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Originally Posted by littlemanpoet
I don't know. My bet is that the pigs in Israel probably didn't mind not getting eaten.  But seriously, I think this is best understood in the context of God being a few thousand years ahead of the modern medical establishment, protecting his chosen people from foods that would likely pose them with greater health risks. And the object lesson of clean and unclean no doubt reinforced God's moral law. |
So why does the pig suddenly become 'clean' after the resurrection - cf Peter's dream which I referred to earlier?
Of course, in the Pagan traditions the pig was always a 'sacred' animal, associated with the Underworld deities (see Math, Son of Mathonwy in the Mabinogion) so maybe there was a 'religious' taboo involved.....
EDIT Bit more on pigs in Middle/Near-Eastern myth:
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[color=#800080]The Boar[/color]
[font=MS Serif][color=#800000]In Egypt[/color][/font]
While the pig was sacred to Isis, the black boar (Sus scrofa) was associated with her brother and opponent, Seth. This black boar aspect was considered responsible for the obscuration of the sun during an eclipse. In one version, he gores Horus, the sun-god, putting out one of his eyes.
Morton Edgar thinks that "the tusks in the mouth of the male pig signifies that it was by the "power of his mouth" that the evil one, Seth, caused . . . (Osiris) to be put to death. In memory of this deed, the peoples of many countries have caused countless boars to lose their heads in sacrifice.
[font=MS Serif][color=#800000]In the Near East[/color][/font]
In Artemis' eastern form as Great Goddess similar to the Diana of Ephesus, she is associated with the boar. Hence, it is more than likely that the bulbous appendages on the tiered body of the triple-crowned goddess of the Ephesians are not breasts (Are there any breasts without nipples?) but rather boar's testicles.
Adonis, a later Greek god whose origins lie in the Middle East, perished by the tusks of a wild boar. His name, which derives from adohn or lord,likely refers to Tammuz, consort of the Great Goddess, Ishtar.
A [color=#0000ff]flying boar [/color] was associated with Clazomenae, a city of Asia Minor, home to philosopher Anaxagoras (499-428 BCE.) He taught, with some similarity to the Buddha, that "nothing comes into being nor perishes but that it is compounded or dissolved from things that are."
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More on Pigs generally:
http://www.khandro.net/animal_swine.htm[/color]