~Mark 7.1-5 The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were . . . unwashed. (The Pharisees . . . do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing . . . . When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they . . . [wash] cups, pitchers and kettles.)
So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?”
First, I want to point out that while Jewish culture has honored the value of hand washing since centuries before Christ, it wasn't until the mid 1800's that Western culture began to catch on to the benefits of this. Here, it's not the hand washing, but the legalism that Jesus is resisting.
~Mark 7.18-23 [Jesus replied.] "Don't you see that what you swallow can't contaminate you? It doesn't enter your heart but your stomach, works its way through the intestines, and is finally flushed." (That took care of dietary quibbling; Jesus was saying that all foods are fit to eat.)
He went on: "It's what comes out of a person that pollutes: obscenities, lusts, thefts, murders, adulteries, greed, depravity, deceptive dealings, carousing, mean looks, slander, arrogance, foolishness—all these are vomit from the heart. There is the source of your pollution."
So if "all foods are fit to eat" why bother with this what-to-eat study? The food and health situation today is profoundly different than in the first century. At that time, people walked everywhere, even to cities miles away. Their daily work was in large part physical labor. And they got their food from local farmers at the marketplace. Today we aren't nearly so physically active; we do desk labor; and most Americans get their food from packages made in distant places by ConAgra, Kellogs, and Kraft.
Quite possibly if the average first century guy gave no thought to it but just ate what most people in the culture around him were eating, he'd have a strong chance of being in reasonably good condition.
I assert that today in the USA if a person gives no thought to it but just eats what most others around him are eating he will, eventually, get fat and sick. This is the default mode.
1 comment:
I agree w/ your comment on what happens in the US to people who don't pay attention to what they eat. That is a result of the system providing too much low quality food too easily. But on a historical, worldwide perspective it's only the very rich who have the luxury of worrying about what they eat. It's a misunderstanding of the historical state of human health to assume that people were healthier 2000 years ago. We are now the healthiest we've ever been. Diet has always been a major part of the problem, but back then it was probably more often not getting enough calories or being short of some critical vitamin, and not knowing what it was that they needed. I think we would be horrified to see the condition of the general population in Jesus era. His healings drew huge crowds because there were huge needs and no help from anywhere else.
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