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What are the biblical dietary laws actually about?
Why does the Torah distinguish between clean and unclean animals?
And are Christians still expected to observe these commandments today?

This subject is often reduced to a single question:

Can a Christian eat pork — yes or no?

But the biblical dietary laws are far more extensive than that.

They are about clean and unclean, about Israel and its particular history, about community and separation, and later also about the question of how Jews and Gentiles could live together within the early Christian communities.

So I do not only want to ask:
What was allowed to be eaten?

But also:
Who were these commandments given to, what did they mean — and what role do they play for us today?

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What Do “Clean” and “Unclean” Actually Mean?

The distinction between clean and unclean animals is found especially in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14.
Different groups of animals are classified in different ways.

The first important point is this:
In the biblical context, “unclean” does not automatically mean “evil.”

An unclean animal is not therefore worthless, demonic, or less loved by God.
These animals too are part of creation.

The categories of “clean” and “unclean” belong instead to a broader system of ritual purity
that distinguished Israel from other peoples and affected many areas of life.

And this was not limited to food. Certain illnesses, bodily fluids, contact with the dead,
and other situations could also make a person temporarily ritually unclean.

Which Land Animals Are Considered Clean?

For land animals, the Torah gives two key characteristics.

An animal must:
have divided hooves and chew the cud.

Examples include:

cattle, sheep or lambs, goats, and various wild animals such as gazelles and other cud-chewing animals with divided hooves.
With some ancient animal names, however, the exact identification with modern species is not always certain, because translations differ.

So the modern species list matters less than the underlying principle:
divided hooves + chewing the cud.

If one of these characteristics is missing, the animal is considered unclean under the dietary laws.

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Which Land Animals Are Considered Unclean?

Well-known examples include:
the camel, the rock hyrax, the hare, and the pig.

In the case of the pig, the text specifically points out:

It has divided hooves, but it does not chew the cud.
So it meets only one of the two requirements.
That is why the pig is probably still the best-known example today of
an animal considered unclean under the Torah.

Other animals meet neither of the required characteristics.
This also includes many animals that we would not normally think of as food at all.

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Which Fish Are Considered Clean?

For animals living in the water, the rule is comparatively simple.

Permitted are those with:
fins and scales.

This includes many familiar fish eaten as food, such as:

carp, salmon, herring, trout, cod, pike-perch, and pike.

Sea creatures that lack these characteristics, however, do not fall into the permitted category.
This includes various shellfish and other aquatic creatures.

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What About Birds?

With birds, the system works somewhat differently.
The Torah does not simply give one general physical characteristic by which every bird can easily be classified.
Instead, it mainly lists certain species that were not permitted. Depending on the translation, these include various
birds of prey and scavengers, ravens, owls, storks, herons, and other birds.

The exact identification of some Hebrew animal names is difficult.
That is why modern translations differ in certain places.
This is worth keeping in mind before trying to create a completely definitive list based on modern English animal names.

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UAnd What About Insects?

Insects are mentioned too.
Certain kinds of locusts were permitted.

Leviticus 11 describes winged creatures that move along the ground but have jointed legs for jumping.

Several kinds of locusts are named, although the ancient terms are translated differently depending on the Bible version.
Other creeping or swarming small creatures, however, were considered unclean.

Why Did God Declare Some Animals Clean and Others Unclean?

This is exactly the question I find especially interesting.

Because simply saying:
“Because God wanted it that way.”

may be a theological answer — but it still does not explain why certain animals were permitted while others were excluded.

At this point, the Bible itself does not give us a detailed scientific explanation. Even so, it is reasonable to ask whether,
alongside the religious and cultural meaning of the dietary laws, practical considerations may also have played a role.

Could Pathogens Have Played a Role?

That is at least possible. Some animals that were not to be eaten under
the Torah can carry certain pathogens or parasites.

One well-known example is the pig.
Raw or undercooked pork can be contaminated with Trichinella — a parasite
that can cause trichinellosis in humans.

Something similar applies to certain sea creatures. Mussels and other shellfish filter large amounts of water
and can accumulate microorganisms from their environment, potentially transmitting pathogens.
This does not prove that health protection was the primary reason for the biblical dietary laws.

But it does show:
The idea that some of these rules may also have offered practical protection is not entirely far-fetched.

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And What Does the Animals’ Diet Have to Do with It?

Here too, I would be cautious. Some of the animals that were not permitted are omnivores, scavengers,
or animals that consume and process substances within the ecosystem that other animals would not normally eat.

Scavengers, for example, perform an important function:
They remove carcasses and help clear organic material from the ecosystem.

Other animals live on the seabed or filter their food directly from the water.
That does not make them “dirty” or inferior.

Quite the opposite:

They perform important ecological functions.

But diet, habitat, parasites, and the way an animal takes in food can certainly affect which pathogens it is exposed to.

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Why, Then, Ruminants with Divided Hooves?

Among land animals, an interesting pattern stands out:

Permitted are animals that chew the cud and have divided hooves.
These are mainly herbivorous herd animals such as cattle, sheep, and goats.
For a very long time, these animals were also valuable livestock for human communities.

They provided not only meat, but also milk, wool, leather, and other resources.
Whether this is precisely why they were classified as “clean”, however, is something the biblical text itself does not explain.

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Perhaps There Was More Than One Reason

I therefore think it is possible that several layers come together in the dietary laws at the same time.

Health and hygiene may have played a role.

So may:

the way certain animals live,
the conditions of food supply at the time,
Israel’s cultural identity, and the religious meaning of purity and separation.

Perhaps we do not need to choose just one explanation.

The Bible itself does not say:

“These animals are forbidden because they transmit disease X.”

So it would be too much to present a medical theory as the definitive explanation.
But in my view, it would be just as premature to rule out any practical benefit of the commandments altogether.
Perhaps some of these rules offered a degree of protection that people at the time could not yet explain biologically.
And perhaps, at the same time, their meaning reached far beyond that.

The dietary laws may have offered practical protection — while also forming part of Israel’s wider religious identity.

The two do not have to exclude each other

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Aber hat Jesus nicht alle Speisen für rein erklärt?

But Didn’t Jesus Declare All Foods Clean? When the dietary laws are discussed,
the New Testament sooner or later enters the conversation.
Acts 10 is mentioned especially often. There, Peter sees a vision of a large sheet containing different kinds of animals.
A voice tells him:

“Get up, Peter. Kill and eat!”

Peter refuses. He explains that he has never eaten anything unholy or unclean.

Then he hears:

“What God has cleansed, you must not call unclean.”

At first glance, it might seem that this settles the dietary laws once and for all.
But then we should keep reading. Because shortly afterwards, Peter himself explains
what he understood the vision to mean.

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Acts 10 Is About More Than Food

While Peter is still thinking about his vision, the men sent by the Roman centurion Cornelius arrive.
Cornelius is not part of the Jewish people. Yet he is described as a God-fearing man
who prays to God and gives generously to those in need.

In a vision, an angel of God appears to him and tells him to send for Peter.
Peter therefore suddenly finds himself in a situation that would have been difficult for a devout Jew:

He is being asked to enter the home of a Gentile.
And this is where his vision takes on a deeper meaning.

Peter later says:

God had shown him not to call any person common or unclean.

That is remarkable. The vision begins with animals.
But Peter explicitly applies its meaning to people.

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Cornelius Changes the Perspective

Peter eventually goes with the men to Cornelius.

There, he realises:
God’s work is not limited to Israel.

While Peter is speaking, it becomes clear that God also accepts the Gentiles.
And this reveals something that would become enormously important for the early Christian movement:

Belonging to Christ was not to depend on ethnic background.

Jews and Gentiles could become part of the same community.

That is why I would not reduce Acts 10 to the statement:
“Now everyone can eat anything.”

The immediate context is very clearly about Peter learning not to exclude people as unclean.
At the same time, this also raised a new question within the early Christian communities:

Which Jewish purity and dietary laws, if any, should Gentiles be expected to follow?

Paul and the Question of Food

Paul also deals with questions about food.

In the early Christian communities, people from very different religious and cultural backgrounds came together.
What seemed completely normal to one person could be a serious matter of conscience for another.

Paul repeatedly makes one thing clear:

Food does not determine a person’s worth before God.

Dietary practices should therefore not become a tool Christians use to judge one another spiritually.

Someone who avoids certain foods should not be mocked for it.
And someone who eats them should not automatically be condemned either.

The focus shifts.
The plate is no longer at the centre.

Instead:

Conscience. Consideration. Community. Love.

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Do the Dietary Laws Bring Us Closer to God?

For me, the answer is:

No.

Someone who avoids certain animals is not therefore a better person. Nor are they automatically closer to God.
And someone who eats pork or seafood is not automatically further away from God.
Faith cannot be measured by a shopping list. That is exactly why I find it problematic when a personal choice
is turned into yet another religious entry requirement.

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And What About Daniel?

Daniel is also often mentioned in this context.
At Nebuchadnezzar’s court, Daniel did not want to defile himself with the king’s food and wine.
So he asked to be given vegetables — or more broadly, plant-based food — and water for a limited period of time.
After ten days, Daniel and his companions appeared to be in better condition than the young men who had eaten the royal food.

For me, this story primarily shows Daniel’s determination to remain faithful to his conscience and his faith, even in a foreign environment.
It is not, however, a general dietary experiment through which the Bible is trying to scientifically prove one particular modern way of eating.

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What Other Dietary Laws Are There?

Alongside the distinction between clean and unclean animals, the Torah contains other rules concerning food.

One important rule concerns blood.
Israel was not to consume blood.

In biblical thought, blood has a special significance because it is associated with life.
That is why this prohibition appears in several places throughout the Torah.

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Meat and Milk

Another well-known commandment says:
“You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.”

This sentence appears several times in the Torah, including Exodus 23:19, Exodus 34:26, and Deuteronomy 14:21.
In later Judaism, this developed into the broader separation of meat and dairy products.
That is why kosher households may use separate dishes, cutlery, and kitchen utensils for dairy and meat.

What is interesting, however, is this:

The original biblical text initially says only that a young goat must not be cooked in its mother’s milk.

The broader separation of meat and dairy is a later Jewish interpretation and development of this commandment.

The original meaning of the sentence is not entirely clear.

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Sometimes a Commandment Remains Mysterious

In Judaism, there is the concept of a chok for commandments whose purpose is not immediately obvious.
I find that interesting.

We human beings want an explanation for everything.

Health.
Hygiene.
Symbolism.
Psychology.

But perhaps some ancient commandments belong to a historical or religious context that we can no longer fully reconstruct today.
That does not necessarily mean they were meaningless.

It simply means:
We do not know everything.

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What About Milk, Eggs, and Honey?

In Jewish dietary tradition, the origin of a food also plays a role.
Products from clean animals are generally treated differently from products from unclean animals.
Milk from permitted animal species can therefore also be considered permitted.
The same applies to eggs from permitted bird species.

Honey is an interesting exception.
Although bees themselves are not considered food animals, bee honey is permitted in Jewish tradition.

This already shows:
The system cannot simply be reduced to the formula: “Everything that comes from an unclean animal is automatically unclean.”

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Can You Keep Unclean Animals as Pets?

The dietary laws are, first and foremost, exactly that:
dietary laws.

They do not generally say that a person may not have contact with a dog, a cat, or other animals that are not permitted as food.

Here too, “unclean” does not mean:
This animal is bad and must not be near you.

The question of what may be eaten and the question of living with animals should therefore not be confused.

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Do the Dietary Laws Also Have a Symbolic Meaning?

Over the centuries, people have also seen spiritual symbolism in the features of clean animals. These interpretations are not stated explicitly in the biblical text.
But as symbolic language, I find some of them quite meaningful.

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What Meaning Do the Dietary Laws Still Have Today?

For me, this is not a question I want to answer for someone else through pressure or coercion.
I may personally choose not to eat certain animals. Someone else may read the same texts
and come to a different conclusion for themselves.

You are not holier because you do not eat pork.

And you are not less loved because you eat prawns.
Again and again, the New Testament shifts the focus away from religious status and towards Christ,
conscience, love, and the way we treat one another.

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Can I Still Follow the Dietary Laws Voluntarily?

Of course.

Freedom does not mean:

You now have to eat everything that was once forbidden.

That would simply be another form of pressure.

If you want to avoid certain foods for personal, cultural, health, or spiritual reasons, you are free to do so.

Perhaps you feel comfortable following the ancient dietary laws.
Perhaps you find their symbolism meaningful.
Perhaps you simply want to eat more consciously.

There is nothing wrong with choosing to follow them voluntarily.

It only becomes problematic when a personal decision turns into a standard by which the faith of other people is judged.

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Personally, This Is How I Handle It

For personal reasons, I do not eat animals that are considered unclean under the biblical dietary laws.
However, I do not practise the later, comprehensive separation of dairy and meat.
In doing so, I consciously distinguish between the biblical commandments themselves and later Jewish interpretations.
And I do not turn my own choice into a requirement for other people.

Because for me, this is the crucial point:

Dietary laws do not determine how close a person is to God.

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My Conclusion