Biblical Theology

Why does God hate shrimp?? (Understanding OT food laws)

Seriously...why does God hate porkchops or bacon-wrapped shrimp??

Can any food really be an "abomination"??

Why does the Bible say that bats are birds, when they are clearly mammals??

Why does the Bible teach that rabbits "chew the cud" when they are not ruminants and thus do not even have compartmentalized stomachs that produce cud to be chewed??

When Jesus and Paul declared that food was not "unclean", were they abolishing God's Word??

Christians don't follow OT dietary laws...so why do we care about following the other laws in the OT that we pick and choose to follow??

Why does God even care what people eat to begin with???

These are just a few of the questions people have when they first encounter the Biblical dietary laws of Leviticus 11 (and Deuteronomy 14). So it's important at the outset that we orient ourselves properly and understand these laws first in their original cultural context, and then through the lens of the later Prophets and ultimately through the Gospel of Israel's Messiah proclaimed in the New Testament...

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For further study on the food laws of the Old Testament see the following resources: