On the Origin of the Pork Taboo

[Abramelin]

Pork accounts for more than a third of the world’s meat, making pigs among the planet’s most widely consumed animals. They are also widely reviled: For about two billion people, eating pork is explicitly prohibited. The Hebrew Bible and the Islamic Koran both forbid adherents from eating pig flesh, and this ban is one of humanity’s most deeply entrenched dietary restrictions. For centuries, scholars have struggled to find a satisfying explanation for this widespread taboo. “There are an amazing number of misconceptions people continue to have about pigs,” says archaeologist Max Price of Durham University, who is among a small group of scholars scouring both modern excavation reports and ancient tablets for clues about the rise and fall of pork consumption in the ancient Near East. “That makes this research both frustrating and fascinating.”

Among the most surprising finds is that the inhabitants of the earliest cities of the Bronze Age (3500–1200 b.c.) were enthusiastic pig eaters, and that even later Iron Age (1200–586 b.c.) residents of Jerusalem enjoyed the occasional pork feast. Yet despite a wealth of data and new techniques including ancient DNA analysis, archaeologists still wrestle with many porcine mysteries, including why the once plentiful animal gradually became scarce long before religious taboos were enacted.

https://archaeology.org/issues/march-april-2025/letters-from/on-the-origin-of-the-pork-taboo/

[Piney]

A Hebrew swine herds job was to clean up the garbage around the city which included dead bodies.....

 

[Ell]

I have a small booklet of ancient Egyptian texts translated into German somewhere, published about a century and more ago, that declares that no swine shall be eaten because a swine hurt God. In my opinion that was the original motivation for the taboo, which was later perverted into and replaced by the more recent motivation(s).

[Abramelin]

46 minutes ago, Ell said:

I have a small booklet of ancient Egyptian texts translated into German somewhere, published about a century and more ago, that declares that no swine shall be eaten because a swine hurt God. In my opinion that was the original motivation for the taboo, which was later perverted into and replaced by the more recent motivation(s).

You didn't read the article.

[Abramelin]

1 hour ago, Piney said:

A Hebrew swine herds job was to clean up the garbage around the city which included dead bodies.....

 

Apparently the pigs were (often) eaten too.

[Piney]

Just now, Abramelin said:

Apparently the pigs were (often) eaten too.

Yup

They were the first domesticated meat source among the Han too.

[Ell]

15 minutes ago, Abramelin said:

You didn't read the article.

I read part of it. I will read more of it at a later time.

[Abramelin]

3 minutes ago, Ell said:

I read part of it. I will read more of it at a later time.

I know it is kind of a long read.

[Abramelin]

18 minutes ago, Piney said:

Yup

They were the first domesticated meat source among the Han too.

According to the article, the Hebrews weren't thàt averse to eating pork.

And those food laws concerning pork had nothing to do with some kind of parasite as most of us thought.

[Piney]

3 minutes ago, Abramelin said:

According to the article, the Hebrews weren't thàt averse to eating pork.

And those food laws concerning pork had nothing to do with some kind of parasite as most of us thought.

I never thought parasites. They didn't understand them back then.

Just the whole corpse and garbage consumption thing.

[pellinore]

2 hours ago, Piney said:

I never thought parasites. They didn't understand them back then.

Just the whole corpse and garbage consumption thing.

4 hours ago, Ell said:

I have a small booklet of ancient Egyptian texts translated into German somewhere, published about a century and more ago, that declares that no swine shall be eaten because a swine hurt God. In my opinion that was the original motivation for the taboo, which was later perverted into and replaced by the more recent motivation(s).

This is a long video, but it has nothing to do with 'cleanliness' or 'germs'- just control: https://youtu.be/pI0ZUhBvIx4?si=NfquV-TYI79RluYI

Nobody knew anything about germ theory in those days, but they did know about control. If you want to control the population through some crazy religion, throw a generous amount of fear into it. And hunger. Make the swineherds hungry and fearful.

Mind you, it only goes so far. No one can resist a hog roast in a sandwich, or crackling pulled off a BBQ joint, or ham, or pork chops, or belly pork with sauce, or slow cooked trotters, or pork tongue, or bacon.

Bacon! Poor pigs. Imagine being an animal that the only predator that could save you, humans, is the same one that wants to eat every part of you.

 

 

 

Edited February 11 by pellinore

[Doc Socks Junior]

2 hours ago, Abramelin said:

And those food laws concerning pork had nothing to do with some kind of parasite as most of us thought.

Yeah, I'd heard that from an areligious Jewish friend in college.

Turns out not.

[+and-then]

Not understanding germ theory, it's interesting that Hebrews had a taboo about touching dead bodies, also.

[Ell]

7 hours ago, and-then said:

Not understanding germ theory, it's interesting that Hebrews had a taboo about touching dead bodies, also.

Clearly not sufficient of a taboo to prevent them from murdering adulterous females.

[Abramelin]

18 hours ago, Piney said:

I never thought parasites. They didn't understand them back then.

Of course they didn't; they didn't have microscopes back then.

But, apparently they were intelligent enough to notice the connection between people becoming sick, and previous consumption of pork.

[Abramelin]

14 minutes ago, Ell said:

Clearly not sufficient of a taboo to prevent them from murdering adulterous females.

They stoned them ; they didn't strangle them with their bare hands.