Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Lev 11,12/Mark 7:1-13
Tomorrow's Reading: Lev 13/Mark 7:14-37

Thanks for the post Kev-oh!

Welcome Trish (Friday posting)! Keep'm coming.

-------------------------------------------------
Just click 'comments' below to read more and/or add your thoughts...

2 comments:

Kevin said...

I think these chapters are pretty interesting. When God describes split hooved animals that chew their cud He's talking about herbivores. There is less risk of disease transmission from a food source by eating herbivores versus carnivores. Animals that eat other animals are at higher risk for being exposed to and transmitting disease. Consider Mad Cow disease. Cattle are exposed by being fed bone meal (Calcium and Phosphorus source) made from basically ground up sheep. Humans are exposed by eating cattle that have eaten contaminated sheep bone meal. God also considered birds of prey unclean. Again, they eat other animals and were deemed off limits. Fish that lack scales and fins (a catfish lacks scales, oysters and lobsters lack scales and fins) are bottom dwellers that scavenge and eat whatever happens to fall to the bottom of the pond,lake, river, etc. If any of the fish in the pond are going to be exposed to something guess which ones will be first.

God probably had other reasons too. These practices were also for the overall health of the nation of Israel.

C. Scott Baker said...

c'mon, Kev-oh!

Lev
NIV had some great notes about this as well. The recurring theme that we keep seeing is 'cleanliness – burnt/sin offerings and the details there, and now the food that Israelites ate. It was about the sanctity of Israel as God’s ‘holy people’. I think 11:29 was talking about some buddies of mine. V44, holiness too, is the common theme of Leviticus. ‘Israel was to be totally consecrated to God and was to be expressed in every aspect of ‘her life’.