Pig

The pig is probably the most famous unclean animals noted in the OT (Heb., chazir) and it appears in one of Jesus's most dramatic acts of divine witness (the word is repeated 12x in the parallel accounts of the demons Jesus cast out asking to go into the pigs which then drowned; the Greek word is choiros).

Like humans, all the pigs reported in human history belong to one species; Sus scrofa was originally native to south-east Asia. Archaeological evidence suggest it was one of the earliest domesticated animals; it has had some 10,000 years of living in close proximity with humans. It physiology is also remarkably similar to humans, and modern medicine increasingly depend on the pig for developing transplant organs. While proscribed to Jews and Muslims, pork is, after chicken, the most widely consumed meat in the world (it is also a far more ecologically sustainable meat than beef, say). So loved is pork by the Chinese, e.g., that its character for home (jia) consists of the symbol for pig under the symbol for roof; "home is where the pig is," so suggests Mark Essig. But pigs, according to Essig, also became pariahs in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Palestine as early as 1000 BC. Babylonians, on the other hand, love their pork, and one way to distinguish between a Jewish archaeological site from a non-Jewish one was the presence or absence of pork remains.

Contrary to all the popular aphorisms about it, the pig, scientists now recognise, is a highly intelligible animal. This fact is not contradicted by the twin occasions in the Bible in which the pig is pictured as lacking discretion: Prov 11:22 ("Like a gold ring in a pig's snout is a beautiful woman who shows no discretion") and Matt 7:6 ("Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces"). Even dogs, which we usually consider highly intelligent, have no discretion either and should not be offered what is sacred according to Jesus.

The pig is, infamously, unclean, for "though it has a split hoof completely divided, does not chew the cud" (Lev 11:7; Deut 14:8). For us, this does not explain much, though this may not be surprising if, as Essig suggests, pigs were pariahs among Israel's neighbours as well. However the reason for its uncleaness, the adjective should not be confused with hygiene or sanitation, (even though, especially, in ancient times, they probably were highly unhygienic because they would eat anything, including feaces). The adjective, tame is a ritual term, i.e., it was ceremonially unclean and, therefore, unfit for worship (see link below). It was this that made pig's blood an offering and eating its flesh an abominable thing (Isa 66:1-17).

Many Christians living among Muslim majority still refrain from eating pork. This is certainly laudable. Less laudable, however, are those who insist that we should not consume pork because, they assert, the Bible says it is unclean. While the main purpose of Peter's vision of a large sheet lowered down from heaven containing all sorts of unclean thing, accompanied by the command to kill and eat, was to prepare him to realize that Gentiles (whom Jews consider unclean) too need to hear the gospel, it also makes an important point that the old ceremonial system of clean and unclean has been done away with as a result of Jesus's death on the cross. To insist that Christians must refrain from eating pork because of its OT proscription is to fail to take the finished work of Christ serioulsy. Paul says, "As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean" (Rom 14:14). This is a wise call to a life of grace.

You may wish to see The World of the Clean & Unclean for an explanation of the terms.

BIBLIOGRAPY:

Mark Essig, Lesser Beasts. A Snout-to-Tail History of the Humble Pig. New York: Basic Books, 2015.