 140, 158, 179
Arhem, K. 204 Compagnoni, B. 141
Avigad, N. 167 Coon, C.S. 86, 170
Coote, R.B. 172, 174, 212
Baker, J.A. 255 Countryman, L.W. 100, 266-68, 270-
Barnett, R.D. 141 72
Bate, D.M.A. 179
Beauchamp, P. 254, 256 Dahood, M.J. 167
Belo, F. 100, 219, 220, 262, 265-67, Danby, H.
276 Darby, W.J. 90, 192
Bimson, J.J. Davis, S.J. 35, 130, 180
Blok, A. 208 Day, J. 163, 240, 254
Blome, F.I56 Delitzsch, F. 198
Boas, F. 17 Dever, W.G. 137
Boessneck, J. 128, 143, 180 Diener, P. 88, 90, 91, 170, 171
Booth, R.P. 275 Dillmann, A. 38, 44, 45, 49, 51, 146
Brentjes, B. 163 Dodge, B. 154
Brown, S. 164 DOller, J. 142, 159
Budd, P.J. 100 Donaldson, M. 99
Buitenhuis, H. 132, 178, 180 Donner, H. 153, 195, 196
Buhner, R. 102, 107, 108 Dothan, M. 158, 179
Burton, E.W. de 263 Douglas, M. 16, 20, 22, 27, 35, 39, 40,
42,50,51,65,68,72,78,83-85,
Callaway, J.A. 172 93-102, 106-14, 116, 117, 120-
Galley, M.J.C. 273 23, 181, 184, 190,203,209,211,
Campbell, J.K. 206, 207, 209 216, 217, 228, 237, 238, 242-44,
Caquot, A. 195 246, 247, 265-67, 273, 274, 278,
Carroll, M.P. 33, 34, 101, 104, 107, 281, 282
108, 113, 114 Driesch, A. von den 128, 143
Driver, G.R. 44, 45, 48 Haas, N 178
Driver, S.R. 61, 187, 197, 225 Hackett, J.A. 194, 195
Drori, I. 179 Hakker-Orion, D. 141, 178-80
Ducos, P. 130, 179, 180 Hallpike, C.R. 19, 22, 123, 282
Dunn, J.D.G. 260, 262, 264, 275, 276 Halpern, B. 215, 224
Durkheim, E. 21, 96 Halverson, J. 17, 183
Dussaud, R. 153 Hanson, P.D. 165, 166, 251
Haran, M. 47, 98, 115, 121, 218, 221
Eilberg-Schwartz, H. 16, 19, 63, 64, 83, Harris, M. 17,21,38,70,79,83-93,
184-86, 224, 264, 272 107, 108, 111, 139, 181,250
Eissfeldt, O. 164 Harrison, D.L. 35
Elliger, K. 26, 27, 33, 43, 48, 49, 62, Heider, G.C. 163, 164, 167
64, 219, 253 Helck, W. 192
Emery, W.B. 192 Hellwing, S. 135, 136, 140, 144, 178-
Emmerson, G.I. 80
Evans-Pritchard, E.E. 187, 205, 224 Helmer, D. 130
Hempel, C.G. 90
Fedele, F. 165 Hesse, B. 125, 127, 133, 170, 171, 175,
Feig, I. 180 180
Fevrier, J.G. 153 Hinde, H. 204
Finkelstein, I. 85, 134, 135, 137, 139, Hinde, S.L. 204
140, 147, 172, 174 Hirsch, S.R. 36,51,75
Firmage, E.B. .20,23,40,41,46-48, Hoftijzer, J. 194-96
50-53,60,61,63,65,66,6876, Holladay, J.S. 215, 216, 223, 240
77, 101, 104, 105, 108, 112, 114- Hope, E.R. 35, 61
21, 123, 147-93, 232, 233, 235, Hopkins, D.C. 175
256, 257 Homung, E. 35, 200
Fishbane, M. 28, 37 Horst, F. 57
Frank, K. .156 Horwitz, L.K. 35, 128, 136, 142-44,
Frazer, J.G. 204 146-49, 159, 170, 171, 178, 179
Frick, F.S. 173 Houston, W.J. 189, 220, 254
Fritz, V. 137, 143 HUbner, U. 126, 137, 143, 149, 152,
157, 163, 165, 176, 179, 180, 235
Garbini, G. 194, 195 Hulst, A.R. 255
Garrard, A.N. 130 Hunn, E. 35, 38, 39, 43, 61
Geertz, C. 22, 223 Hyginus 160
Gibson, J.C.L. 160
Goodman, L.E. 71, 74, 76 Irwin, W.H. 167
Goody, J. 19,282
Gophna, R. 130, 136, 139, 178 Jenson, P. 218, 221
Goppelt, L. 259 Jeremias, J. 278
Gordon, C.H.
Gorman, F.H. 121, 218, 246 Kaiser, O. 198
Gottwald, N.K. 93, 172-75, 211 Kaufmann, Y. 187, 219, 224, 229
Granqvist, H. 99 Keel, O. 63,258
Griffiths, J.G. 192, 193 Keesing, R.M. 90-93
Grosvenor Ellis, A. 179 Kempinski, A. 137
Gunkel, H. 146
Index of Authors 313
Kennedy, C.A. 164, 167, 168 Movers, F.C. 159
Kesby, J.D. 35, 200 Myhrman, D.W. 156
Knauf, E.A. 63, 187, 258 Nahmanides 69
KnoW, I. 248 Neusner, J. 260, 266, 267
Knudtzon, J.A. 189 Newberry, P.E. 193
KOhler, I. 141 Newton, M. 267
Kooij, G. van der 194 Nicholson, E.W 121, 219, 228
Kornfeld, W. 68,72,73 Niebuhr, H.R. .281
Nobis, G. 135, 144
LaBianca, 0.S. 128, 180
Lang, B. 112,224 Oden, R.A. 72, 99, 160, 214, 240, 271
Leach, E.R. 17, 22, 49. I l l , 183, 187, Oesterley, W.O.E. 72
201, 202, 250 Olyan, S.M. 240
Lemaire, A. 195
Lemche, N.P. 99, 112, 121, 172, 175, Paley, S.M. 168
211 Parker, R. 262
Lernau, H. 178,179 Parkes, P. 206, 209, 212
Levine, B. 36, 38, 68, 150, 182, 184, Paschcn, W. 41,42
187, 199, 235, 252 Patai, R. 170, 171
Lewis, T.J. 166, 167 Patillon, I. 159
Lexikon fiir Agyptologie Perlitt, L. 226, 228
Lindars, B. 262, 275, 276 Planhol, X. de 88, 160
Lipschitz, N. 130 Porath, Y. 158, 168
Lohfink, N. 254-57 Porter, J.R. 38, 50, 100, 223
Lohmeyer, E. 264
London, G. 172 Rabinowicz, H. 46
Rad, G. von 228
Macalister, R.A.S. 161 Radcliffe-Brown, A.R 201
Macht, D.I. 70 Ramban. See Nahmanides
Maimonides, M. 69, 71, 74, 75 Rashi (Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac) 36,
Malina, B.J. 100, 261, 275 40, 106
Mauss, M. 96 Rendtorff, R. 63
Mayes, A.D.H. 23, 24, 57, 59, 62 Robkin, E.E. 88, 90, 91, 170, 171
Mazar, A. 169 Rogerson, J.W. 78, 93, 111, 121, 137-
McCarter, P.K. 194, 195, 240 39, 254
McConville, J.G. 187 Rohr Sauer, A. von 161, 163
McNicoll, S. 179 ROllig, W. 153, 195, 196
Meadow, R.H. Roscoe, J. 204
Meeks, W.A. 262, 265, 269, 271, 273, Rosen, B. 128, 134
274 Rothenberg, B. 180
Merendino, R.P. 57, 60, 64 Rowton, M.B. 129, 139
Metzger, M. 180 Runciman, W.G. 23, 24
Milgrom, J. 27, 32, 36, 38-41, 43, 48-
50, 52, 53, 55, 61, 62, 63, 65, 76, Sadeh, M. 135
77,94, 101, 104, 117, 161, 184, Saggs, H.W.F. 155,213
218, 234, 237, 245, 248, 249, Sanlins, M. 17, 23, 79, 93, 112, 114,
251, 257, 258 203
Moran, W.L. 62 Salonen, A.I. 41, 156, 198
Sanders, E.P. 15,51,259,260,262, Ussishkin, D. 143, 167
264, 275, 276, 278, 279 Van Seters, J. 209
Schmid, H.H. 266 Vaux, R. de 72, 128, 150, 157, 161-63,
Schroer, S. 73, 214, 241 253
Segal, J.B. 154 Velde, H. te 192
Simoons, F.J. 68-70, 79, 81-83, 88, Vermeylen, J. 165
111, 140, 159, 160, 172, 173 Volz, P. 165
Skinner, J. 146, 198
Smith, G.A. 227 Wapnish, P. 87, 125, 133, 141, 179,
Smith, M.S. 121, 164, 167 180
Smith, Morton 224 Warmington, B.H. 164
Smith, W. Robertson 22, 68, 78, 80, 81, Weiler, D. 180
158, 163, 240 Weinfeld, M. 52, 60, 187, 190, 191,
Soler, J. 113 218-22, 225-28
Sperber, D. 103 Wellhausen, J. 229
Sprague, G.F. 89 Wenham, G.J. 50, 51, 72, 100, 184,
Stager, L.E. 159, 164, 165, 189 185, 262, 276
Steck, O.H. 165 Westermann, C. 145, 146, 254, 255
Stendebach, F.J. 73, 161 Whitelam, K.W. 172, 174, 212
Stolz, F. 215 Whybray, R.N. 166
Streck, M. 190 Wildberger, H. 195, 196, 198
Winter, U. 214, 240
Tambiah, S.J. Wiseman, D.J. 190
Tarragon, J.M. de 150, 151 Wolff, H.W. 147
Tchemov, E. 35, 128, 143, 159, 179, Woolley, C.L. 161
180 Wright, D.P. 27, 53, 77
Theissen, G. 262 Wuthnow, R. 95
Thompson, T.L. 173
Toplyn, M. 178 Xclla, P. 150-52, 160, 167
Torczyner, H. 189
Tosi, M. 141 Yerkes, R.K. 47
Tufhell, O. 135, 179 Young, G. 89
Turner, V.W. 22, 217, 239, 240, 277,
278 Zenger, E. 253-56
Twersky, I. 75 Zertal, A. 147
Ziegler, R. 180
Uerpmann, H.-P. 125, 128 Zimmerli, W. 73, 256
JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
Supplement Series
50 THE CHRONICLER'S HISTORY

Martin Noth
Translated by H.G.M. Williamson with an Introduction
51 DIVINE INITIATIVE AND HUMAN RESPONSE IN EZEKEEL
Paul Joyce
52 THE CONFLICT OF FAITH AND EXPERIENCE IN THE PSALMS :
A FORM-CRITICAL AND THEOLOGICAL STUDY
Craig C. Broyles
53 THE MAKING OF THE PENTATEUCH:
A METHODOLOGICAL STUDY
R.N. Whybray
54 FROM REPENTANCE TO REDEMPTION:
JEREMIAH'S THOUGHT IN TRANSITION
Jeremiah Unterman
55 THE ORIGIN TRADITION OF ANCIENT ISRAEL:
l . THE LITERARY FORMATION OF GENESIS AND EXODUS 1-23
T.L. Thompson
56 THE PURIFICATION OFFERING IN THE PRIESTLY LITERATURE:
ITS MEANING AND FUNCTION
N. Kiuchi
57 MOSES:
HEROIC MAN, MAN OF GOD
George W. Coats
58 THE LISTENING HEART:
ESSAYS IN WISDOM AND THE PSALMS
IN HONOR OF ROLAND E. MURPHY, O. CARM.
Edited by Kenneth G. Hoglund, Elizabeth F. Huwiler, Jonathan T. Glass
and Roger W. Lee
59 CREATIVE BIBLICAL EXEGESIS:
CHRISTIAN AND JEWISH HERMENEUTICS THROUGH THE CENTURIES
Edited by Benjamin Uffenheimer & Henning Graf Reventlow
60 HER PRICE is BEYOND RUBIES:
THE JEWISH WOMAN IN GRAECO-ROMAN PALESTINE
L6onie J. Archer
61 FROM CHAOS TO RESTORATION:
AN DSTTEGRATIVE READING OF ISAIAH 24-27
Dan G. Johnson
62 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND FOLKLORE STUDY
Patricia G. Kirkpatrick
63 SHILOH:
A BIBLICAL CITY IN TRADITION AND HISTORY
Donald G. Schley
64 To SEE AND NOT PERCEIVE:
ISAIAH 6.9-10 IN EARLY JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN INTERPRETATION
Craig A. Evans
65 THERE IS HOPE FOR A TREE: THE TREE AS METAPHOR IN ISAIAH
Kirsten Nielsen
66 SECRETS OF THE TIMES :
MYTH AND HISTORY IN BIBLICAL CHRONOLOGY
Jeremy Hughes
67 ASCRIBE TO THE LORD:
BIBLICAL AND OTHER STUDIES IN MEMORY OF PETER C. CRAIGIE
Edited by Lyle Eslinger & Glen Taylor
68 THE TRIUMPH OF IRONY IN THE BOOK OF JUDGES
Lillian R. Klein
69 ZEPHANIAH, A PROPHETIC DRAMA
Paul R. House
70 NARRATIVE ART IN THE BIBLE
Shimon Bar-Efrat
71 QOHELET AND HIS CONTRADICTIONS
Michael V. Fox
72 CIRCLE OF SOVEREIGNTY:
A STORY OF STORIES IN DANIEL 1-6
Danna Nolan Fewell
73 DAVID'S SOCIAL DRAMA:
A HOLOGRAM OF THE EARLY IRON AGE
James W. Flanagan
74 THE STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF BIBLICAL AND CANAANITE POETRY
Edited by Willem van der Meer & Johannes C. de Moor
75 DAVID IN LOVE AND WAR:
THE PURSUIT OF POWER IN 2 SAMUEL 10-12
Randall C. Bailey
76 GOD IS KING:
UNDERSTANDING AN ISRAELITE METAPHOR
Marc Zvi Brettler
77 EDOM AND THE EDOMITES
John R. Bartlett
78 SWALLOWING THE SCROLL:
TEXTUALITY AND THE DYNAMICS OF DISCOURSE
IN EZEKIEL'S PROPHECY
Ellen F. Davies
79 GIBEAH:
THE SEARCH FOR A BIBLICAL CITY
Patrick M. Arnold, S.J.
80 THE NATHAN NARRATIVES
Gwilym H. Jones
81 ANTI-COVENANT:
COUNTER-READING WOMEN'S LIVES IN THE HEBREW BIBLE
Edited by Mieke Bal
82 RHETORIC AND BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION
Dale Patrick & Allen Scult
83 THE EARTH AND THE WATERS IN GENESIS 1 AND 2:
A LINGUISTIC INVESTIGATION
David Toshio Tsumura
84 INTO THE HANDS OF THE LIVING GOD
Lyle Eslinger
85 FROM CARMEL TO HOREB:
ELIJAH IN CRISIS
Alan J. Hauser & Russell Gregory
86 THE SYNTAX OF THE VERB IN CLASSICAL HEBREW PROSE
Alviero Niccacci
Translated by W.G.E. Watson
87 THE BIBLE IN THREE DIMENSIONS :
ESSAYS IN CELEBRATION OF FORTY YEARS OF BIBLICAL STUDIES
IN THE UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD
Edited by David J.A. Clines, Stephen E. Fowl & Stanley E. Porter
88 THE PERSUASIVE APPEAL OF THE CHRONICLER:
A RHETORICAL ANALYSIS
Rodney K. Duke
89 THE PROBLEM OF THE PROCESS OF TRANSMISSION
IN THE PENTATEUCH
RolfRendtorff
Translated by John J. Scullion
90 BIBLICAL HEBREW IN TRANSITION:
THE LANGUAGE OF THE BOOK OF EZEKEL
Mark F. Rooker
91 THE IDEOLOGY OF RITUAL:
SPACE, TIME AND STATUS IN THE PRIESTLY THEOLOGY
Frank H. Gorman, Jr
92 ON HUMOUR AND THE COMIC IN THE HEBREW BIBLE
Edited by Yehuda T. Radday & Athalya Brenner
93 JOSHUA 24 AS POETIC NARRATIVE
William T. Koopmans
94 WHAT DOES EVE DO TO HELP? AND OTHER READERLY QUESTIONS
TO THE OLD TESTAMENT
David J.A. Clines
95 GOD SAVES:
LESSONS FROM THE ELISHA STORIES
Rick Dale Moore
96 ANNOUNCEMENTS OF PLOT IN GENESIS
Laurence A. Turner
97 THE UNITY OF THE TWELVE
Paul R. House
98 ANCIENT CONQUEST ACCOUNTS:
A STUDY IN ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN AND BIBLICAL HISTORY WRITING
K. Lawson Younger, Jr
99 WEALTH AND POVERTY IN THE BOOK OF PROVERBS
R.N. Whybray
100 A TRIBUTE TO GEZA VERMES:
ESSAYS ON JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN
LITERATURE AND HISTORY
Edited by Philip R. Davies & Richard T. White
101 THE CHRONICLER IN HIS AGE
Peter R. Ackroyd
102 THE PRAYERS OF DAVID (PSALMS 51-72):
STUDIES IN THE PSALTER, II
Michael Goulder
103 THE SOCIOLOGY OF POTTERY IN ANCIENT PALESTINE:
THE CERAMIC INDUSTRY AND THE DIFFUSION OF CERAMIC STYLE
IN THE BRONZE AND IRON AGES
Bryant G. Wood
104 PSALM STRUCTURES:
A STUDY OF PSALMS WITH REFRAINS
Paul R. Raabe
105 ESTABLISHING JUSTICE
Pietro Bovati
106 GRADED HOLINESS:
A KEY TO THE PRIESTLY CONCEPTION OF THE WORLD
Philip Jenson
107 THE ALIEN IN THE PENTATEUCH
Christiana van Houten
108 THE FORGING OF ISRAEL:
IRON TECHNOLOGY, SYMBOLISM AND TRADITION IN ANCIENT SOCIETY
Paula M. McNutt
109 SCRIBES AND SCHOOLS IN MONARCHIC JUDAH:
A Socio- ARCHAEOLOGICAL APPROACH
David Jamieson-Drake
110 THE CANAANTTES AND THEIR LAND:
THE TRADITION OF THE CANAANITES
Niels Peter Lemche
111 YAHWEH AND THE SUN:
THE BIBLICAL AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE
J. Glen Taylor
112 WISDOM IN REVOLT:
METAPHORICAL THEOLOGY IN THE BOOK OF JOB
Leo G. Perdue
113 PROPERTY AND THE FAMILY IN BIBLICAL LAW
Raymond Westbrook
114 A TRADITIONAL QUEST:
ESSAYS IN HONOUR OF Louis JACOBS
Edited by Dan Cohn-Sherbok
115 I HAVE BUILT You AN EXALTED HOUSE:
TEMPLE BUILDING IN THE BIBLE IN THE LIGHT OF MESOPOTAMIAN
AND NORTH- WEST SEMITIC WRITINGS
Victor Hurowitz
116 NARRATIVE AND NOVELLA IN SAMUEL:
STUDIES BY HUGO GRESSMANN AND OTHER SCHOLARS 1906-1923
Translated by David E. Orton
Edited by David M. Gunn
117 SECOND TEMPLE STUDIES:
1. PERSIAN PERIOD
Edited by Philip R. Davies
118 SEEING AND HEARING GOD WITH THE PSALMS:
THE PROPHETIC LITURGY FROM THE SECOND TEMPLE IN JERUSALEM
Raymond Jacques Tournay
Translated by J. Edward Crowley
119 TELLING QUEEN MICHAL'S STORY:
AN EXPERIMENT IN COMPARATIVE INTERPRETATION
Edited by David J.A. Clines & Tamara C. Eskenazi
120 THE REFORMING KINGS:
CULT AND SOCIETY IN FIRST TEMPLE JUDAH
Richard H. Lowery
121 KING SAUL IN THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF JUDAH
Diana Vikander Edelman
122 IMAGES OF EMPIRE
Edited by Loveday Alexander
123 JUDAHITE BURIAL PRACTICES AND BELIEFS ABOUT THE DEAD
Elizabeth Bloch-Smith
124 LAW AND IDEOLOGY IN MONARCHIC ISRAEL
Edited by Baruch Halpern and Deborah W. Hobson
125 PRIESTHOOD AND CULT IN ANCIENT ISRAEL
Edited by Gary A. Anderson and Saul M. Olyan
126 W.M.L.DE WETTE, FOUNDER OF MODERN BIBLICAL CRITICISM:
AN INTELLECTUAL BIOGRAPHY
John W. Rogerson
127 THE FABRIC OF HISTORY:
TEXT, ARTIFACT AND ISRAEL'S PAST
Edited by Diana Vikander Edelman
128 BIBLICAL SOUND AND SENSE:
POETIC SOUND PATTERNS IN PROVERBS 10-29
Thomas P. McCreesh, OP
129 THE ARAMAIC OF DANIEL IN THE LIGHT OF OLD ARAMAIC
Zdravko Stefanovic
130 STRUCTURE AND THE BOOK OF ZECHARIAH
Michael Buttenvorth
131 FORMS OF DEFORMITY:
A MOTIF-INDEX OF ABNORMALITIES, DEFORMITIES AND DISABILITIES
IN TRADITIONAL JEWISH LITERATURE
Lynn Holden
132 CONTEXTS FOR AMOS:
PROPHETIC POETICS IN LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVE
Mark Daniel Carroll R.
133 THE FORSAKEN FIRSTBORN:
A STUDY OF A RECURRENT MOTIF IN THE PATRIARCHAL NARRATIVES
R. Syren
135 ISRAEL IN EGYPT:
A READING OF EXODUS 1-2
G.F. Davies
136 A WALK THROUGH THE GARDEN:
BIBLICAL, ICONOGRAPHICAL AND LITERARY IMAGES OF EDEN
Edited by P. Morris and D. Sawyer
137 JUSTICE AND RIGHTEOUSNESS:
BIBLICAL THEMES AND THEIR INFLUENCE
Edited by H. Graf Reventlow & Y. Hoffman
138 TEXT AS PRETEXT:
ESSAYS IN HONOUR OF ROBERT DAVIDSON
Edited by R.P. Carroll
139 PSALM AND STORY:
INSET HYMNS IN HEBREW NARRATIVE
J.W. Watts
140 PURITY AND MONOTHEISM:
CLEAN AND UNCLEAN ANIMALS IN BIBLICAL LAW
Walter Houston

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Walter Houston Purity and Monotheism Clean and Unclean Animals in Biblical Law PDF

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JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

Copyright © 1993 Sheffield Academic Press

Published by JSOT Press

Typeset by Sheffield Academic Press

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

AASOR Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research

The same understanding is expressed in a small number of

2. What do we Have to Explain?

on which they may have been based.

conviction that the technical terms of unclean flesh are relevant by

C.R. Hallpike's magisterial examination of The Foundations of

1. Hallpike has a tendency to contrast 'primitive' thought over-rigidly with the

see a society as invariably being to some extent the prisoner of its

Although the 'etic/emic' distinction thus points to a significant

THE LAW OF UNCLEAN FLESH

The acknowledged source of the distinction between clean and unclean

1. Mary Douglas badly misinterprets them. See below, § 1 .c.6.

b. Translation and Structure

I. These are the living creatures* you may eat:

1. Or 'rock-badger' or 'daman' (Hyrax capensis).

1. It does not seem to be grammatically possible to read the Ketib vb in this

1. Verses l-2a. Verses 1, 2a integrate the chapter into the narrative

that disqualifies persons or things from participation in the cult (cf.

2. Verse 2b. Despite the punctuation of the MT and English versions

distinction is not operative here, where hayya is not parallel to

sentences, which define those of the behema that may be eaten by

1. It might be considered a point against my interpretation of nons no~isa in the

presentation had not been determined by this inaccurate observation

improbable explanation, because it could not be deduced from ordinary external

4. Verses 9-12. The sub-section (B) on water creatures is not so com-

1. Conventional literary criticism asigns these verses to a redactor on the

12. mergulus Sturzpelekan cormorant fisher-owl

1. Isa. 34.11; Zeph. 2.14. But see below, Chapter 5, §l.c.

assumption has some basis in the Mishnaic characterisation of the

This is a question of explanation which must be left to a later stage of

1. It is unsatisfactory to take rm as indicating here a separate classification from

1. However, my conclusion (Chapter 6, §2.d) will be against this.

8. Verses 46-47. The subscript (vv. 46-47), redactionally summa-

b. Translation and Structure

3. Verse 21. In v. 21 a we should note the changes made in the earlier

of charity to give it to someone not committed to Israel's religiously

1. Deut. 24.4 may be an exception.

course, the law in Deuteronomy owes nothing to the full form of

b. The Growth of the Text

After attempting this explanatory task, I shall eventually return to the

Trichinella spiralis, which may, if not killed by thorough cooking,

1. Spongiform encephalopathy is said to be an exception, but it is not yet even

1. This latter judgment must be qualified in the light of further archaeological

of what may associate an animal with the realm of death: predatory

Or, as L.E. Goodman expresses it in our own day:

In the case of the dietary laws, it would be expected that such an

intention could be achieved in detail only through their associations

But as we have seen, Maimonides does not attempt to demonstrate a

to'ebd and its essentially ethical meaning: 'what self-respecting people

system, drawing external analogies with similar systems; the material-

Neolithic, but decline in importance fairly rapidly thereafter, until in

in dietary customs, which he has discussed in his lively and frequently

2. Cultural Materialism and Leviticus. What then of Israel? For many

1. He rather misstates the position in Egypt and Mesopotamia, asserting the

of animal protein without interfering with their primary function'.

He is here content to argue that none of the restrictions were ecologi-

3. The Problem of the Pig. But has he in fact succeeded in doing so