Tool Beta

The Ancient World Behind the Text: Ideas

The customs, offices and ideas a first reader knew without being told, what each meant then, and the nearest thing you already know.

Clean and unclean food

The law of Moses sorted animals into clean and unclean, and keeping kosher marked Jews off from their neighbors. Strict Jews also avoided Gentile food, Gentile wine and Gentile tables.

Jewish life and lawClean and unclean

First, in plain English

She would starve before she ate pork, and so would everyone she grew up with. The law of Moses said which animals Israel could eat and which were unclean. Jews kept those rules even when they were lax about others, and some had died rather than break them. Strict Jews also kept away from food cooked by Gentiles and from their wine, so they did not eat at Gentile tables. That made Jews look standoffish to their neighbors, and it made a shared meal between a Jew and a Gentile a big step.

What it meant then

Even Palestinian Jews who were lax in other matters kept kosher, and in the time of the Maccabees Jews had preferred death to unclean food. Clean and unclean food followed the Old Testament (Leviticus 11; Deuteronomy 14). Some elite Diaspora Jews took the rules as only symbolic. Philo allegorized them while insisting they still be kept, but most Jews kept them literally. For a strict pietist, unclean creatures touching clean ones would make the clean unclean too. Wright explains that the food laws marked Jews off from their neighbors. They were backed by a ban on sharing a table with Gentiles, since the people you eat with are your family. It was considered unclean to eat Gentiles' food or drink their wine. This did not forbid all contact, but it kept Jews from dining with Gentiles at banquets. It also made much of the Roman world think them antisocial. Jubilees 22:16 forbids eating with Gentiles as evil company, and lodging Gentiles overnight broke strict piety. Many Diaspora Jews were less strict than Judeans. Respectable Jews in Judea and Galilee kept away from Gentile tables. The CSB Study Bible notes that Peter's lifelong obedience to Leviticus 11 collided with the command in his vision. The Jerusalem council asked Gentile believers to keep away from food polluted by idols, from blood and from what was strangled. Jewish tradition applied these rules to foreigners living in Israel (Leviticus 17-18) and to righteous Gentiles, the descendants of Noah. The ESV Study Bible reads them as making shared meals with law-keeping Jewish believers possible.

The bridge to today

An analogy: a family that keeps a strict diet for their faith and will not eat in a restaurant that cannot promise how the food was cooked. Friends who invite them to dinner understand that the refusal is about the kitchen, and still feel it as a refusal of them.

What it changes in the reading

Peter's horror at the sheet of unclean animals in Acts 10:14 is the reaction of a man who had never broken the food laws, and the complaint against him afterward is that he ate with Gentiles. The same line runs through Galatians 2:12, where Peter withdraws from the Gentiles' table, and through the clean and unclean foods of Romans 14:14.

Where the analogy breaks

Not a diet or a matter of taste. Food laws were part of the covenant and marked who belonged to Israel, so eating across the line raised questions about belonging, not hygiene.

Where scholars disagree

What did Peter's vision overturn? The ESV Study Bible reads it as God setting aside the distinctions of clean and unclean food along with other ceremonial laws. It says the unlawfulness Peter mentions in Acts 10:28 belongs to later strict tradition rather than an Old Testament command. Keener says the lesson that God can make anything clean is aimed most of all at the Gentiles Peter is about to meet.

Passages where it appears

{"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/acts-10-1-23\/","n":"Acts 10:1-23, Cornelius and Peter's vision","s":"A God-fearing Roman centurion in Caesarea is told in a vision to send for Peter. At noon on a Joppa rooftop Peter sees a sheet full of unclean animals and hears a voice tell him to eat.","r":"Acts 10:1-23"}
{"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/acts-10-24-11-18\/","n":"Acts 10:24-11:18, Peter in Cornelius's house","s":"Peter enters a Gentile home, preaches Jesus, and sees the Spirit fall on the uncircumcised listeners. In Jerusalem he is criticized for eating with Gentiles, and his account silences the critics.","r":"Acts 10:24-11:18"}
{"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/acts-15-1-21\/","n":"Acts 15:1-21, The council in Jerusalem","s":"Teachers from Judea insist that Gentile believers must be circumcised to be saved. The apostles and elders meet in Jerusalem; Peter and James argue that God has accepted Gentiles as they are, and James proposes a few rules for them to keep.","r":"Acts 15:1-21"}
{"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/acts-15-22-35\/","n":"Acts 15:22-35, The letter to the Gentile churches","s":"The council sends Judas and Silas with Paul and Barnabas to carry a letter to the Gentile believers of Antioch, Syria and Cilicia. It is read to the church at Antioch, who rejoice at its encouragement.","r":"Acts 15:22-35"}
{"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/romans-14-1-23\/","n":"Romans 14:1-23, Vegetables, holy days and wine","s":"Some believers eat only vegetables and keep certain days; others eat anything and treat every day alike. Paul tells both not to judge one another, since all will stand before God's judgment seat, and not to wreck another's faith over food.","r":"Romans 14:1-23"}
{"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/1corinthians-10-23-11-1\/","n":"1 Corinthians 10:23-11:1, Dinner at an unbeliever's house","s":"Paul tells believers to eat whatever is sold in the meat market and whatever an unbelieving host serves without asking questions, unless someone points out that it was offered in sacrifice.","r":"1 Corinthians 10:23-11:1"}
{"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/galatians-2-11-21\/","n":"Galatians 2:11-21, Peter leaves the table at Antioch","s":"At Antioch Peter, who had been eating with Gentile believers, draws back when people come from James, and Paul rebukes him in front of everyone, arguing that Jews and Gentiles alike are put right with God through Christ and faith, not by doing what the law requires.","r":"Galatians 2:11-21"}
{"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/colossians-2-16-23\/","n":"Colossians 2:16-23, Food, new moons, Sabbaths and the worship of angels","s":"Paul tells the believers not to let anyone judge them over food, drink, festivals, new moons or Sabbaths, or disqualify them with self-denial, the worship of angels and visions, and calls rules about what not to touch or taste human commands with no power over the flesh.","r":"Colossians 2:16-23"}
{"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/1timothy-4-1-5\/","n":"1 Timothy 4:1-5, Deceiving spirits, no marriage, no foods","s":"The Spirit warns that later on some will desert the faith for deceiving spirits and demonic teaching, banning marriage and certain foods, though God made food to be eaten with thanks.","r":"1 Timothy 4:1-5"}
{"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/titus-1-10-16\/","n":"Titus 1:10-16, The circumcision group, and Cretans always liars","s":"Many rebellious talkers and deceivers, especially of the circumcision group, are upsetting whole households for dishonest gain; Paul quotes a Cretan prophet who called Cretans always liars, and warns against Jewish myths and human commands, for to the pure all things are pure.","r":"Titus 1:10-16"}
{"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/hebrews-13-7-17\/","n":"Hebrews 13:7-17, Foods, an altar and outside the camp","s":"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and for ever, so the readers must not be carried away by strange teachings about foods. Believers have an altar the tabernacle priests may not eat from; as the bodies of the sin offerings were burned outside the camp, Jesus suffered outside the gate, and they must go out to him, bearing his disgrace, seeking the city to come.","r":"Hebrews 13:7-17"}

Sources

Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Acts 10:11-13, 10:14-16, 10:23a, 10:27-29 and 11:2-3
NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Acts 10:12 and 11:3, and on Romans 14:14 and Galatians 2:12
N. T. Wright, Acts for Everyone, Part One, comment on Acts 10:17-33
ESV Study Bible, study notes on Acts 10:13 and 10:28
CSB Study Bible, note on Acts 10:11-16
NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Acts 15:20
ESV Study Bible, study note on Acts 15:19-21
Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Hebrews 13:9

All ideas