Leviticus - Unclean animals

  • Thread starter Thread starter ThomasMT
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Excellent 🙂

“…for you.” I’m not sure how I missed that. I find your analysis very insightful, and I certainly appreciate your taking the time to offer it. Thank you.
 
Last edited:
White_Tree said:
If we try to read it as a story about physical creation, we run into absurdities, because that’s not what the story is about.
Click to expand...
And why can’t it be about many things at once?

I think St. Thomas is much more helpful… as usual…

-K
 
kapp19 said:
And why can’t it be about many things at once?
Click to expand...
I think it is about many things at once.

As I said above,
White_Tree said:
Now, is there some sense in which the creation story refers to physical creation? Yes, to the degree that the spiritual creation of man is archetypically analogous to the physical creation of the universe. The forces and principles that act in creation are universal, and thus are similar on both the macrocosmic and microcosmic level. But the first chapter of Genesis is a tale about the elaboration of spiritual archetypes. As a story about physical creation, it is completely nonsensical.
Click to expand...
When I said, “As a story about physical creation, it is completely nonsensical,” I didn’t mean there was no physical analog of those spiritual archetypes. I meant, for example, that the physical representation of the archetypes represented by “birds” in the story are not necessarily physical birds.

So the story does have a physical level (and many more levels as well), but that does not mean that a literal reading of it will be an accurate representation of what that physical level is.

Though perhaps that much wasn’t clear from my earlier post, so thank you for your question prompting me to clarify.
 
Last edited:
That’s a bit better. I am on board with seeing beyond the hexaemeron itself - I recall Augustine speaking of many interesting images in the last chapters of Confessions - but it can’t simply be analogy and aetiology “all the way down”… there is, I think quite obviously, also an actual teaching being delivered about the moment of creation of man, and his awareness that he is above other creatures, and an explanation of the orderliness of creation in general.

I still don’t particularly like the rabbinic interpretation that you have cited… and the source itself for me is rather suspect. But no worries… as long as one is not positing polygenism, I’m not overly invested in this topic.
 
Last edited:
Refer to Genesis Chapter 7 for more on God’s distinguishing clean and unclean animals.
 
Yep - exactly - basic desert survival. Raw meat, hot desert climate. Some meats are more susceptible to diseases (trichinosis, etc.) when it starts to get really hot out. Same idea with the concept of keeping kosher - it’s basic survival in a desert climate. Not going to want to eat off a spoon that was used 3 hours ago to stir milk with and was left out in 90 degree heat.
 
Last edited:
Leviticus 20:24-26

God has separated Israel from the others people and also has separated certain animals for them as unclean. I’m saying Israel is to be holy and the animals thing serves a function to that effect. I might also surmise that since the basic law is about blood and life, etc., that the limitation to clean animals puts a damper on the consumption/killing of animals.
 
Last edited:
Thomas, if you look at the Gospels, uncleanness is also associated with leprosy and the spirits that possess people. Like the unclean spirits of Hell that possess people that coexist with the clean spirits of Heaven, the unclean animals coexist with the clean animals. I hope this helps you to understand the true meaning of what clean and unclean animals are. Take a look around at different animals in life, you’ll see that clean animals are of God and Heaven and unclean animals are of the Devil and Hell. Remember, the Devil is a serpent, a dragon, just like it says in the Bible. Some animals have fallen with the Devil, and the others have stayed true by remaining faithful to God. It’s an angel thing.
 
DanielJosephBoucher said:
Remember, the Devil is a serpent, a dragon, just like it says in the Bible.
Click to expand...
If snakes were inherently evil, Jesus would not have told his disciples to be “wise as serpents.” (Matthew 10:16).

And remember, it was a serpent that cured the Israelites in the wilderness (Numbers 21:8-9).
 
Yeah, I wonder about that… I think it might mean that we have to be wise to their tricks… because serpents are the most cunning of animals.

No, the Israelites were bitten by snakes, weren’t they? Then they made a bronze serpent or snake on a pole and looking at it cured the ones who looked and the others died.
 
DanielJosephBoucher said:
No, the Israelites were bitten by snakes, weren’t they? Then they made a bronze serpent or snake on a pole and looking at it cured the ones who looked and the others died.
Click to expand...
Yes, you are correct. They were bitten by snakes, and then they were cured by the snake.

This shows that the serpent has two polarities–positive and negative. It is analogous to the principle behind the first miracle that Moses showed to Pharaoh. Aaron’s rod turns into a serpent. But the sorcerers of the Pharaoh also make their rods turn into serpents. But the serpent of Aaron was greater than the serpents of the sorcerers, and it swallowed them. (Exodus 7:10-12)

These are the two polarities of the serpent–the holy serpent of God, represented by the rod of Aaron, and the wicked serpents of the Pharaoh, represented by the rods of his sorcerers.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top