Do you read your own posts? Compare this:

He commanded the Israelites to not eat a certain type of food...

with this:

He never cared if man ate them...

Originally all things are good to eat.
Later some things to eat are prohibited.
Still later all things are good to eat again.

Yep, eternal and unchanging. Keep in mind God's morality is such that handling and cooking shellfish & pork was just waaaay too complicated so he instructed man in simpler pleasures such as slave ownership and management which have not been revoked. Objectively superb benchmarks for Divine eternal morality.

God temporarily told them to not eat them because they had a lack of prepatory or preservation means. Is it really that tough to understand?

I think babies can't have sugar until after the age of two because they can't process it. Is it wrong to impede someone from doing something now and later change because of their maturity of handling the situation?

I guess God would have been better to have them just die from food poisoning under your logic?

Reading Leviticus 11, there are a ridiculous number of disconnected animals that are "unclean" and to touch them makes one "unclean until evening" whatever that means. Do you believe cooking pork is so much more complicated than beef that it took a thousand years or more for Yahweh to revoke those restrictions? The rules for slave management and ownership (including exactly when to pierce a slave's ear with an awl) are much more complicated than cooking, so God's "logic" falls apart. Eternal and unchanging, yet applicable to only one small group of people for a certain period of time - no problemo!

Landroid how do you go all over the place, food to slaves, come on man! Stick on point. When you want to stop ranting and stay on point let me know. I think you just want arguments instead of a discussion. Go find another thread to fix these yearnings. Good luck!

LanDroid wrote:Reading Leviticus 11, there are a ridiculous number of disconnected animals that are "unclean" and to touch them makes one "unclean until evening" whatever that means. Do you believe cooking pork is so much more complicated than beef that it took a thousand years or more for Yahweh to revoke those restrictions?

There is an interesting book by Marvin Harris from the 60s, "Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches" in which Harris wrote down some popular versions of his anthropology research, aimed at explaining seemingly arbitrary restrictions using the particulars of material conditions.

Cows are sacred in India, he claims, because population density was high long ago, and live cattle are a better investment for draft power and milk than they are for meat. Pigs are restricted in the Middle East not because of trichinosis but because it is water-intensive to keep them alive in the hot, dry summers, so they are a kind of inordinate luxury in the region.

I don't know how well this approach has held up to further analysis, but it makes considerable sense. It also has interesting implications for the way religion allows the common people to put restrictions on the rich (monogamy can be seen in that light).

Maybe you have not heard of hygiene before Mr. Marks??

I wish you guys would stay close to some semblance of logical thinking. Come on man!

You really went to Sacred Cows in India?

brother bob,

I know you started the thread, and BookTalk keeps closer reins on the topic than most, but as far as I am concerned, materialistic explanations for sacred cows is smack in the middle of the topic on which this thread is based.

You can't seem to "see through the trees for looking at the forest." You love to get sidetracked instead of looking at the simple picture laid out before you.

I am old enough to have thought about your simple picture more than a few times. I pretty much know the story, know what it means to me, and know why I am not interested in your explanation of it. So you coming back to it over and over because you think something will change that way is rather Sisyphian. Nothing personal, but I done rolled that rock.

If you want to learn something about other people's views, this is a good place. If you have something else in mind, well, I can't help you.

Marks, when you are told that my book is so different that man has not read you might want to heed the advice. Over 4 years of surveying and studying to just start the book. Another almost 2 years in writing it. But the choice is up to you. It will reveal concepts never presented in a way that men want proof provided. But still good day