This would have come from a time when ancient Judaism was evolving out of its polytheistic roots. The early sections of the Hebrew scriptures tended to treat other gods as existing, but you’re only supposed to worship YHWH.
Likely, there was some specific ritual that had been used in local polytheistic practices, and it’s specifically telling you not to do that.
This is an issue for the sort of fundamentalists who insist that absolutely everything in the bible is useful for modern times. You say that, but then what’s this goat milk thing about? How about all the idolatry prohibitions when many modern Christians won’t regularly encounter religions that use idols? Why is there a whole book devoted to Solomon’s horny poetry?
You can kinda come up with answers to those, but they will invariably involve some kind of “reading between the lines”. That is, reading assumptions into the text that aren’t explicitly stated. Which fundamentalists also say you’re not supposed to do.
My favourite is that you cannot wear clothes made from more than one kind of thread.
Which means, in essence, that in the XXI c., literally everybody, including priests, is a sinner, and goes to hell, because everything is a blend these days.
Not Jewish - but my understandings: Those are ritual laws. Non Jews aren’t bound by them. I don’t think the idea is ever that you “go to hell” for not following those rules in Judaism.
It’s more that you have a covenant with God, where you have agreed to follow a set of rules. The rules themselves are less important than the fact that you have an agreement about this with the higher power - that you keep yourself pure and honor that power through these rules. I think in the historical context a lot of the purity rules are a way of distinguishing your group from others - creating a shared culture around those rules.
Even in medical times, clothes were usually made with wool fabric and sewn with linen thread for strength. Some Jewish communities would only wear kosher clothing sewn with wool thread.
Why is there a whole book devoted to Solomon’s horny poetry?
I have a theory…
I mean I do feel weird whenever I do this. The solution is soy milk!
Wow yea that sounds pretty sociopathic
It’s why I refuse to eat chicken and eggs
How about fried chicken?
Doesn’t really count since the egg is used as an ingredient just to stick breadcrumbs on. I’m talking about scrambled eggs, etc.
The gymnastics are biblical.
Might also avoid corn at the same time, if you’re not getting pasture-fed eggs.
Reminds me of the milk rice I made with rice milk. Not a good idea. I generally don’t like rice milk so that might be why. Muesli with oat milk is fine
Then you extrapolate that and the only way to stay kosher is to never prepare meat with dairy. No philly cheese steak, no butter.
The rabbinical standard is that you should have 6 hours between a meat meal and a dairy meal.
And yeah, no butter. Kosher delis will use schmaltz (a kind of animal fat) instead of butter.
Strict households also have completely separate cookware, sinks, and even ovens/stoves. That blew my mind a bit when I first saw it.
There’s more, especially with dishes and flatware.
- milk vs meat
- Sabbath vs the rest of the week
- Passover vs the rest of the year
This kept happening, and was eventually responsible for a substantial portion of the events in Unsong.
Thank you! I was hoping to see a comment about Unsong!
I can’t believe my friend broke containment this hard I woke up to it on lemmy lmfao
One of my colleague like to have roasted potato with vegan mayo. So he is having potatoes cooked in oil together with potatos emulsified with oil.
That sounds like an interesting vegan mayo recipe. My wife has tried a few and none contained potatoes.
I bet that tastes dope.
Jesus was born 5-7 centuries after this was written down, he don’t know either.
opposite idea from mixing powdered milknin fresh milk for “more milk per milk.”
I’m conceptually opposed to oat milk generally.
It makes for a mean cappuccino, and is environmentally much, much lower impact.
And that’s the justification for why rabbi-created kosher laws say “no cheeseburgers”
Separate your milk plates from your meat or you may boil a young goat in its mothers milk!
I like Rabbi Joseph Bekhor Shor’s interpretation. It’s far from being accepted in Judaism - probably because it makes so much sense.
The interpretation is based on the fact that the passage originally appears in Exodus twice - but not in a section about Kosher laws. It appears in sections about Bikurim - bringing offerings to the temple:
- https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+23%3A14-19&version=CSB
- https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+34%3A22-26&version=CSB
The very same verse that contains that law also contains a law about Bikkurim:
Bring the best firstfruits of your land to the house of the Lord your God.
You must not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.
Because these two laws seem so unrelated, Rabbi Joseph Bekhor Shor suggests a different way to read the second part.
In Hebrew, the root of the word “cook”/“boil” is B-SH-L - and this is also the root of the word “ripe”/“mature”. Because of that, it’s possible to read “you must not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk” as “you must not let a young goat mature while drinking its mother’s milk”.
This makes the second part of the verse a repetition of the first part - a pattern very common in the Old Testament as a (vain) attempt to prevent misinterpretations. Reading it like so, both parts mean “the offerings should be as young and as fresh as possible”.
That reading is a little bit odd - but not too odd in biblical language standards, and it makes so much more sense in the context where the passage appears.
According to what I’ve read, the leading theory among scholars today is that this passage is a reference to pagan Canaanite rituals and we have some evidence in the literature of the time that this was indeed practiced.
You know what also doesn’t make sense? Not boiling chicken in milk. I can guarantee you that’s not the milk of the chicken’s mother. The “don’t boil a young goat in the milk of its mother” thing at least has a proper interpretation in the sense of “there were some people who did that and God came and God said ‘yo that’s nasty, stop it’”. Something about not using sacrifice as an opportunity to practice transgression.
In the end I think scripture is just a tool for Jews to have something to argue about endlessly.
In the end I think scripture is just a tool for Jews to have something to argue about endlessly.
Considering how that’s the main way to gain fame in Judaism - you’re not wrong.
Copium at its finest.
Given how many homographs and other homonyms English has (and presumably other languages, I’ve definitely seen one Hebrew homograph when vowels are removed), it doesn’t sound like a complete stretch for this to be a similar homonym situation.
I don’t think this word means what you think it means… what is “copium” about discussing possible origins of dogma?
OP is literally saying “this widespread institutionally-reinforced religious practice/dietary restriction could all be due to a mistranslation”, what exactly are they coping with?
The copium is coming up for excuses for why religious stuff doesn’t make sense. There is no one on the face of the earth that can reconcile passages from religious texts such as these. Sometimes data and dogma can not be reconciled and you just need to take things in faith.
I… uh… what? This still isn’t how words work.
I repeat:
what exactly are they coping with?
Who is coping here? With what? It’s… an athiest coping with a lack of faith? A jewish person coping with flaws in their religious law?
There is no one on the face of the earth that can reconcile passages from religious texts such as these.
Uh… way to just miss the point of the entire religion.
All of Judaism - down to their goddamn rite of manhood - is built upon literacy. Reading and interpreting the will of God. Scholarly analysis of their own texts - reconciling the word with the world - is literally the foundation of their entire religion.
You’re not following what I’m saying and it’s fine. It’s not that deep. Enjoy the rest of your day.
