The dietary restrictions still followed by many Jews today are found in Leviticus 11. The laws distinguish between “clean” and “unclean” animals, with “unclean” being prohibited eating.
Pork is forbidden, as are shellfish and rabbit. Some of the “unclean” creatures are ones the majority of people would avoid anyway: most insects, vultures, ravens, gulls, owls, storks, bats, rats, weasels, lizards, etc. The prohibitions only affect animals. Any kind of fruit or vegetable is “clean.”
Leviticus, Exodus, and Deuteronomy contain rules about how to properly slaughter and prepare meat. Also, there are rigid restrictions against mixing meat and dairy products (which is why some Jewish households have two separate sets of dishes and utensils).
Even though Jesus and His first followers were Jews, the dietary laws were abandoned by Christians. Mark 7 records Jesus’ confrontation with the Pharisees, who criticized Him for not being fastidious about the Jewish food laws.
Jesus told the people that nothing outside a man can make him “unclean” by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him “unclean.” In saying this, Jesus declared all foods “clean.”
Acts 10 relates the apostle Peter’s vision of a huge cloth holding clean and unclean animals, with God telling Peter, “What God has cleansed you must not call common” (v. 15).
As more Gentiles became Christians, the apostles decided that the only dietary restriction on Christians was to avoid meat offered to idols.
The Hebrew word kosher means “proper.”
