Were the food laws in Leviticus 11 and Deut 14 given for health reasons? Part 2

This week we are going to continue with the topic of clean and unclean food and are they for health reasons. Last week we established the fact that God did not give these laws for health reasons. We then talked about what clean and unclean related to, and that was ritual purity as it related to entering the Temple, touching any holy object set apart for Temple worship and what disqualified a priest from serving in the Temple. None of these things was considered sin, but knowing you were unclean and entering the temple, or touching a holy object or serving in the Temple was. The fact is, nobody claiming to keep the food laws of the Bible really does. If you say you keep them, you cannot go into a restaurant and eat and come away a “keeper” of the food laws. If you have gone into someone’s house and eaten you cannot come away a ”keeper” of the food laws. Any stove, utensil, plate, counter-top, table that has had unclean meat touch them contaminates anything else that touches unless it undergoes a ritual immersion (Lev 11.32-35). A stove cannot be immersed but torn down and destroyed if it ever had unclean meat on it. Now, since there is no Temple, holy things or priesthood these laws are simply not in force. So, what Messianic and Christian people do is just ignore the rigorous restrictions because they interfere with their “lifestyle” where they think they are Torah observant. They say that we should follow the list but that ritualistic part about the stove, utensils, pots and so on can be ignored. They say God gave the list for health reasons but there is no evidence for this, even amongst Jewish authorities. As we said last week, how can a person who was contaminated by unclean meat be decontaminated simply by the setting of the sun? They recognize that the Old Testament says nothing about the food laws and health reasons. Some say “unclean” has to do with sanitary reasons but that is not true. Tahor (clean) and tamai (unclean) are never used to designate physical, hygienic cleanliness or not. They are always understood as purity and defilement in a “ceremonial” (as relating to the Temple) sense and ritual acceptability, not moral. The laws in Leviticus 11 and Deut. 14 differ somewhat because conditions/animals in the wilderness will differ from those in the land, that is all. The food laws in the Bible are ritualistic. If not, Paul would have never instructed the Corinthians to “eat whatever was in the meat market” because none of that meat was ritually clean, even if you ate beef, chicken or anything on the clean list. Nothing we buy in the meat markets today is clean, so those who think they are following the Dietary Laws of the Old Testament aren’t really observing them. If you eat in a restaurant or someone’s home, in nearly all the cases the meat is ritually unclean according to the Torah (Lev 11.35). There is so much more to this subject but I hope this clears up a few things for you as far as the food laws for health reasons.