Does Yeshua or Paul instruct Jews to eat unkosher animals? Certainly not! Surprised? Let us look at the Scriptures.

Most Israeli schoolchildren were taught (mistaught) the story found in Acts 10. The typical non-believing Jew will tell you that Peter received a vision from God telling him to eat pork and shrimp! According to the Bible, Peter received a vision from God in which a sheet full of "...four-footed animals and crawling creatures of the earth and birds of the air" descended from the sky (Acts 10:12).

Some people envision this scene as a sheet coming down containing barbecued pork chops and lobster cooked in butter, with a side of fried shrimp and fresh crabs. Actually, the vision was a sheet filled with rats, cats, snakes, spiders, roaches, bats and every other unclean and undesirable living thing. As the story continues, we do not find a Peter who was anxious to sit down to this heavenly "banquet." Rather, Peter "was greatly perplexed in mind as to what the vision which he had seen might be" (Acts 10:17). Peter testified during this vision that he had never eaten unkosher or unclean food in his entire life.

While Peter was meditating on the meaning of the vision, a knock came at his door. The visitors had been sent to deliver a message: Peter was invited to a Gentile's home. This had never happened to him before. But it was at the house of Cornelius that Peter received the understanding of the vision.

And he said to them, "You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a man who is a Jew to associate with a foreigner or to visit him; and yet God has shown me that I should not call any man unholy or unclean...

"But in every nation the man who fears Him and does what is right, is welcome to Him" (Acts 10:28,35).

In summary, God told Peter that He had made a way for all men--both Jew and Gentile--to approach the Throne of Grace, a way which bypassed the cleanliness laws relating to the earthly Temple. The vision had nothing to do with advocating the eating of unkosher food.

When I explained the meaning of this vision to an archeology professor at the Hebrew University, he responded, "Oh, that's a good interpretation of this passage!" I told him, "That's no interpretation. Those are direct quotes from the mouth of Peter." In short, there is not a single implication in this passage that Peter was to start eating pork chops.

A Jew avoided ceremonial uncleanness because under the Law of Moses, it prevented him from entering the Temple-- in which was the presence of God. The Gentiles, who did not follow the Scriptures to maintain ceremonial cleanliness could never enter the Temple. For instance, at the time of her monthly period, a Jewish woman could not enter the Temple. Other things which made a person ceremonially unclean included contact with the dead, leprosy, sexual discharge, and child birth. Anyone unclean who did enter in was cut off from the community of Israel, excommunicated by God and expelled from His presence in the Temple--a fate worse than death.

But the man who is unclean and does not purify himself from uncleanness, that person shall be cut off from the midst of the assembly, because he has defiled the sanctuary of the Lord; the water for impurity has not been sprinkled on him, he is unclean (Num. 19:20).

Thus the religious rulers were willing to kill Yeshua, but they were not willing to become ceremonially unclean to do it--so great was the fear of being excommunicated by God.

They led Jesus therefore from Caiaphas into the Praetorium, and it was early; and they themselves did not enter into the Praetorium in order that they might not be defiled, but might eat the Passover (Jn. 18:28).

The Passover lamb had to be slaughtered in the Temple and one had to be clean to fulfill this commandment. Furthermore, the Bible declares that one could not even eat the Passover lamb at that time if he was ceremonially unclean (Num. 9:10-13).

Through Peter's vision, God was signaling to the Jews that Yeshua's blood ratified the New Covenant, which the prophets claimed would have a different set of conditions (Jer. 31:31-33). When Yeshua died, the veil of the Temple was supernaturally torn in two (Matt. 27:51). The middle wall of partition which had kept unclean people out, was no longer needed; the Temple in which God lives would now be His people. Men and women of all nations are now welcome into God's presence. Gentiles are no longer considered unclean outsiders as they were under the Mosaic Covenant.

If Israel today were still dependent on the Law of Moses for ritual cleanliness before God, then all of Israel today is unclean. There is no biblical basis for a Jew to be ceremonially cleansed from his uncleanliness without a functioning Temple.

But let us return to the subject of kashrut. Did Yeshua not tell the Jews to eat unkosher (profane) foods?

And the Pharisees and some of the scribes gathered together around Him when they had come from Jerusalem,

And had seen that some of His disciples were eating their bread with impure hands, that is unwashed.

(For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands, thus observing the traditions of the elders;

And when they come from the market place, they do not eat unless they cleanse themselves; and there are many other things which they have received in order to observe, such as the washing of cups and pitchers and copper pots) (Mark 7:1-4).

The one (and only) subject discussed in this passage here is the washing of hands and vessels called in Hebrew n'tilat yadayim. This ceremonial procedure, ordained by oral or Rabbinical Law, is not mandated by the Bible. Note the religious leaders' question:

And the Pharisees and the scribes asked Him, "Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with impure hands?" (Mark 7:5).

As we see, the question troubling the Pharisees and scribes was not, "Why are your disciples eating pork or shrimp?" but "Why are they eating without ceremonially washing their hands?"

If someone had even unknowingly touched something dead--a leprous person, bodily wastes, etc.--he was unclean. Everything he or she touched became unclean. Therefore, reasoned the rabbis, food became unclean also. The purpose of washing one's hands before eating was to make oneself ritually clean. However, it was not the Scriptural method.

The Torah explained how to get rid of uncleanness (Lev. 12-15). It also gave Israel Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) to atone for, among other sins, any unknown uncleanness (Lev. 16). But through Oral law, the rabbis added many extra precautions and rituals. The Oral law carried the same weight, so the rabbis said, as the written Word of God.

Yeshua answered that these rabbinical leaders were breaking the Law of Moses, but keeping their own man-made traditions. He actually accused them of "...invalidating the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down; and you do many such things like that" (Mk.7:13).

Yeshua then explained to the crowd that foods touched by an unclean thing are not ritually unclean. Food doesn't defile the heart. The important issue is what proceeds from a man's heart, for that is what defiles a man. He was pointing his listeners to the major problem of mankind--an unclean heart. What good is it for a man to eat ritually clean food when his heart is filthy?

He then "declared all foods clean" (Mk. 7:19). Bear in mind the subject of this conversation: ceremonial hand washing before eating. Yeshua was clearly declaring that a food's ritual cleanliness was not affected by hand washing. Note He did not say all animals are clean, and thus fit for food. He was not commanding His Jewish disciples to eat snakes, rats, lizards, and pigs, which were not considered food by the nation of Israel.

If Yeshua had advocated eating profane animals, the rabbinical Jews surely would have immediately rioted in the streets of Jerusalem. But never at any time--not even at his trial, when the leaders were looking for accusations--was Yeshua accused of persuading His disciples to eat unkosher animals.

Some 20 years later, Peter received the vision of the sheet. Recall that he claimed never to have eaten an unclean or unholy thing (animal) in his entire lifetime, although he had eaten with ceremonially unclean hands. So he, too, had certainly understood that Yeshua was speaking of ceremonial uncleanliness concerning foods.

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