Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Religious restrictions on the consumption of pork
Summary
Pork is a food taboo among Jews, Muslims, and some Christian denominations. Swine were prohibited in ancient Syria and Phoenicia, and the pig and its flesh represented a taboo observed, Strabo noted, at Comana in Pontus. A lost poem of Hermesianax, reported centuries later by the traveller Pausanias, reported an etiological myth of Attis destroyed by a supernatural boar to account for the fact that "in consequence of these events the Galatians who inhabit Pessinous do not touch pork". In Abrahamic religions, eating pig flesh is clearly forbidden by Jewish (kashrut), Islamic (halal) and Adventist (kosher animals) dietary laws.
Although Christianity is also an Abrahamic religion, most of its adherents do not follow these aspects of Mosaic law and do consume its meat. However, Seventh-day Adventists consider pork taboo, along with other foods forbidden by Jewish law. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the Eritrean Orthodox Church do not permit pork consumption. Hebrew Roots Movement adherents also do not consume pork.
The Torah (Pentateuch) contains passages in Leviticus that list the animals people are permitted to eat. According to Leviticus 11:3, animals like cows, sheep, and deer that have divided hooves and chew their cud may be consumed. Pigs should not be eaten because they don't chew their cud. The ban on the consumption of pork is repeated in Deuteronomy 14:8.
During the Roman period, Jewish abstinence from pork consumption became one of the most identifiable features of Jewish religion to outsiders of the faith. One example appears in Tacitus' Histories 5.4.1-2. Because Jewish dietary restrictions on pork were well-known to non-Jews, foreign attempts of oppression and assimilation of Jewish populations into Hellenistic and Roman custom often involved attempting to force Jewish populations into consuming pork. According to 2 Maccabees 6:18-7:48, the Seleucid emperor Antiochus IV Epiphanes attempted to force Jews in his realm to consume pork as a part of his attempted restrictions on the practice of Judaism.
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.