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Halal and Kosher Meat, your thoughts


Thomas Micklewright

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According to Jewish history the Law regarding the proscription against pork was revealed about 2470 years after the Creation, i.e. in or around 1470-80 BCE. The Romans occupied Judea in 63 BCE.


Pig bones have been found throughout the entire alleged Jewish presence in Palestine. What does Occam's razor make of that?

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I'm a bit confused HAL9000, you suggested earlier that the ban on pigs was down to cocking a snook at Roman occupiers - but now you appear to be saying that the bann on pigs was 1,500 years before that?


I've been reading some interesting stuff on toilet archaeology - a more accurate way of judging diet than circumstantial evidence of pig bones.


It's suggesting that although there was the odd pork enthusiast in ancient Egypt, that it's very likely that there were bans on pork there at that time.

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It is Jewish history that claims the ban dates from 1470-80 BCE. The archaeological evidence contradicts that view along with almost every other claim found in the Old Testament.


Most scholars now accept that many of the fundamental principles of Judaism (as we know it) were invented by rabbis during the period when the Mishnah was compiled - sometime around 200 CE or later. If that is the case, the extant written Torah must have undergone a final redaction around the same time. And that, of course, forces the earliest possible dates for LXX, the NT, Josephus, et al.


Jewish scriptural history is largely a work of fiction overlying a shaky historical framework that took its present form sometime between 200 and 600 CE - probably, as far as anyone can tell so long after the events.

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Hal9000 wrote

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Jewish scriptural history is largely a work of fiction overlying a shaky historical framework that took its present form sometime between 200 and 600 CE - probably, as far as anyone can tell so long after the events.


Is anyone Jewish reading this I like to hear your view?

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Well since they'd need to refute the observation by insisting the world was created around 4,000 years ago and that 3,700 years of oral tradition left their history objectively accurate I'd love to hear a Jewish adherent arguing anything different.


Anyway this thread was largely about the culinary habits rather than the philosophy, so in that area....


On the subject of pigs and the health benefits of making them not halal, the slitting of the throat was much the same thing.


Exsanguination (blood letting) has always been critical part of treating meat - the blood carries a vast amount of bacteria that if left inside the carcass will spoil the meat within hours, and can cause death in humans that subsequently eat it.


The most effective way of getting blood out is if the heart is still beating to pump it around and out of the system.


So as with pigs, it's not mumbo jumbo.

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Actually, the blood of a healthy mammal would normally be aseptic - i.e. free from bacteria and pathogens.


Judaism harbours an obsessive fear of blood-borne ritual pollution that likely originated when the practice of animal sacrifice was its principal form of worship.


According to my hypothesis, those who 'designed' the tenets of (rabbinical) Judaism chose an isolationist path to prevent the congregation from socialising, interacting or identifying with gentiles. Thus almost everything commonly practiced in the Greco-Roman world was forbidden to Jews. The Talmud proscribes the study of foreign languages, philosophy and literature, for example. (Although, only the most Orthodox adherents take any notice of those rules today.)


Strictly observant Jews cannot eat food prepared or even touched by or merely left in the unsupervised presence of a gentile (in case it is secretly dedicated to an idol, the sages declared).


In short, ritual pollution serves a far higher purpose in Judaism than practical food hygiene. Some Jews regard its study as a ?science?. [ETA] Its main purpose, originally, was to enable Diaspora Jews to retain their ethno-genetic identity while forced to live within gentile societies after they were banished from Jerusalem and its environs following the unsuccessful Bar Kokhba revolt of 132?136 CE. [/ETA]


Islam inherited what amounts to the Noahide portion of the 613 mitzvot (commandments) of Judaism, which includes a ?lite? version of the dietary laws.


No offence intended to adherents of any Torah-based religions, by the way.

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Yeah, that's agreeing with me on post rationalisation again. It like as not did stem from preoccupations with slaughter lost in the mists of time.


The belief that blood spoiled meat extended far beyond Judaism and has only been questioned in the west in the last twenty years - not 2,000 years ago.


I agree that it probably did get sucked into religious rituals, but it also remains a critical part of the slaughter process everywhere in the world. Cutting the throat of dead animals yields less than half that of stunned ones.

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StraferJack Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Anyone who uses Buddy Ackerman as a role model needs help, whatever age they are

>

> I've never been sure about that quote anyway - it's a bit "take the blue pill or the red pill"


That's the point... Buddy was the villain, and he's trying to bring his assistant round to his cynical way of thinking. It's not supposed to be a genuine piece of advice for our friend Mr Micklewright - I was just teasing (as was Otta).

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Those 30 million chicks that get totalled each year probably have it easy compared with the 800 million that get eaten, or the 11,000 million that never get out of their eggs!


Seriously Thomas, unless every sperm chicken is sacred, a 3.5% collateral damage rate ain't bad!


See Thomas, every Tuesday at the institution clinic he runs at the much imposed upon Blue Brick ;-):


 

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Much imposed upon blue brick? They have received loads of free exposure in international vegan and vegetarian magazines from dvvs. It's all good.


No I don't think the world will crush my spirit. Not giving up that easily.

I wouldn't say I'm very far outside the establishment, I have a career, a pension and getting married next year. I just think the world would be more beautiful without animal abuse or deforestation.


Tom

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