A week or so ago, after I filmed this episode, archaeologists announced the discovery of a whole pig skeleton in Jerusalem dating to the Iron Age. A few thoughts: 1) Evolving Cultural Element: This discovery lends credence to Max Price's central argument that the pig taboo was an evolving cultural element. Even while the pig taboo was being formulated by Jerusalem religious elites, someone was raising pigs in the heart of the Kingdom of Judah! 2) North vs. South: This discovery, though super interesting, doesn't change the fact that pig husbandry apparently was more popular in Northern urban centers like Megiddo and Beth Shean compared to urban centers in the South (Lachish and Jerusalem). 3) There's Always an Exception: But! It is still interesting to see that, even while the taboo was being formulated, people in Judah were still raising and eating pigs [in small numbers]. I see this in similar light to the fact that Asherah figurines (a Canaanite goddess) were discovered in Jerusalem too, even though the Northern Kingdom gets blamed more often for idolatry.
It could be a garbage disposal just as much as it could be a meal .... it doesn't say in leviticus not to associate with pigs in any way shape or form . It just says don't eat them . Have they found any skeletons of any gentiles in Jerusalem? Now that would be a topic for argument now, wouldn't it?
The Old Testament talks about all of Israels struggle with following God's commands. Its true that the North was more wayward more often, but the South had its issues too.
The Bible covers all this. In the NT, the parable of the Prodigal Son has him living with pigs, and there's a pig herder mentioned in the story about Legion. The Scriptures overflow with people breaking taboos, everywhere, and at all times, which is the point of the propitiation of Jesus.
I think what archaeologist are forgetting in their digs is that although Megiddo, Hazor, and Jerusalem had a majority Jewish population in the Iron age, the Pig bones and skeletons could have came from traders residing in those cities, or native Canaanites. It is well known that there were Phoenician, Philistine, and Amorite/Aramaean traders in those cities and trade networks going from Greece, Mesopotamia, and Egypt.
Let's not forget, pork products are valuable. People who produced them were likely wealthy. You don't have to eat them to make them. And, all Christian nations conquered by Islam had a thriving trade in pigs. More than likely, bones discovered are from non-Jews or apostate Jews who followed foreign gods.
14:03 i’m lebanese and we don’t eat a lot of pork, because pigs are kinda expensive to raise here. See, what this video failed to mention is that pigs consume an oceanic amount of water as oppose to say sheep or goats. I believe this the main reason why they’re not that popular in the levant
Ah, thats why there was that handy herd of pigs on the Gadarene shores of the Sea of Galilee for Jesus to cast demons into. Also, Israel is wetter and much more fertile than Judah. Judah was envious of its fertility.
Good idea, but does not explain how the amount of pig bones in the middens swerves down so severely in a rather short time - that did not see too much climate change reducing water availbility.
A friend bought a piglet with the intention of fattening it for a Christmas feast. However it was so lovable that he didn't have the heart to slaughter it. He used to go to the pub and the pig would wait patiently outside. When he came out he had a bottle of beer for the pig.
It's why I think if people abstain from pork, it's out of RESPECT for pigs for their remarkable intelligence and emotional depth, NOT because of disdain for pigs.
@@coryaw95 Uh, your comment PROVES how emotionally complex they are. The mothers get so incredibly stressed out in the horrid conditions they are often in, they savage their piglets due to intense trauma and stress.
@@coryaw95 And you don't think that maybe all pig farming is extremely stressful for pigs? Do you honestly think such complex animals enjoy that kind of environment?
I think its important to note that “human garbage” before the invention of plastic was pretty much just all organic material, that wild animals would be eating anyway. Its not like the pigs were eating inedible things.
Most other common meat animals don't eat rotten food, offal, unused plant parts (wheat stalks, flax detritus) or other animals. There's a reason that what they eat is often called "slop". They really are different in their approach to food sources.
I had a religion professor who suggested the Abrahamic pork taboo emerged from socio-economic interests of ancient Israelites. They were sheep and cow herding nomads, so pork farming clashed with that. It became an easy way to identify who was who in a time when nomadic herders were sharing territory with farmers from a different culture.
100%, it's based on class politics and exclusion. People forget that the Hebrews were an elite group who kept other Canaanites as subjects/seeds/slaves
That’s the same with Indians and Hinduism. The Faith/Tradition has existed thousands of years before Abrahamic Beliefs. But I believe a lot of the Religious Practices were directly influenced by cultural practices. Indian Civilisation was one of the earliest to start farming and cultivation. This is why Meat was slowly driven out of mainstream diet. Because of Farming, cattle was revered in a very high regard. A lot of people have a misconception that Indians worship Cows. That’s not true. Some Hindus do worship cattle who are Celestial abodes of some Deities. But they don’t go around worshipping random cattle. Because of the Farming practice, Cattle became a symbol of prosperity and civilised society. You cannot move plough without cattle. Cows Milk is arguable the most useful consumable (behind petroleum). It can be broken down to so many different byproducts. Milk, Cheese, Whey, Ghee, Butter, etc. This giving nature of cows was seen as a Motherly Act. So how can you slaughter and eat your own Mother? Most people who have never raised Cows will never realise how intelligent and Domesticated they are. The wealth of a person in those times was measured by the amount of cattle they had. Not Gold.
This video really reflecting of my experience. I always build my minecraft farm with no pigs because they offer only meat while other animals gives you leather, feather etc and beef steak fill you up the most.
@@Ch-ew9tm most of my play I never found potato or carrot until I am pretty much established by wheat farm and cow. I just live on fish and apple starting
@@tiffanydennis4227 that has nothing to do w it. Jews don't bother with pigs, as there is no secondary product in their animal husbandry. It wasn't profitable. Don't overthink it, its ALWAYS about the money. Ever as far back as we can peer into history.
You should also consider the difficulties of raising pigs. Pigs don't sweat, so they require large amounts of water to regulate their body temperature by drinking it and wallowing in bodies of water or mud. Without a stable source of water, raising pigs comes at the expense of other creatures (humans included) who also need water to survive. I think it would be interesting to compare the weather patterns and environmental conditions around the times when the numbers of people raising and consuming pigs dropped off.
All you points just prove people want to be where they want regardless of environmental considerations. Smart people put things where they prosper best, not where it's convenient
Agree with this. I always figured it strictly was inability to refrigerate resulting in illness of those who ate pork, but certainly as in vid - cost of pig care versus yield is a major factor. Videographer did a great job bringing up several factors.
Raising pig is not as difficult as you make it seem. I raised two from piglets to full adults and they had no problem drinking water from a aqua table. Very smart animals that one can raise right and still be useful.
Texas was frontier with a lot of new people moving in and settling in the 1800s. When I was working on my family’s history I noticed a pattern. People brought pigs because you could walk them and they stayed near your wagon. As settlements formed people let their small livestock wander around their houses to hunt bugs and such to eat. As settlements turned into proper towns someone would complain about pigs running loose and how unsophisticated it made the town look. The word unclean was always used. Soon an ordinance would be passed that required pigs to be fenced or forbidden in town at all. A year later the local newspaper would be filled with complaints about all the trash and rubbish around town. The pigs had been keeping the town clean. Rather than return to pigs on the loose the town would start converting to sanitary solutions used by large cities. This pattern seems to fit your description of settlement as well. Pigs don’t bother farmers and pioneers because they understand their advantages and how they fit into life. But as more people only know town life they see pigs as uncontrolled, a nuisance, wild, and finally unclean. They don’t fit their idea of what a modern town should look like so they are forced out. It isn’t really about them being unclean as they clearly clean up after the unclean habits of people. It is about image and people wanting to look prosperous. A tool toward this is ridiculing the people who still raise pigs. Eventually those people are labeled unclean, too.
Your last sentence drove home a nail for me. I worked for environmental services (our trash handling "pretty" name). Some of the public treated us as tho we were filthy, even tho we were not making trash, just doing our jobs of safely dealing with their garbage. I still get people asking me if I am glad to be away from the garbage. Wtf! We all make trash/garbage every single day and SOMEBODY has to handle it. It's a very necessary job and the public should be more than grateful that someone is willing to touch their waste and safely deal with it to PROTECT the public from all sorts of pathogens.
@@ecouturehandmades5166 Seriously! Trash disposal and sanitation is a backbone of any city or town. I get that the society perceives jobs related to trash as low requirement jobs, but many jobs are like that and few are as essential.
@@Roger-o4c We are highly social species, so as long as this protein source was not essential to survival, I don't see why it couldn't be foregone in the name of social status. After all it translates to stuff like availability of mates and signaled group belonging. Pretty vital stuff :)
This might be a bit too controversial and you've touched on elements of this in your "The Most Painful Religious Rituals" video but I was wondering if you could do a video on the origins and practice of religious male circumcision. Specifically among Jews and Muslims. Thanks. I enjoy your videos and found this one fascinating.
The practice of circumcision came from Egypt, the Jewish culture/ethnicity merged from one of Egypt’s provinces, when the Abrahamic beliefs (of Judaism and Christianity) spread throughout the Rome Empire and collapsed, a certain merchant a couple of centuries later (after the Western Roman collapsed) created a cult following with a new religion, borrowing a lot of aspects from the Abrahamic belief to instill upon he’s new mythology.
It is probably based off of long-term observations by people that shared a group bathroom & baths...Consequences might be slow, but consequences that are consistent, they speak volumes. Lack of "science" doesn't mean the consequential observations were wrong.
@@memezoffuckery3207 Doesn't the story of Abraham and Moses sort of hint at this notion? The Torah portrays it as being received directly as a covenant from God. Not that different from the Egyptian belief, it would be the sign of being a "chosen people" in the Egyptians mind, perhaps? It would be a bit like how Vietnamese embraced Chinese customs, despite being distinct peoples.
In the words of Homer Simpson... " Some of us eat pork some don't, some of us eat beef, some don't. But everyone likes chicken, we have that in common. So let's drop it." Or something to that effect.
he wants to deceive people into his 7th century Pagan CULT Islam.! Ignorant human souls who DO NOT KNOW THEIR MESSIAH "YESHUA/JESUS CHRIST THE LORD."🤔🤗🤣🕎♎
I used to have a smallholding many years ago , and among the livestock was a Large white pig called Lucy. As the breed name implies they are large, but she was a sweet natured creature who would ''talk'' to everyone. She was clean in her habits, her stye was large and she always kept the latrine end clear of her bed of straw. Pigs are not necessarily all unclean, its only man who keeps them in captivity who endorses that, left to themselves they are just the same as other animals.
Pigs are unclean because of what they eat. And that includes about everything. Ant that explains why they are hotbeds for trichinosis infection. I got an antipathy to pork while a teen ager and reading the 1942 Yearbook of Agriculture which is on animal disease. That book cured me from pork. Cloven hooved cud chewing animals also can get sick, but they generally look very sick and die. And they do NOT naturally get trichinosis. Pigs don't live the same way. There is no comparison.
I read somewhere that the cannibals of New Guinea called human flesh”long pig”. My grandad served in the RAF in WW2,many planes returning from raids would be badly shot up,there were fires on the bombers,it was far from rare for a gunner to burn to death. My grandad couldn’t touch pork for years after the war,the smell was exactly the same as burnt human flesh.
I totally can understand that. Among North American Indians bear was considered to have an uncanny resemblance to human beings when butchered and thus a large number of rituals sprung up around its hunting to delineate it as something distinct.
My great uncle had a similar experience, as he served in the pacific theater as well. He didn’t allow bacon or ham in his home because it smelled exactly like piles of bodies being burned
@ReligionForBreakfast accounts from both sides of the crusades show that, when rations had fallen short, soldiers resulted to cannibalism. Cannibals have notably described human flesh as pork flavored. I think a straightforward but easily overlooked explanation is the prevention of PTSD in the household of returning soldiers
Dude, you have a lovely way of presenting material, and telling history, without winding people up or getting hooked on dogma. Fantastic! Long may you continue.
Shalom, Salam, Peace. Quran [Last Testament] “He has forbidden you only dead animals, and blood, and the swine, and that which is slaughtered as a sacrifice for other than God.” (Quran 2:173) Torah [Old Testament] Also In The Gospel [New Testament] (Lev. 11:7-8) as . The approved animals "chew the cud," which is another way of saying they are ruminants that eat grass. Pigs "cheweth not the cud" . They eat calorie-
This feels like a reverse version of the lobster going from a garbage food (if even considered edible at all) to being among the the highest tier of decadence.
I wonder if the fact that the pig is an omnivore had anything to do with it (since all carnivores are prohibited) .Also pigs need a lot of water and mud to regulate their temperature because of the lack of sweat glands, I wonder how that would have played out in a region where water supplies were already beginning to dwindle.
I raised a pig for the county fair. They don't need water and mud at all to prosper. They enjoy it, but it's not necessary. Also, they are smarter than dogs.
I'd definitely love to see the evolution of the image of pigs in Hinduism- considering they were at least holy enough for a supreme god to have taken avatar as a pig, when did they reach their modern image as unclean
The dharmashāstras make a distinction between wild and domesticated pigs. Varāhas i.e. wild pigs are considered relatively clean and can also be hunted and eaten (depending on one's varna) while Vidvarāhas i.e. village-pigs are deemed unclean. Wild pigs are still hunted and eaten in parts of India by some otherwise mainstream traditional Hindus. Furthermore, in Hinduism, reverence, association with cleanliness and holiness don't always go together. For example, Vishnu also takes form of a fish and a lion (lion-man), but both their flesh is considered unclean in the shāstras. While dogs are considered ritually unclean, they are still revered as vehicle of Bhairava, but eating their flesh is considered to be among the lowliest of acts.
@@kshatrapavan Yes you are correct. But pigs are considered forbidden to eat by general Hindu population and boars aren't available either. So Hindus more or less completely avoid pig/pig like animal meat.
@@caraxes_noodleboi Yes. Abolition of Kshatriya princely states, deforestation and urbanization has made hunting a thing of the past. This has burred the distinction between Varāha (wild-boar) and Vidvarāha (village-pig) making Hindus avoidant of pork in general.
All of this stuff still makes sense biblically: A lot of the purity laws were intended to differentiate the Israelites from their pagan neighbors, so that they wouldn't go on engaging in the same idolatry as their neighbors (which they still did obvs). Also everyone knows that the Kingdom of Israel was way more into worshipping pagan gods throughout history, right up until Assyria destroyed them, so it makes sense that, if the bible was written by mostly folks from the southern kingdom, the pork taboo would be included with the general wickedness of the Northern kingdom
@@Maples01 You know how many men died in foxhole praying to a god? Praying to your GOD? (millions) Praying people died in same numbers as non believers.. What you think is a sound argument is quite ignorant
I found this an excellent synopsis of archeologic and textual research on the subject. It informed me on new information from recent evidence. Well researched, well written and well presented. Thank you
Very true maddog, if you have a piece of rough land covered in thorn bushes and stinging nettles, just put you pigs on it and they will eat all the plants and till the soil so it looks like a ploughed field, great if you want to plant crops there.
@@janacagle2141 Olives, grapes, wheats and oats are still prized today, but as long as the pigs are restricted to a part of the land you want cleared and cultivated, they would do an excellent job. Once their work is done, you can move them elsewhere and plant any of the crops you mentioned or more.
I find the dynamic of anti-urban themes in parts of the Old Testament, or nomad vs. farmer, to be fascinating. From this video, I take away that pigs were most popular in both cities and/or settled agriculture, but less suitable for nomadic life or small villages. Two similar but different dichotomies that -to me - seem to fit with other themes in the Bible.
The approved animals "chew the cud," which is another way of saying they are ruminants that eat grass. Pigs "cheweth not the cud" because they possess simple guts, unable to digest cellulose. They eat calorie-dense foods, not only nuts and grains but also less salubrious items such as carrion, human corpses and feces.
Yeah, it might have been an effort to maintain the values especially found in nomadic cultures, like independence, out-of-the-box thinking, relying on your friends and family rather than on a rigid social system etc. Reminding Israelites over and over that their god is not a god of accumulating stationary wealth helped them keep their smarts and flexibility. I liked the short video "Bombino - story of Nomad" where a Touareg proudly presents these nomadic values. Seemed to me it had a sort of Torah/Old Testament vibe to it 😃
I just imagine something similar to Scottish tradition of kilt. Jewish people might’ve had a tradition of not eating pigs but it wasn’t a serious doctrine. But as they were harassed by foreigners, they started to latch on to their tradition, making it their identity, and evolving into a complete taboo of pork.
Well, if you read the Torah, pigs weren't singled out as particularly bad. They were just forbidden in the exact same way as camels, rabbits, and shellfish. Seeing pigs as particularly bad is a later development, but their prohibition is not, judging by the text.
@@Menzobarrenza “On the basis of a variety of arguments, modern scholars generally see the completed Torah as a product of the time of the Persian Achaemenid Empire (probably 450-350 BCE),[9][10] although some would place its composition in the Hellenistic period (333-164 BCE).[13]” Wikipedia The text is very late compared to the thousands of years BCE the video covers.
@@pansepot1490 Awesome of you to provide a source. Thanks. Very important distinction, though: "The completed Torah" is a VERY specific compilation of all 5 books of the Torah. It really has no bearing on wether or not the forbiddance of the assorted animals was simultaneous or not. Each of the 5 individual books of the Torah is obviously going to be older than a compilation of all 5 of them. Even more so for the individual narratives therein.
@@Menzobarrenza Now I wonder why they banned camels and rabbits. My first thought is maybe Jewish people observe people dying of protein shock, but as this video points out, you cannot use modern medical facts to describe the historical taboo.
@@heeseunglee6605 I can't speak for any anthropological reasons, but the theological motivation is very simple. In the narrative, YHWH explicitly states that He intends to make the Jews noticeably distinct from all other peoples ("holy" literally means "set apart"), in order for the Jews to be able to serve as reminder of YHWH to the other nations. Ergo, it really is as simple as the Jews just being made intentionally different to everybody else. There is nothing special about the animals themselves. At least, this is what it looks like if you just read the text itself.
I hereby declare that this is - by far - the best channel on UA-cam. Every video is so well presented and contains so much fascinating and wonderful information - so much so that I often watch them time and again and still come away each time having learnt something new and invaluable. Thank you for all the work that goes into making this channel so excellent.
Very fascinating story and exemplary application of scientific thinking. I really liked how potentially hasty conclusions are also mentioned and called into question, by highlighting contradictory data, like max 20% and sometimes only 1% Philistine pork consumption, not being a strong enough cultural marker.
I would also add that the association of pork with foreignness (beginning with the association with Philistines), would have compounded the southern critique of the North, since, one favored attack of the Biblical writers were that the Northern Kingdom were too cozy with their foreign neighbors and their cultic practices. BTW, I suggest doing a general video on religion and dietary practices, including discussing the dietary restrictions from the Indian religions of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.
Life style conflicts. My family was a rice farmer. Cow, Goat and Sheep like to eat rice, rice is delicious grass for them. Pork, Chicken and Duck are rise by rice farmer because they don't eat rice and they like to eat rice bran and rice grain (they eat clean food not dirty) which we have a lot of it and can store for years after dry by sun. But we also rise a few Cows and Buffaloes for labor use so we don't lack leather. For clothing, They're Linen, Cotton even Silk.
I once read where the split was between nomadic herders (sheep and cows) and more stationary city dwellers (more pig in diet), and the attempt to distinguish themselves from "the other." The Jews being originally nomadic sheep herders set themselves apart. Thanks for the in-depth analysis and clearing up that myth by good, scientific evidence.
In support of this I would point out that rabbits are also prohibited under Jewish law, they are raised in confined spaces like pigs which would make them well suited to being raised in cities also.
Just to clarify, they weren't Jews at that point - they were still Canaanites. Then the southern Hill Canaanites in Palestine developed the Hebrew/Israelite identity which then further split into Jews and Samaritans. (There are still under a 1000 Samaritans left in Nablus and the vicinity today) And to clarify even further, the original Canaanites, or the later Hebrew/Israelite populations weren't solely pastoralists, they were also farmers.
my school teacher said that they also forbid to make statues of their god because they would be too heavy to carry for nomads. semi-related here bit I hope it fots to the point in the original post.
Thanks for doing this channel. I am not at all a religious person but I do find things religion related fascinating. The whole, "why they do it" thing will never be boring.
Why they do it. Ever wonder why the Roman Empire adopted christainity in the first place? It was far easier to force people to adhere to the teachings of a god they could only imagine than keeping people from climbing Mount Olympus.
@@timq6224 well if you look at all the roman neighbors, they all lost their pagan religion or reformed it, this suggests that polytheism is (like animism) a stage in religions that civilizations need to overcome in some form. The persians created the dualistic system out of their pantheon, the indians created henotheism, the israelites created monotheism
@@irgendwer3610 Now, that is a bold assumption. The word "to overcome" suggests that monotheism is, in some way, superior to polytheism, when it is evident that this is simply an idea that had spread through Europe and parts of South-Western Asia by happenstance, comparable to language families-and I do want to point out that the Persian's dualism and the Indian's henotheism are still forms of polytheism, and Buddhism, by far one of the largest religions in the world, has no god at all. Much rather, the reason the Roman Empire adopted Christianity was quite simply the fact that Constantine the Great converted to Christianity himself due to a set of mostly personal circumstances, and did a significantly better job at convincing the Roman public-many of which already were Christians-to accept the religion than someone like Elagabalus did. Do note that the Western Roman Empire fell not 200 years later. Looking in the direction of East Asia and Africa also provides some clues that this is, indeed, not the case. China has been largely Buddhist and Taoist for much of its history, save for the Qing dynasty, with the former having, as previously mentioned, no god at all, and the latter being quite clearly polytheistic; and Japan has combined ideas of Buddhism and Shinto until the 19th century, with the latter having, by far, the largest number of deities in any recorded religion. And while yes, Shinto is much less popular than Buddhism there nowadays, this is a rather recent development that came with globalization, education and scientific advancement, with Buddhism being a lot easier to believe in as an educated individual due to making comparatively few attempts at explaining the natural world with metaphysics.
There's a scene in The Longships by Frans G. Bengtsson where the main characters, a bunch of vikings, fish up a strange dark-skinned man who jumped from another ship. They can't understand what he's saying but learn that he won't row on Saturdays and refuses to eat pork, which confuses them. One of the vikings who has a knack for language spends some time speaking with him and report that he's an escaped slave and a "Jew", whatever that is. One of the others asks why he won't eat pork and the first guy says: "It seems that makes his god angry." They ask why and he goes: "I don't know. Maybe his god wants all the pork for himself?" The vikings consider this for a moment and conclude that it's a good thing their own gods don't meddle in such things.
Ugh, I hate that kind of ignorant religious "humor." The whole point was, "Yahweh" said pig was unclean and NOT fit for sacrifice or consumption. The priests ate the sacrifices. Pig meat was considered low class food, and the priests were the top echelon of society.
Pigs don't sweat. They keep every toxin they ever consume in their flesh. Parasites, and vaccines. They can eat a human and fully digest the corpse except for the teeth. Pigs can till the ground and clean up garbage, plant trimmings, and pigskin can be used for some things. I haven't been able to find any examples of Jesus himself ever putting any animal flesh into his own mouth. Not even fish. He may feed others, but it seems like he himself only ate water, wine, fruit, figs, olives, bread, oil. Maybe milk & honey. Bread back then had seeds and nuts, fruits in it and was more like a meal.
I know BCE stands for “Before the Common Era” but I’m unclear on what exactly separates the “Common Era” from “Before the Common Era. Surely there had to be something that happened around that time for such a switch to occur. Does anyone know?
BCE and CE are modern substitutes for BC and AD. Non-Christians are rightly uncomfortable calling something the Year of Our Lord 2024 which is what AD, anno domini means. The separating event was the birth of Jesus or at least when Dionysius Exiguus in 525 CE thought he was born. There was no year zero. The calendar goes from the year 1 BCE to the year 1 CE. Of course, people back then didn't use this system of numbering years. In the Roman Empire dates were counted either from the mythical founding of Rome or the reign of a particular emperor.
Enough Marxist ideology driven "politically correct" activists whined for the change .... communism disguised as "tolerance" .... "Christians bad" and capitalism and ....
@ 0:48 Aversion to pork was also common to Scottish highlanders. One regiment in America during the French and Indian War nearly starved because they wouldn't eat the pork rations provided (to their credit, the other units didn't take advantage of this, so when hunger got the better of them, the highlanders still had rations available).
I read that the Kelts considered dogs and pigs closely related, and Cuchulain was forbidden to eat dog (and died after breaking that taboo) - I wonder if there's a correlation.
@@strawpiglet A connection here seems possible. The Scots did come from Ireland, so perhaps the taboo was native to Ireland and was introduced to what became Scotland.
In Chinese, there is an idiom (豬朋狗友) which literally translates to pig-dog friends. It means bad friends who influences you in a negative way. Although Chinese people consume a lot of pork and dog in the past and the present, and clearly never had any taboos towards pig and dogs, their views towards both of them are a mixed one. Pigs and dogs are still viewed somewhat negatively in Chinese culture. There's also "schwinehund" in German, which translates to "swine-hound", and it's often used as an insult. So yeah there may be some connections.
@@miss42310 Sorry for the delay, but yes, that happened in 1759. It was specifically the 2nd Battalion of the 42nd regiment that did this, while they were marching through the Mohawk River Valley. It wasn't the only example either: the newly-raised 77th and 78th regiments, while still in Scotland having been freshly raised in 1757, refused to eat the pork rations given to them. As a result, the bacon issued was just left to rot.
I always wondered about this. I knew there was more to it than just "because God said so" or "because pigs are dirty." I just never thought I would find such a great and objective explanation of it. Thanks.
@@Syncrotron9001 3 year old kids are self-aware and can talk, adult pigs don't even recognize themselves in a mirror, but regardless this is a pointless argument. Also, eating dogs is totally fine too, just not socially accepted in our culture due to the role they play in our society.
Out of context, but there was a saying in Turkiye for hypocritical religious people that goes like this: “We don’t eat pig because it's haram, but we eat haram like pigs.”
There's only 4 things you can't eat. Everything else is halal for us. 'Halal meat' is a marketing term. You can eat any animal, so long as it was a human that took it's life. Wasn't sacrificed and dedicated to other than Allah, that means if they don't pronounce any name other than Allah's over it, you can say bismillah and it's halal. You can't drink blood. You can't eat carrion meat. You can't eat the FLESH of swine.
When I was a child in the early fifties, there was a "swill bucket" buried in the ground outside our tenement - it was covered by a heavy iron lid. Every day someone in my family - or from our neighbors - would take out the scraps from that day's meals, step on the "lever" that lifted the lid, and throw in the leftovers - never very much because no food was wasted right after the war. Once or twice a week, the pig farmer would come into town and empty the swill bucket onto his truck. Free food for his pigs!
in northern vermont this is a way of having a stake in a pig. you provide slop and once its slaughtered you get a cut of the meat. barter economies are very important in rural areas of the united states.
My mom has recently had an issue with a neighbor who owns livestock and lives down the street from her whose pig has been getting out lately and coming chill in my moms yard. Now, my mom didn’t really perse have an “issue”, she named the pig Pablo and made sure he was safe from her dogs but he looked exactly the pig on this thumbnail. (I just gotta say my mom was FaceTiming me telling me how cute he was and worrying for his safety she’s so sweet
Nowadays here in the US, on the rare occasion someone gets sick from trichinosis, it's usually some hunter who bagged a bear and ate it. Bears are 4-legged garbage disposals!
I always imagined that the ancients were very familiar with what comes to feed on the corpses after a huge battle with bodies scattered for miles sometimes, I'm sure wild pigs ate anything back then as they do now. Better safe than sorry, wouldn't want to eat a creature that grew up on the flesh of your enemies or kin.
But the ancients mostly ate pork, so your argument doesn't stand. The pork taboo is a Middle Eastern thing, everywhere else in the world pigs have been raised and eaten for millenia. The only societies that have a pork taboo nowadays are societies that have been islamized at some point in the past. Besides, any animal (sheep, cow, chicken...) will feed on animal flesh (including human) if readily available. Pigs are no exceptions in that matter.
@@lizzkaayako2270 , let me give you an example, Jeremiah chapter 10, in relation to the xtian celebration of 25 december. and many things the Scriptures forbid, the xtians celebrate, so they actually do the opposite of what the Bible says. for another example, the 4th Commandment
@@lobogunthergdiesoetewulf9792 There is nothing in the scriptures that we need to celebrate Christ's birth but there is nothing against it either including Jeremiah 10. A Christmas tree is not worshipped by anyone. Nor is decorating a tree evil. Yes, the Santa thing is out of hand but the biggest problem is the disgusting "gotta have that thing" that happens during the Christmas season. But that truly has nothing to do with Christ's birth, does it?
It also wasn't called "Philistia", but rather Pleshet, Pilistu, Palastu etc. (probably related to "pelasgós"), and the greek name "Palaistínē" came from those older names.
Before the advent of refrigerators it was considered (in some countries) that pig meat would decay relatively quickly. In France, for example, there may still exist specialised pork butchers (bouchers porcins)
When I was in my mid teens my metalwork teacher gave us a warning as we were learning about melting & casting aluminium that a coworker in his past had spilled molten aluminium onto himself and it smelt like burning pork. Later I personally learnt that badly burnt flesh looks like cooked pork & now we are using pig organs, or parts of, as organ replacements in humans due to compatibility so I have often wondered if this similarity in our biology & the possibility of crossover diseases was the reason for the ban.
I have often thought that the compatibility factor was perhaps the MAIN reason for God's prohibition of eating their flesh. The saying "You are what you eat" comes to mind. When I lived in Iowa ("the pork capital of the world"), I often remarked that people -- who tended to be morbidly obese and who ate a lot of port -- took on the physical characteristics of pigs. They look like pigs standing upright. Even their eyes have a "piggy" shape and their cheeks and noses as well as their hips and thighs have the same configuration as the pig. They look like HYBRIDS of humanoid and pig.
actually if you look at all the animals on the scriptural "not fit for human consumption list, they are all scavengers, or bottom feeders, or clean up the environment of poisons, for example clams. The Birds are the predators primarily that eat rodents, snakes , or in the case of vultures, roadkill. So the saying, garbage in, garage out... if you eat an animal designed to eat garbage, you are eating garbage second hand... But for pork, it is parasites that's the problem primarily,
@@curtismelton_4_8_15 Same as chicken if you die in front of one it will eat you. If you keep farm fowl make sure you keep them away from dogs as they will eat there poop.
Ancient peoples are not aware of parasites so it couldn't be any sort of sanitary reasons for prohibition on pork. They have no understanding or even conception that pig organs can be used in humans. Just religious ignorance.
obvious! who would eat anything slimy and smelly that looks like a nasal discharge ... :-) yes i'd like to know about some of those other food rules too.
Adding to the above, it's important to note that historical India was ruled by Muslims during several important periods, and that the early modern period of Mughal rule was especially influential in Indian cuisine as we now know it. Pork prohibitions among the Muslim ruling elite almost certainly contributed to its rarity in modern Indian food. Even moreso in the case of restaurant food, which is more directly linked to historical courtly food.
@Bored The Vast majority of India was effectively under Muslim rule for over a millenia which leads to that lol, In fact the pork eating areas are the areas where the Muslism didn't really conquer (7 sisters regions and South India like the Coorgs, Southwestern Hindu Malayalis and Southeastern Hindu Tamils). Also Pork can be said to be a taboo in Hinduism since eating any meat was considered taboo and Brahmins had to be vegetarians or face being outcast and you can't enter temples if you've consumed meat that day or if you haven't ritually cleaned yourself after doing so.
@Bored The dharmashāstras make a distinction between wild and domesticated pigs. Varāhas i.e. wild pigs are considered relatively clean and can also be hunted and eaten (depending on one's varna), while Vidvarāhas i.e. village pigs are deemed unclean. Wild pigs are still hunted and eaten in parts of India by some otherwise mainstream traditional Hindus. Now since hunting has become uncommon even the distinction has faded, and so even otherwise meat eating Hindus would hesitate eating wild pigs.
I have lot of relatives living in the rural areas. The main reason why they raise very few pigs is that , pigs compete with human in term of food. Pigs does not eat grass , they eat corn or rice , which human also consume, pigs are feed by human left overs, so raising so many pigs is not sustainable when their source of feeds depends on just human leftovers, there are not just plenty of human leftovers to feed so many pigs. Goats , cattle and sheep eat grass , there are just plenty of grass growing all over, so there are no problems to feed them. In your video you said that pork are consumed by the poor people which is the opposite. Pork are served in special occasion like gatherings , marriages, baptism etc.
Pigs will eat grass-maybe not as first choices for nutrition-I personally have fed grass to pigs-but pigs eat everything. In a pig enclosure-there is not a blade of grass left and often the tree bark is also missing up as high as they can reach if large trees are in there before the pigs. All small trees get consumed, all weeds eaten. The place will be bare dirt.
@@beastshawnee Well, pigs can’t survive only on grass - they need some grain in their diet, as do chickens - which is why you never see “grass-fed pork” or “grass-fed chicken” on any packaging. You only see grass-fed beef, lamb, and goat, because these animals eat only grass.” Pigs will survive on grasses but they will not do well. This diet will not sustain them for very long and they will not grow and reproduce well, if at all.
There is an old saying, "root hog or die". In many regions, pigs were meant to forage for their own food. Many times people would put them on an island in a river or off the coast, and come back in a year to harvest them. In Spain a swine herder would drive his swine herd through the woods to feed on the nuts that fall from the trees and other edible roots.
I tend towards the theory that pigs are/have always been a little "too human" in both taste and temperament for many cultures. We even use them for human medical analogs today. If anything, having such a "prohibition" is a gift to the pigs who never had to worry about being led to slaughter. The proverbial blessing in disguise.
@@LakhnBer there is a famous Japanese cannibal, Issei Sagawa, who killed a girl and over the course of a few days ate pieces of her. Later when he confessed, he said that human flesh tastes like pork.
Awesome! I now feel better about eating pork AND you are the only way UA-cam channel convincing me to try out your advertiser, noom. Also, lobster was fed to cheapen food on Riker’s Island until railroads gave people access, making it a delicacy and raising the price considerably. A recent historic example of food changing class culture.
As a former farm worker and a history buff, I'll give you some information. Many people were wanderers. Especially thebJrws. Simply, you can herd sheep but it is almost impossible to herd pigs. The early Jews knew this. Muslims may also have known this but might have taken the taboo from the Jews. Hey, do you know in the Jewish Torah, you are not allowed to eat shell fish but you can eat GRASSHOPPERS. Why? Those fish are bottom feeders and take in a lot of poison from the water. In many living areas thousands of years ago, most garbage and crap went into the water. Grasshoppers (locust) eat vegetables. They are also 90% protein. So they are a healthier food source.
I have always misunderstood most of Leviticus, BUT, most of the "dietary" rules make a lot of sense in an age where refrigeration and food safety inspections aren't available. Shellfish is more likely to go bad than almost any other seafood. Fish with scales dry and salt more easily than those without. And Pork has more parasites (and has similar susceptabilites to human disease)(I really can't spell today.) than other animals Goat and Cow are least likely to transmit to humans as well. That said, in the modern world with refrigeration food is easier to preserve and is "safer" than in ancient times. Past that, I am probably a heretic in more than one religion so at least I have that going for me.
There are many dangerous types of food (mushrooms, certain kinds of fish, grass etc) around the mediterranean but nobody bothered to make them a religious taboo. Also there are places around Israel with very similar climate where people eat pork since forever. For example Greece, Cyprus, Syria and all the Asia Minor.
My mom was from Italy. They salted pork and ate a lot of pork. They were never sick from that. They were poor so pork a d fish was their meat. They used olive oil but lard was way cheaper.
@@JWPanimation I believe the shell fish was on a coin perhaps associated with a god. It is possible that was also poor people food so associated with poverty. Shrimp eat garbage. So the poor slaves eat the worst foods too.
They said pork taste almost like human flesh. That's what a cannibals says. And when i look at cut of pork belly, it looks very close to human skin. But don't let me stop you from what you want to eat.
This is so funny for me. I have "not pleasant" memories of slopping the hogs when I was a little kid. Watermelon rinds were the most prominent item in the slop bucket with skillet cornbread table scraps a close second. Our family's two pigs were named Pork and Chop. Our parents wanted no questions about their ultimate fate. The other memories were when little kids, my siblings and I, were awakened in the middle of the night to round up the pigs when they got out of their pig lot. I also remember the time that the hole they dug under the hog wire fence was patched with the metal slide from our backyard gym set. They have become fond memories over sixty years later but the video helps to bring it all back into focus.
I have "not pleasant" memories of having to beat off a sow with sucklings with a 2x4 or get bitten. At 13 I was thrilled that she went to the butcher. Today, I'd love to have another, if only I had the space.
As a Muslim, I have never had pigs, but my Catholic neighbor did, and they stink horribly. We had hens, a cow and 2 goats (with 4 adorable and typically playful goat kids), and though the cow sh*t did stink, it was not even half as bad as pigs. One could say it is because I got used to the smell of the animals we owned, but we smelled them just as often as we did the pigs (unfortunately) because the pigs were less than 30 feet away from our property, and after more than couple decades of not owning any animals, the cows still don't stink NEARLY as bad as pigs.
@@edinfific2576 pigs that are able roam about and forage don't smell nearly as bad, but admittedly pig feces are very like the human brand and do stink more. But it's a male goat in season that I can't stand. We had a neighbor with one and could smell the stink over 300m away. Ultimately, stink is just part of having livestock. They all pretty much reek if they're in one place long enough. I was confined to bed for 6 months a couple of years ago and no one else cleaned out the chicken coop. The smell was awful. (Edin, Bosnia?)
@@frankmueller2781 Yes, Bosnia. Most people here keep pigs in one place, they usually get a few square meters and that's it. It was also very disgusting and upsetting hearing a pig squeal during slaughter; even after being slaughtered it emitted sounds. Personally, I can't watch any animal being slaughtered, and I wouldn't have the heart to slaughter any, I feel sorry for them too much. Even much more upsetting to me is slaughtering of a human; thank God I haven't witnessed any personally, but there was a short video on the Internet that I saw around the year 2000, and I was in shock for a long time, I could never bear to watch something similar again. It really takes a sick, sadistic mind to enjoy either doing that or watching it. When my father was slaughtering one of our young goats, I put fingers in my ears so that I don't hear its cries and I was crying out loud (I was 14, it was 1992., beginning of open aggression on Bosnia). I'm not a vegetarian, but I'm not a meat lover either, although I occasionally enjoy a tasty piece of chicken, lamb or beef. And yes, goats smell too, but none of them come close to the pig smell.
Don’t know if you’re being sarcastic, but that’s not what secondary products are. Secondary products are obtained from living animals and can be renewed periodically. Primary ones are the ones you need the animal to be slaughtered for, and you can only get more of by obtaining more animals to slaughter. You’re right about hair being a secondary product, but we don’t use it enough to constitute raising pigs solely just for their hair. In contrast to entire dairy, egg, and wool farms.
Pigs produce milk like all mammals, but they do not chew cud. As for disease, My parents told me that I must eat only pork that has been very thoroughly cooked because they carry trichinosis and humans can contract that (and other diseases) from undercooked pork.
It was poor phrasing, but the difference is that pigs can't be easily milked by humans. Suction is required in order to get their milk out, unlike goats and cows and many other species. In order to milk a pig back then, you'd basically have to suck it out.
Lard would be in direct competition with olive oil as a taxable, wealth producing, tradable commodity. Big (Olive) Oil might have successfully lobbied for pig prohibition. Some things never seem to change.
6 pig diseases you should know 1 Exudative dermatitis (greasy pig) The symptoms of this disease are skin lesions caused by an infection of the bacteria Staphlococcus hyicus. 2 Coccidiosis. ... 3 Respiratory diseases. ... 4 Swine dysentery. ... 5 Mastitis. ... 6 Porcine parvovirus.
@@omarlittle-hales8237 I eat lots of pork as does everyone I know, and we have never gotten sick from it. Food poisoning can be completely avoided by basic cleanliness and thorough cooking.
I read in an article awhile back that they did a study and discovered that Pigs are really clean animals and that humans are the problem. They said they did a study in a review in which they had the Pigs to choose what food to go to eat and each time they chose vegetables, fruit, grass and they rejected the trash and filth and garbage. The scientists determined that Pigs weren't nasty but just like humans and other animals that if that's all you give them to eat is garbage and refuge then that's what they'll eat to survive.
Pigs are like catfish, are created to be bottom feeders. Have you seen a gorilla eating trash? How about a 🦒 giraffe eating trash? They eat heavenly foods that grow high in the trees and they don't carry disease, as well as, live longer life spans than Porky the pig.
@@ladwaloncrownover8986 I don't think they were created to be bottom feeders - they simply eat garbage because when we domesticated them that is what we gave them. It would probably be the same with many animals.
@@bennywolfe4357 I haven't watched it fully nor know what context is missing but I know at least Jesus says that because he has blessed some food including pork that it therefore is sin free and that he has made it holy for consumption...I think
What amazes me is that ancient people had a glimpse about ruminant animals. What Im sayin is that every ruminant animal meat is safer to eat, more nutritious and have a better omega 3 to omega 6 ratio bein that way a healthier option.
I once heard that Japan’s constant history of _necessitating_ cooperation due to natural disasters is part of the reason why it’s so harshly-conformist. Considering how brutal the kingdoms of yore could be to each other, that could explain why the cultures of that time were also xenophobic/conformist. 🤔
It's the opposite of your example. Instead of "they hate these people for doing something slightly different", it was "doing something slightly different BECAUSE they hate these people". The hate probably began by competing over the limited resources in the area. Tough conditions create bad neighbors.
Eh, more a people thing than a religion thing. It's just that historically, most people were religious. I refer you to the antipathy among people identifying with different modern political parties. Not religion based. Just human.
I've read somewhere, possibly in one of Jared Diamond's books, that pork flesh tastes similar to human flesh. And that's another possible explanation for why some ancient cultures banned it.
Cheers for video! I would watch non-adsense if were at/near very front/back/both rather than interrupting like commercial. Might you place reels with mutual consideration?
I think that ancient Jewish text referring to the pig as "unclean" is a big telltale. Their propensity for eating garbage and rolling in mud (as the ancients likely didn't understand that pigs can't sweat and roll in mud for temperature and pest control) would have seen them as filthy beasts. One thing to note, though, is that while pigs may be the best known prohibition to the modern layman, it was far from the only creature considered "unclean". Carnivores and shellfish, for example, also fell into this category. Many seafood creatures enjoyed today, such as oysters, clams, mussels, snails (a la escargot), shrimp, and lobster were also considered equally taboo. The horse meat popular in many parts of the world, off-limits. Same with wild game other than ruminants like deer, elk, etc. Since bacon, ham, and pork chops are very popular in the modern world, pigs get a lot of the attention here, but it goes far beyond that.
I decided to watch this video and was not disappointed. It is informative, interesting and engaging which is a great combination while learning something. Thanks for making it.
1:42 "9,700BCE". Well, since Jesus spoke this world into existence roughly 6,000 years ago the probability that humans were eating pigs here nearly 12,000 years ago is ---- zero. Let's believe the Bible.
The problem with this theory is that the Samaritans, descendants of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, also have the pork taboo. The Samaritan Pentateuch bans the consumption of pork just as fervently as the Jewish Torah.
I would suggest 2 additional reasons for ANE pork taboos (cultural and later religious) 1) water - pigs need to bathe as well as drink water while cloven cows, goats and sheep can live on the moisture in fresh grass for a few days. Large portions of the Ancient Near East were dry, so thirsty pigs would compete with humans for water. 2) a nearly universal taboo against indirect cannibalism. In Islam we see pigs, rats, certain birds of pray and dogs (although hunting dogs less so - but certainly stray and feral dogs!) as haram - similar to Judaism - it may be because these animals will readily scavange human remains.
@@ducx23 the waste products of beer brewing contain little alcohol and are actually quite nutritious - brewer's yeast is an excellent source of B vitamins. I don't think that beer has a lot to do with it because before Islam most of the ancient near east drank volumes of beer and yet we saw the beginnings of a pork taboo before Islam. Also, Jewish people drink alcohol but don't eat pork.
To quote the movie Pulp Fiction: Vincent: "Bacon tastes _good_ , pork chops taste _good_ ." Jules: "Sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie, but I'd never know 'cause I wouldn't eat the filthy [things]." Thanks for the video!
@@markrobin3666 If you really wonder how anyone can eat [meat], you must be missing a few brain cells since that has a pretty easy and obvious answer. Probably a result of your vegetarian diet - not enough B12 or something.
whelp this man has earned my sub for well-thought-out lectures on interesting topics while showing respect to current practitioners. I always love to learn about the historic roots of religious practices as it helps me understand my faith (I'm muslim) more completely. Sure, I could just take the argument 'because god said so' or I could dig a bit deeper since god also said that seeking knowledge is good (unfortunately this is forgotten by many of my brethren).
The approved animals "chew the cud," which is another way of saying they are ruminants that eat grass. Pigs "cheweth not the cud" because they possess simple guts, unable to digest cellulose. They eat calorie-dense foods, not only nuts and grains but also less salubrious items such as carrion, human corpses and feces.
Agreed. It is nice to hear from a thoughtful muslim. I'm post religion at this point in my life but love to hear where these traditions and taboos came from.
I would argue soap is pretty important for humans living close together in a city. But then again clean running water for baths and showers to make use of that soap would of been in short supply in desert regions.
Hmmm. So pigs are like cigarettes. Once extremely popular and then banned. Except, perhaps, in the lower classes. Anyone got a light? Gotta smoke some bacon.
I wonder if pigs were too easily manageable by the "average" person and tabooing pork centralized the control of food. Also, Gobleki Tepe always made me wonder... not one depiction of pig yet the backfill was littered with pig bones. Edit: I'm later in the video and youre already addressing the first point.
The animals we make totems are rarely ones we eat or our local teams would be the Steer, Hogs, Chickens and Turkeys. While there are some exceptions one way or the other, as in the Ducks in the NHL and the guy that eats bear meat both are exceptions to the norm. Pork, it's what's for dinner!
It's deeply fascinating to learn that the reason for the pork prohibition may have been less about health and more about the maintenance of power by the ruling classes. It's not shocking at all, but it is fascinating.
and actually makes more sense. The whole trichinosis explanation religions gave didn't go away. However, the Roman Empire relied quite heavily on pork, and so it had to devise a way to make it okay to eat before adopting the religion...hence "Peter's dream" which completely did away with one of the teachings of jesus himself.
Is that not one of the facets of organised religion? They are shared myths which were created (by man) to bring people together then were co-opted (by man) to control people.
@@timq6224 Jesus said "It's not what goes into a man's mouth that defiles him, but what Comes out of the heart" so idk what you are referring to. And Peter himself said that the vision, not dream, was about not calling the gentiles unclean, when God wanted to save them. It had nothing to do with food laws.
a good rule of thumb, avoid touching frogs that are colorful. it is still a good rule, eventhough its not the color itself that is dangerous. i think its the same idea as dont eat animals with certain physical apperances, such as split hooves, or claws. in a world before science, i think it become as simple as ppl who do X usually die, therefore dont do X, but then it becomes a tradition where the reason is forgotten and the practice remains.
It might also be a mnemotechnic device - a simple principle that is easy to remember. Who's to say the "cloven hoof" wasn't an Israelite equivalent of an ABC song? 😃
Your videos are awesome! You know you’re doing a good job when people like me see your videos in their recommendations and think “I didn’t even know that I was interested in that, and now I’ve learned more about humanity!”
For real, this guy don't even acknowledge the fact that all animals mentioned not to eat in the bible are scavengers meant to clean dead things and toxins from the Earth..It's also clear he knows nothing about basic nutrition.Even the World Health Organization Website states pigs are unhealthy to eat.. @@rosemarietolentino3218
Bristles and lard were important non-food products from pigs prior to very recently. Literally was the grease you used for everything and the source of bristles for paint brushes and other brushes Etc
Their tough skin was used for footballs until recently! I'm sure it was used in the ancient world too, when you needed a tougher leather than from cow, goat or sheepskin. The bladders and intestines were also used as containers.
I grew up in a fairly small village, we had pigs which we used to let out in the woods to feed. Those were some of the smartest and cleanest animals there are.
This presentation was great, in-depth and cogent. The ban on pork consumption explained here is very well based in history and economics as well as relating to religious practices. Thanks for all your hard work.
I"m not qualified to rule on the what's right and what isn't in the presentation -- but I'm astonished by how far archaeology has come from the ancient-treasures-and-powerful-cities emphasis in what I was taught as a kid. I'm also delighted by the breadth of scholarship found here. Well done, Dr. Henry. I'll keep listening.
The approved animals "chew the cud," which is another way of saying they are ruminants that eat grass. Pigs "cheweth not the cud" because they possess simple guts, unable to digest cellulose. They eat calorie-dense foods, not only nuts and grains but also less salubrious items such as carrion, human corpses and feces.
@@omarlittle-hales8237 YES, AND they do not expell any toxic substances that they consume. They have no sweat gland,.so bad things are kept in the meat and organs.
@@ronshook5194 I don't know anything about the etiology of trichinosis, but I can just imagine a pre-Christian era small society falling quite ill. I'm just speculating, but I'd bet that illness from consuming port started the Jewish dietary laws -- just a matter of survival.
@@ronshook5194, You are urged to become VEGAN, since carnism (the destructive ideology which supports the use and consumption of animal products, especially for “food”) is arguably the foremost existential crisis.🌱
I was vegetarian for 12 years. When I returned to meat eating, it was initially difficult to digest, feeling the taste of beef in my stomach and mouth for days. Eventually I adapted.to meat, but I NEVER recovered from problem of vomiting when I eat pork. In Portugal I could feel in my body whenever there was pork. Interestingly a friend's Asthma is so triggered by Pork. Of course I think it is dangerous to eat carnivores because of parasites (carnivores eat lots of herbivores, so anything carnivorous has more parasites). As explained, pigs are omnivores and have parasites. I think historically people did realise you're more likely to get ill if eating poorly cooked pig, BUT justified it religiously as simpler for uneducated population.
Just heat it up, I lost count how many times I had gastroenteritis and even have typhoid fever from eating salad. No amount of cleaning is going to vegetables that is smothered with fertilizer and chemicals and animal/insect feces.
why you had so much trouble in the beginning with eating pig is pure and simple due to brainwashing by religious communities,when you are brainwashed that it is forbidden and dangerous, you don't believe in anything else, and therefore brainwashing people. it is a method used to this day in religions
Pigs don’t just have lard as a by-product they’re also useful as a source for tough leather and for brush bristles. Not the big in-demand money spinners as wool nor milk but still something. Another thing: Ovine dairying from goats and sheep is as old as dairying from bovines, and is still continued today in Southern Europe and the Middle East.
Not just those regions, I live in Czechia, Central Europe and just bought local... sheep cheese? How do you call that in English? I come from an ancient shepherding culture (Wallachian) that originated in Romania and stretches far to the north - to Czechia, Slovakia and Poland - and of course it makes sheep and goat cheese. When you herd sheep and goats, it makes no sense not to make the most of it. IMHO also the shepherding cultures in Central Asia (Mongols, Kazakhs etc.) use the milk and make cheese.
A week or so ago, after I filmed this episode, archaeologists announced the discovery of a whole pig skeleton in Jerusalem dating to the Iron Age. A few thoughts:
1) Evolving Cultural Element: This discovery lends credence to Max Price's central argument that the pig taboo was an evolving cultural element. Even while the pig taboo was being formulated by Jerusalem religious elites, someone was raising pigs in the heart of the Kingdom of Judah!
2) North vs. South: This discovery, though super interesting, doesn't change the fact that pig husbandry apparently was more popular in Northern urban centers like Megiddo and Beth Shean compared to urban centers in the South (Lachish and Jerusalem).
3) There's Always an Exception: But! It is still interesting to see that, even while the taboo was being formulated, people in Judah were still raising and eating pigs [in small numbers]. I see this in similar light to the fact that Asherah figurines (a Canaanite goddess) were discovered in Jerusalem too, even though the Northern Kingdom gets blamed more often for idolatry.
It could be a garbage disposal just as much as it could be a meal .... it doesn't say in leviticus not to associate with pigs in any way shape or form . It just says don't eat them .
Have they found any skeletons of any gentiles in Jerusalem? Now that would be a topic for argument now, wouldn't it?
The Old Testament talks about all of Israels struggle with following God's commands. Its true that the North was more wayward more often, but the South had its issues too.
The Bible covers all this. In the NT, the parable of the Prodigal Son has him living with pigs, and there's a pig herder mentioned in the story about Legion. The Scriptures overflow with people breaking taboos, everywhere, and at all times, which is the point of the propitiation of Jesus.
I think what archaeologist are forgetting in their digs is that although Megiddo, Hazor, and Jerusalem had a majority Jewish population in the Iron age, the Pig bones and skeletons could have came from traders residing in those cities, or native Canaanites. It is well known that there were Phoenician, Philistine, and Amorite/Aramaean traders in those cities and trade networks going from Greece, Mesopotamia, and Egypt.
Let's not forget, pork products are valuable. People who produced them were likely wealthy. You don't have to eat them to make them. And, all Christian nations conquered by Islam had a thriving trade in pigs. More than likely, bones discovered are from non-Jews or apostate Jews who followed foreign gods.
14:03 i’m lebanese and we don’t eat a lot of pork, because pigs are kinda expensive to raise here. See, what this video failed to mention is that pigs consume an oceanic amount of water as oppose to say sheep or goats. I believe this the main reason why they’re not that popular in the levant
And probably there was a climate change from more humid to dry co ditions around that time.
Ah, thats why there was that handy herd of pigs on the Gadarene shores of the Sea of Galilee for Jesus to cast demons into. Also, Israel is wetter and much more fertile than Judah. Judah was envious of its fertility.
@@magdlynstrouble2036 what are you talking about? Lol 😂
Good idea, but does not explain how the amount of pig bones in the middens swerves down so severely in a rather short time - that did not see too much climate change reducing water availbility.
I think this is the main reason. In societies where there's a lot of water, pork is the most valued meat.
A friend bought a piglet with the intention of fattening it for a Christmas feast. However it was so lovable that he didn't have the heart to slaughter it. He used to go to the pub and the pig would wait patiently outside. When he came out he had a bottle of beer for the pig.
It's why I think if people abstain from pork, it's out of RESPECT for pigs for their remarkable intelligence and emotional depth, NOT because of disdain for pigs.
@@Wasserkaktus oh yeah, those sows are so empathetic that they chronically suffocate their piglets and have to be crated. How complex
@@coryaw95 Uh, your comment PROVES how emotionally complex they are. The mothers get so incredibly stressed out in the horrid conditions they are often in, they savage their piglets due to intense trauma and stress.
@@Wasserkaktus Except this doesn't only happen on commercial farms. It's endemic to pig rearing in general.
@@coryaw95 And you don't think that maybe all pig farming is extremely stressful for pigs? Do you honestly think such complex animals enjoy that kind of environment?
I think its important to note that “human garbage” before the invention of plastic was pretty much just all organic material, that wild animals would be eating anyway. Its not like the pigs were eating inedible things.
Remember that they eat "escrement"
They say rusty razor blades and broken beer bottles are a real treat for them. "One man's trash..." 😆
Most other common meat animals don't eat rotten food, offal, unused plant parts (wheat stalks, flax detritus) or other animals. There's a reason that what they eat is often called "slop". They really are different in their approach to food sources.
Pigs will eat anything that don't eat them first, goats, however, will eat just about anything.
@@marktwain2053 when u gonna drop ur next book bruh
I had a religion professor who suggested the Abrahamic pork taboo emerged from socio-economic interests of ancient Israelites. They were sheep and cow herding nomads, so pork farming clashed with that. It became an easy way to identify who was who in a time when nomadic herders were sharing territory with farmers from a different culture.
And when they let their hair grow differently it was easily identifiable also.
100%, it's based on class politics and exclusion. People forget that the Hebrews were an elite group who kept other Canaanites as subjects/seeds/slaves
That’s the same with Indians and Hinduism.
The Faith/Tradition has existed thousands of years before Abrahamic Beliefs. But I believe a lot of the Religious Practices were directly influenced by cultural practices. Indian Civilisation was one of the earliest to start farming and cultivation. This is why Meat was slowly driven out of mainstream diet.
Because of Farming, cattle was revered in a very high regard. A lot of people have a misconception that Indians worship Cows. That’s not true. Some Hindus do worship cattle who are Celestial abodes of some Deities. But they don’t go around worshipping random cattle.
Because of the Farming practice, Cattle became a symbol of prosperity and civilised society. You cannot move plough without cattle. Cows Milk is arguable the most useful consumable (behind petroleum). It can be broken down to so many different byproducts. Milk, Cheese, Whey, Ghee, Butter, etc.
This giving nature of cows was seen as a Motherly Act. So how can you slaughter and eat your own Mother?
Most people who have never raised Cows will never realise how intelligent and Domesticated they are. The wealth of a person in those times was measured by the amount of cattle they had. Not Gold.
Rubbish.
@@cxssetteman182 ....what Abt us the nomads of steeps, we ride horses, drink their milk, and.... slaughter them and love horse meat....
This video really reflecting of my experience. I always build my minecraft farm with no pigs because they offer only meat while other animals gives you leather, feather etc and beef steak fill you up the most.
Absolute chad comment
They are easier to breed tho. A Carrot or potato farmland gives you 2-4 carrots/potatoes. A Wheat-field gives 1-2 Wheat.
I remember playing a game where pigs are use for leather and sausages.
@@Ch-ew9tm most of my play I never found potato or carrot until I am pretty much established by wheat farm and cow. I just live on fish and apple starting
@ming
Knights and Merchants?
Used to love that game. One of my favorites
I'm a butcher. I have had people say "pork is unclean." Then buy crablegs and catfish and scallops. I just shake my head.
whats wrong with scallops?
catfish yeah i understand. crab legs why?
Oysters can be very disgusting too
@@rednarok all shell fish is unclean, because ita a fish without scales. Same as cat fish.
All those are bottomfeeders
@@tiffanydennis4227 that has nothing to do w it. Jews don't bother with pigs, as there is no secondary product in their animal husbandry. It wasn't profitable. Don't overthink it, its ALWAYS about the money. Ever as far back as we can peer into history.
They are all disgusting honestly.
You should also consider the difficulties of raising pigs. Pigs don't sweat, so they require large amounts of water to regulate their body temperature by drinking it and wallowing in bodies of water or mud. Without a stable source of water, raising pigs comes at the expense of other creatures (humans included) who also need water to survive. I think it would be interesting to compare the weather patterns and environmental conditions around the times when the numbers of people raising and consuming pigs dropped off.
What a very interesting point you raise.
Pigs don't produce milk or wool. So for the water resource they use they are not a good choice as live stock
All you points just prove people want to be where they want regardless of environmental considerations.
Smart people put things where they prosper best, not where it's convenient
Agree with this. I always figured it strictly was inability to refrigerate resulting in illness of those who ate pork, but certainly as in vid - cost of pig care versus yield is a major factor. Videographer did a great job bringing up several factors.
Raising pig is not as difficult as you make it seem. I raised two from piglets to full adults and they had no problem drinking water from a aqua table. Very smart animals that one can raise right and still be useful.
Texas was frontier with a lot of new people moving in and settling in the 1800s. When I was working on my family’s history I noticed a pattern.
People brought pigs because you could walk them and they stayed near your wagon. As settlements formed people let their small livestock wander around their houses to hunt bugs and such to eat.
As settlements turned into proper towns someone would complain about pigs running loose and how unsophisticated it made the town look. The word unclean was always used. Soon an ordinance would be passed that required pigs to be fenced or forbidden in town at all. A year later the local newspaper would be filled with complaints about all the trash and rubbish around town.
The pigs had been keeping the town clean. Rather than return to pigs on the loose the town would start converting to sanitary solutions used by large cities.
This pattern seems to fit your description of settlement as well. Pigs don’t bother farmers and pioneers because they understand their advantages and how they fit into life. But as more people only know town life they see pigs as uncontrolled, a nuisance, wild, and finally unclean. They don’t fit their idea of what a modern town should look like so they are forced out.
It isn’t really about them being unclean as they clearly clean up after the unclean habits of people. It is about image and people wanting to look prosperous. A tool toward this is ridiculing the people who still raise pigs. Eventually those people are labeled unclean, too.
Your last sentence drove home a nail for me. I worked for environmental services (our trash handling "pretty" name). Some of the public treated us as tho we were filthy, even tho we were not making trash, just doing our jobs of safely dealing with their garbage.
I still get people asking me if I am glad to be away from the garbage. Wtf! We all make trash/garbage every single day and SOMEBODY has to handle it.
It's a very necessary job and the public should be more than grateful that someone is willing to touch their waste and safely deal with it to PROTECT the public from all sorts of pathogens.
@@ecouturehandmades5166 Seriously! Trash disposal and sanitation is a backbone of any city or town. I get that the society perceives jobs related to trash as low requirement jobs, but many jobs are like that and few are as essential.
So social status outweighs the need for a good protein source?
@@Roger-o4c We are highly social species, so as long as this protein source was not essential to survival, I don't see why it couldn't be foregone in the name of social status. After all it translates to stuff like availability of mates and signaled group belonging. Pretty vital stuff :)
It's like complaining the garbage man looks too much ..like a garbage man.
This might be a bit too controversial and you've touched on elements of this in your "The Most Painful Religious Rituals" video but I was wondering if you could do a video on the origins and practice of religious male circumcision. Specifically among Jews and Muslims. Thanks. I enjoy your videos and found this one fascinating.
Let's get this comment to the top!
The practice of circumcision came from Egypt, the Jewish culture/ethnicity merged from one of Egypt’s provinces, when the Abrahamic beliefs (of Judaism and Christianity) spread throughout the Rome Empire and collapsed, a certain merchant a couple of centuries later (after the Western Roman collapsed) created a cult following with a new religion, borrowing a lot of aspects from the Abrahamic belief to instill upon he’s new mythology.
It is probably based off of long-term observations by people that shared a group bathroom & baths...Consequences might be slow, but consequences that are consistent, they speak volumes. Lack of "science" doesn't mean the consequential observations were wrong.
Bump! I am really interested in this as well.
@@memezoffuckery3207 Doesn't the story of Abraham and Moses sort of hint at this notion? The Torah portrays it as being received directly as a covenant from God. Not that different from the Egyptian belief, it would be the sign of being a "chosen people" in the Egyptians mind, perhaps?
It would be a bit like how Vietnamese embraced Chinese customs, despite being distinct peoples.
In the words of Homer Simpson...
" Some of us eat pork some don't, some of us eat beef, some don't. But everyone likes chicken, we have that in common. So let's drop it." Or something to that effect.
He forgot that vegans exist
@@Laittth I have never seen a cave painting of a salad.
chicken is my favourite vegetable
@@dougkennedy4906 Golden reply-you win my comment of the day award.
@@dougkennedy4906 you nearly killed me with this reply i am still laughing thanks
"Thou shalt not eat the pig, for it will give you diarrhea." Funniest thing I've heard this week.
you could say the same ting about my wife's cooking and she doesn't eat pork!
do u read quran mitch
Same can be happend if you eat other red meats lol
@@lufhopespeacefully2037 Why are you going through the comments asking people if they read the Quran? What's the follow-up question you want to ask?
he wants to deceive people into his 7th century Pagan CULT Islam.!
Ignorant human souls who DO NOT KNOW THEIR MESSIAH "YESHUA/JESUS CHRIST THE LORD."🤔🤗🤣🕎♎
This was explained so well I could understand it easily. Wonderful.
I used to have a smallholding many years ago , and among the livestock was a Large white pig called Lucy. As the breed name implies they are large, but she was a sweet natured creature who would ''talk'' to everyone. She was clean in her habits, her stye was large and she always kept the latrine end clear of her bed of straw. Pigs are not necessarily all unclean, its only man who keeps them in captivity who endorses that, left to themselves they are just the same as other animals.
Let your pig free in the wild. And see her after a month.
its like a rottweiler when raised by a family acts like a labrador. but thats not their natural aura.
@@MyHusbands Nothing extraordinary will happen, they'll just burrow in the ground to search for roots and grub.
@@MyHusbands you go out into the wild for a few days (no modern equipment) and see what happens
Pigs are unclean because of what they eat. And that includes about everything. Ant that explains why they are hotbeds for trichinosis infection.
I got an antipathy to pork while a teen ager and reading the 1942 Yearbook of Agriculture which is on animal disease.
That book cured me from pork.
Cloven hooved cud chewing animals also can get sick, but they generally look very sick and die. And they do NOT naturally get trichinosis.
Pigs don't live the same way. There is no comparison.
I read somewhere that the cannibals of New Guinea called human flesh”long pig”. My grandad served in the RAF in WW2,many planes returning from raids would be badly shot up,there were fires on the bombers,it was far from rare for a gunner to burn to death. My grandad couldn’t touch pork for years after the war,the smell was exactly the same as burnt human flesh.
I totally can understand that. Among North American Indians bear was considered to have an uncanny resemblance to human beings when butchered and thus a large number of rituals sprung up around its hunting to delineate it as something distinct.
@@mysticonthehill
Humans,pigs and bears are all omnivores. Coincidence? Maybe.
So what you're saying is that roasted humans smell yummy?
@@chickenlover657
Yup. I suspect we taste good too.
My great uncle had a similar experience, as he served in the pacific theater as well. He didn’t allow bacon or ham in his home because it smelled exactly like piles of bodies being burned
@ReligionForBreakfast accounts from both sides of the crusades show that, when rations had fallen short, soldiers resulted to cannibalism. Cannibals have notably described human flesh as pork flavored. I think a straightforward but easily overlooked explanation is the prevention of PTSD in the household of returning soldiers
Dude, you have a lovely way of presenting material, and telling history, without winding people up or getting hooked on dogma. Fantastic! Long may you continue.
Get off him. He's mine!!!
And he's cute too 😍😍😉
The fact that this brilliant man used the glowing eyes meme completes me
Best use of it ever is in that screenshot of Gary Plauche in Baton Rouge.
do u read quran nic
Ok ni
@@Smith-cd3yh Pigs aren't and the ancient Israelites didn't know anything. There were even hooved carnivores at one time on the Earth.
Shalom, Salam, Peace. Quran [Last Testament] “He has forbidden you only dead animals, and blood, and the swine, and that which is slaughtered as a sacrifice for other than God.” (Quran 2:173)
Torah [Old Testament] Also In The Gospel [New Testament] (Lev. 11:7-8) as .
The approved animals "chew the cud," which is another way of saying they are ruminants that eat grass. Pigs "cheweth not the cud" . They eat calorie-
This feels like a reverse version of the lobster going from a garbage food (if even considered edible at all) to being among the the highest tier of decadence.
Amazing. Because it’s the best
Well said, I think oysters underwent a similar journey. :)
@@finolacat8355 Yea, poor man's clam.
and lobsters arent even all that great...
Lobster is another food prohibited for kosher.
During the Great Depression, pork was called "city chicken" and it was popular as it was not expensive.
I wonder if the fact that the pig is an omnivore had anything to do with it (since all carnivores are prohibited) .Also pigs need a lot of water and mud to regulate their temperature because of the lack of sweat glands, I wonder how that would have played out in a region where water supplies were already beginning to dwindle.
I raised a pig for the county fair. They don't need water and mud at all to prosper. They enjoy it, but it's not necessary. Also, they are smarter than dogs.
@@FelonyVideos Really 😃??
@@MariaLopez-hc2nm Yes, really. 👍
It's because they're bottom feeder they eat anything
@@Know26874 basically the mollusk of the overworld...
I'd definitely love to see the evolution of the image of pigs in Hinduism- considering they were at least holy enough for a supreme god to have taken avatar as a pig, when did they reach their modern image as unclean
I wonder if Islam had influence on this?
@@MrHanderson91 it’s entirely possible, especially with the effect Islam has on South Asia
The dharmashāstras make a distinction between wild and domesticated pigs. Varāhas i.e. wild pigs are considered relatively clean and can also be hunted and eaten (depending on one's varna) while Vidvarāhas i.e. village-pigs are deemed unclean. Wild pigs are still hunted and eaten in parts of India by some otherwise mainstream traditional Hindus.
Furthermore, in Hinduism, reverence, association with cleanliness and holiness don't always go together. For example, Vishnu also takes form of a fish and a lion (lion-man), but both their flesh is considered unclean in the shāstras. While dogs are considered ritually unclean, they are still revered as vehicle of Bhairava, but eating their flesh is considered to be among the lowliest of acts.
@@kshatrapavan Yes you are correct. But pigs are considered forbidden to eat by general Hindu population and boars aren't available either. So Hindus more or less completely avoid pig/pig like animal meat.
@@caraxes_noodleboi Yes. Abolition of Kshatriya princely states, deforestation and urbanization has made hunting a thing of the past. This has burred the distinction between Varāha (wild-boar) and Vidvarāha (village-pig) making Hindus avoidant of pork in general.
All of this stuff still makes sense biblically: A lot of the purity laws were intended to differentiate the Israelites from their pagan neighbors, so that they wouldn't go on engaging in the same idolatry as their neighbors (which they still did obvs). Also everyone knows that the Kingdom of Israel was way more into worshipping pagan gods throughout history, right up until Assyria destroyed them, so it makes sense that, if the bible was written by mostly folks from the southern kingdom, the pork taboo would be included with the general wickedness of the Northern kingdom
Your comment is a breath of fresh air. thank you!
Israelites worshipped idols because they saw no difference in results , because there is no difference. It is all mythology.
@@noahway13 There are no atheists in foxholes
@@Maples01 You know how many men died in foxhole praying to a god? Praying to your GOD? (millions) Praying people died in same numbers as non believers.. What you think is a sound argument is quite ignorant
@@noahway13 people who live just lives according to god tend to have better results than their amoral counterparts
I found this an excellent synopsis of archeologic and textual research on the subject. It informed me on new information from recent evidence. Well researched, well written and well presented. Thank you
I don't think I heard this mentioned: pigs are _very_ good at upturning / 'tilling' fields.
Very true maddog, if you have a piece of rough land covered in thorn bushes and stinging nettles, just put you pigs on it and they will eat all the plants and till the soil so it looks like a ploughed field, great if you want to plant crops there.
@@johnbrereton5229 pigs would be detrimental to the farming which is prized in biblical times, such as olives, grapes, and wheat, and oats.
Until it start messing with the farm. But yeah, its good for tilling the ground....and the feces would act as fertilizer as well.
@@eleethtahgra7182
Yes indeed, you would certainly need to put a fence of some sort around them, or they would wreak havoc across the farm 🐷
@@janacagle2141
Olives, grapes, wheats and oats are still prized today, but as long as the pigs are restricted to a part of the land you want cleared and cultivated, they would do an excellent job. Once their work is done, you can move them elsewhere and plant any of the crops you mentioned or more.
I find the dynamic of anti-urban themes in parts of the Old Testament, or nomad vs. farmer, to be fascinating. From this video, I take away that pigs were most popular in both cities and/or settled agriculture, but less suitable for nomadic life or small villages. Two similar but different dichotomies that -to me - seem to fit with other themes in the Bible.
The approved animals "chew the cud," which is another way of saying they are ruminants that eat grass. Pigs "cheweth not the cud" because they possess simple guts, unable to digest cellulose. They eat calorie-dense foods, not only nuts and grains but also less salubrious items such as carrion, human corpses and feces.
Theres also the "royal people" vs "common people" dynamic found in the Tzitzit and many other mitzvot.
Yeah, it might have been an effort to maintain the values especially found in nomadic cultures, like independence, out-of-the-box thinking, relying on your friends and family rather than on a rigid social system etc. Reminding Israelites over and over that their god is not a god of accumulating stationary wealth helped them keep their smarts and flexibility. I liked the short video "Bombino - story of Nomad" where a Touareg proudly presents these nomadic values. Seemed to me it had a sort of Torah/Old Testament vibe to it 😃
The Urban vs Rural fight is also a theme in the Golgamesh/Enkidu fight in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
I just imagine something similar to Scottish tradition of kilt. Jewish people might’ve had a tradition of not eating pigs but it wasn’t a serious doctrine. But as they were harassed by foreigners, they started to latch on to their tradition, making it their identity, and evolving into a complete taboo of pork.
Well, if you read the Torah, pigs weren't singled out as particularly bad. They were just forbidden in the exact same way as camels, rabbits, and shellfish.
Seeing pigs as particularly bad is a later development, but their prohibition is not, judging by the text.
@@Menzobarrenza
“On the basis of a variety of arguments, modern scholars generally see the completed Torah as a product of the time of the Persian Achaemenid Empire (probably 450-350 BCE),[9][10] although some would place its composition in the Hellenistic period (333-164 BCE).[13]” Wikipedia
The text is very late compared to the thousands of years BCE the video covers.
@@pansepot1490 Awesome of you to provide a source. Thanks.
Very important distinction, though:
"The completed Torah" is a VERY specific compilation of all 5 books of the Torah.
It really has no bearing on wether or not the forbiddance of the assorted animals was simultaneous or not.
Each of the 5 individual books of the Torah is obviously going to be older than a compilation of all 5 of them.
Even more so for the individual narratives therein.
@@Menzobarrenza Now I wonder why they banned camels and rabbits. My first thought is maybe Jewish people observe people dying of protein shock, but as this video points out, you cannot use modern medical facts to describe the historical taboo.
@@heeseunglee6605 I can't speak for any anthropological reasons, but the theological motivation is very simple.
In the narrative, YHWH explicitly states that He intends to make the Jews noticeably distinct from all other peoples ("holy" literally means "set apart"), in order for the Jews to be able to serve as reminder of YHWH to the other nations.
Ergo, it really is as simple as the Jews just being made intentionally different to everybody else. There is nothing special about the animals themselves.
At least, this is what it looks like if you just read the text itself.
Please explain the shellfish taboo and why it is disregarded more than the pork taboo.
I hereby declare that this is - by far - the best channel on UA-cam. Every video is so well presented and contains so much fascinating and wonderful information - so much so that I often watch them time and again and still come away each time having learnt something new and invaluable.
Thank you for all the work that goes into making this channel so excellent.
Very fascinating story and exemplary application of scientific thinking.
I really liked how potentially hasty conclusions are also mentioned and called into question, by highlighting contradictory data, like max 20% and sometimes only 1% Philistine pork consumption, not being a strong enough cultural marker.
Can you pay for my college?
Nice
I would also add that the association of pork with foreignness (beginning with the association with Philistines), would have compounded the southern critique of the North, since, one favored attack of the Biblical writers were that the Northern Kingdom were too cozy with their foreign neighbors and their cultic practices. BTW, I suggest doing a general video on religion and dietary practices, including discussing the dietary restrictions from the Indian religions of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.
To be fair,they're all cultic practices.
do u read quran
@lufhopes peacefully Do they need to?
@@lufhopespeacefully2037 I’m going to read the Quran one of these days. Why ask everyone though
@@hiwhowhatareyoudoinghereme1974 ,because god had commanded us to transport islam`s message to nonmuslims as the last message from go to mankind
Just heard about your channel because of Esoterica. Love it!!
Life style conflicts. My family was a rice farmer. Cow, Goat and Sheep like to eat rice, rice is delicious grass for them. Pork, Chicken and Duck are rise by rice farmer because they don't eat rice and they like to eat rice bran and rice grain (they eat clean food not dirty) which we have a lot of it and can store for years after dry by sun. But we also rise a few Cows and Buffaloes for labor use so we don't lack leather. For clothing, They're Linen, Cotton even Silk.
Thats a good life you have. Live long and prosper. 😊
Very practical solutions
My neighbors pigs are fed pretty much only rice. Other than the rice, they eat the weeds and leftover foods.
I once read where the split was between nomadic herders (sheep and cows) and more stationary city dwellers (more pig in diet), and the attempt to distinguish themselves from "the other." The Jews being originally nomadic sheep herders set themselves apart. Thanks for the in-depth analysis and clearing up that myth by good, scientific evidence.
That's the story I was told.
In support of this I would point out that rabbits are also prohibited under Jewish law, they are
raised in confined spaces like pigs which would make them well suited to being raised in cities also.
Just to clarify, they weren't Jews at that point - they were still Canaanites. Then the southern Hill Canaanites in Palestine developed the Hebrew/Israelite identity which then further split into Jews and Samaritans. (There are still under a 1000 Samaritans left in Nablus and the vicinity today)
And to clarify even further, the original Canaanites, or the later Hebrew/Israelite populations weren't solely pastoralists, they were also farmers.
@Geeljire Thanks for the info!
my school teacher said that they also forbid to make statues of their god because they would be too heavy to carry for nomads. semi-related here bit I hope it fots to the point in the original post.
Thanks for doing this channel. I am not at all a religious person but I do find things religion related fascinating. The whole, "why they do it" thing will never be boring.
This.
Why they do it. Ever wonder why the Roman Empire adopted christainity in the first place? It was far easier to force people to adhere to the teachings of a god they could only imagine than keeping people from climbing Mount Olympus.
@@timq6224 well if you look at all the roman neighbors, they all lost their pagan religion or reformed it, this suggests that polytheism is (like animism) a stage in religions that civilizations need to overcome in some form. The persians created the dualistic system out of their pantheon, the indians created henotheism, the israelites created monotheism
fa
@@irgendwer3610 Now, that is a bold assumption. The word "to overcome" suggests that monotheism is, in some way, superior to polytheism, when it is evident that this is simply an idea that had spread through Europe and parts of South-Western Asia by happenstance, comparable to language families-and I do want to point out that the Persian's dualism and the Indian's henotheism are still forms of polytheism, and Buddhism, by far one of the largest religions in the world, has no god at all.
Much rather, the reason the Roman Empire adopted Christianity was quite simply the fact that Constantine the Great converted to Christianity himself due to a set of mostly personal circumstances, and did a significantly better job at convincing the Roman public-many of which already were Christians-to accept the religion than someone like Elagabalus did. Do note that the Western Roman Empire fell not 200 years later.
Looking in the direction of East Asia and Africa also provides some clues that this is, indeed, not the case. China has been largely Buddhist and Taoist for much of its history, save for the Qing dynasty, with the former having, as previously mentioned, no god at all, and the latter being quite clearly polytheistic; and Japan has combined ideas of Buddhism and Shinto until the 19th century, with the latter having, by far, the largest number of deities in any recorded religion. And while yes, Shinto is much less popular than Buddhism there nowadays, this is a rather recent development that came with globalization, education and scientific advancement, with Buddhism being a lot easier to believe in as an educated individual due to making comparatively few attempts at explaining the natural world with metaphysics.
"Thou shall not eat the pig, for it will give you diarrhea." imagine finding that line in a religious scripture.
A cat looks down on you, a dog looks up to you. A pig sees you as an equal.
I like that.
@@paddyotterness All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.
"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."
It doesn't matter which way the mimic octopus looks at you, you won't see it coming anyway.
Says a lot about people.
Reiligion for breakfast, but no bacon. :'(
Bacon is always justified.
why not doggo
Haha
Ah, but smoked beef, smoked, chicken and duck.
@@Smith-cd3yhonly idiots with iphones know anything ?
There's a scene in The Longships by Frans G. Bengtsson where the main characters, a bunch of vikings, fish up a strange dark-skinned man who jumped from another ship. They can't understand what he's saying but learn that he won't row on Saturdays and refuses to eat pork, which confuses them.
One of the vikings who has a knack for language spends some time speaking with him and report that he's an escaped slave and a "Jew", whatever that is. One of the others asks why he won't eat pork and the first guy says: "It seems that makes his god angry." They ask why and he goes: "I don't know. Maybe his god wants all the pork for himself?"
The vikings consider this for a moment and conclude that it's a good thing their own gods don't meddle in such things.
Awsome story 😄 The vikings were very smart people, lol.
@@owlthepirate5997 They actually seem to have been a very straightforward no-nonsense type of people who valued common sense.
Ugh, I hate that kind of ignorant religious "humor." The whole point was, "Yahweh" said pig was unclean and NOT fit for sacrifice or consumption. The priests ate the sacrifices. Pig meat was considered low class food, and the priests were the top echelon of society.
Pigs don't sweat. They keep every toxin they ever consume in their flesh. Parasites, and vaccines. They can eat a human and fully digest the corpse except for the teeth.
Pigs can till the ground and clean up garbage, plant trimmings, and pigskin can be used for some things.
I haven't been able to find any examples of Jesus himself ever putting any animal flesh into his own mouth. Not even fish. He may feed others, but it seems like he himself only ate water, wine, fruit, figs, olives, bread, oil. Maybe milk & honey.
Bread back then had seeds and nuts, fruits in it and was more like a meal.
@@magdlynstrouble2036 Any religious humor is fine in my book as the only ignorance is believing in sky fairies.
I know BCE stands for “Before the Common Era” but I’m unclear on what exactly separates the “Common Era” from “Before the Common Era. Surely there had to be something that happened around that time for such a switch to occur. Does anyone know?
BCE and CE are modern substitutes for BC and AD. Non-Christians are rightly uncomfortable calling something the Year of Our Lord 2024 which is what AD, anno domini means. The separating event was the birth of Jesus or at least when Dionysius Exiguus in 525 CE thought he was born. There was no year zero. The calendar goes from the year 1 BCE to the year 1 CE. Of course, people back then didn't use this system of numbering years. In the Roman Empire dates were counted either from the mythical founding of Rome or the reign of a particular emperor.
Enough Marxist ideology driven "politically correct" activists whined for the change .... communism disguised as "tolerance" .... "Christians bad" and capitalism and ....
BCE/CE are clearly just anti-Christian whitewashing. BCE/CE is straight up cultural appropriation rooted in bigotry.
It's a Christian construct: BC originally mean Before Christ, or his alleged birth
@@mkphilly Thank you.
@ 0:48
Aversion to pork was also common to Scottish highlanders. One regiment in America during the French and Indian War nearly starved because they wouldn't eat the pork rations provided (to their credit, the other units didn't take advantage of this, so when hunger got the better of them, the highlanders still had rations available).
Wait really! Gotta look this up
I read that the Kelts considered dogs and pigs closely related, and Cuchulain was forbidden to eat dog (and died after breaking that taboo) - I wonder if there's a correlation.
@@strawpiglet A connection here seems possible. The Scots did come from Ireland, so perhaps the taboo was native to Ireland and was introduced to what became Scotland.
In Chinese, there is an idiom (豬朋狗友) which literally translates to pig-dog friends. It means bad friends who influences you in a negative way. Although Chinese people consume a lot of pork and dog in the past and the present, and clearly never had any taboos towards pig and dogs, their views towards both of them are a mixed one. Pigs and dogs are still viewed somewhat negatively in Chinese culture.
There's also "schwinehund" in German, which translates to "swine-hound", and it's often used as an insult.
So yeah there may be some connections.
@@miss42310
Sorry for the delay, but yes, that happened in 1759. It was specifically the 2nd Battalion of the 42nd regiment that did this, while they were marching through the Mohawk River Valley.
It wasn't the only example either: the newly-raised 77th and 78th regiments, while still in Scotland having been freshly raised in 1757, refused to eat the pork rations given to them. As a result, the bacon issued was just left to rot.
Leviticus: you shall not eat of the pig, for it is an unclean beast.
Obelix: these hebrews are crazy.
Haha. He eat always boar, not pig.
@@mikloscsuvar6097 As far as Leviticus is concerned, boars count as pigs.
There is really a chapter of "Asterix" where he and Obelix travel to Judaea, and Obelix argues about pork (boar in this case) with a Jew.
Makes me wanna reread the whole series!
@@alessandrodelogu7931 Asterix and the Black Gold! Getafix sends them to the Middle East to get 'rock oil' for the magic potion!
I always wondered about this. I knew there was more to it than just "because God said so" or "because pigs are dirty." I just never thought I would find such a great and objective explanation of it. Thanks.
They are as intelligent as dogs or a 3 yr old human, seems wrong to eat a self aware creature
@@Syncrotron9001 Yeah... I still eat them, and other animals, but I try to keep it as low as posible.
@@Syncrotron9001 3 year old kids are self-aware and can talk, adult pigs don't even recognize themselves in a mirror, but regardless this is a pointless argument. Also, eating dogs is totally fine too, just not socially accepted in our culture due to the role they play in our society.
@@DMSBrian24 BEATNGU
@@DMSBrian24 Ditto.
Out of context, but there was a saying in Turkiye for hypocritical religious people that goes like this: “We don’t eat pig because it's haram, but we eat haram like pigs.”
There's only 4 things you can't eat. Everything else is halal for us.
'Halal meat' is a marketing term.
You can eat any animal, so long as it was a human that took it's life. Wasn't sacrificed and dedicated to other than Allah, that means if they don't pronounce any name other than Allah's over it, you can say bismillah and it's halal. You can't drink blood. You can't eat carrion meat. You can't eat the FLESH of swine.
When I was a child in the early fifties, there was a "swill bucket" buried in the ground outside our tenement - it was covered by a heavy iron lid. Every day someone in my family - or from our neighbors - would take out the scraps from that day's meals, step on the "lever" that lifted the lid, and throw in the leftovers - never very much because no food was wasted right after the war.
Once or twice a week, the pig farmer would come into town and empty the swill bucket onto his truck. Free food for his pigs!
Reminded me off some pig raisers in my town. Pigs can really be free food.
Reminds me of the video series ''war time farm'', they do the same thing there.
in northern vermont this is a way of having a stake in a pig. you provide slop and once its slaughtered you get a cut of the meat. barter economies are very important in rural areas of the united states.
We still do this in the Netherlands, especially swill from restaurants etc
In college, my fraternity had a food waste bucket and once a week a guy in a truck labeled "The Big Pig" took it away.
My mom has recently had an issue with a neighbor who owns livestock and lives down the street from her whose pig has been getting out lately and coming chill in my moms yard. Now, my mom didn’t really perse have an “issue”, she named the pig Pablo and made sure he was safe from her dogs but he looked exactly the pig on this thumbnail. (I just gotta say my mom was FaceTiming me telling me how cute he was and worrying for his safety she’s so sweet
Candence - You have a great mom!! You are truly blessed!
Your mom's sweet or the pig? I thought pigs were salty. This is what happens when you don't use commas!
@@josephcelestine1945 Haha true. She meant her mom, 'coz Pablo is a boy
Your Mom sounds fabulous thanks for sharing made me grin
Bless your other. Glad to see she loves animals!
Nowadays here in the US, on the rare occasion someone gets sick from trichinosis, it's usually some hunter who bagged a bear and ate it. Bears are 4-legged garbage disposals!
only cause people have invaded and destroyed their spaces
@@modestrocker1 you mean rightfully conquered
@@modestrocker1 they should contact the united nations
@@shinobi-no-bueno I hate the antichrist
That not why they have it. It is a predator thing.
Very interesting and informative video, worth watching. Thank you.
I always imagined that the ancients were very familiar with what comes to feed on the corpses after a huge battle with bodies scattered for miles sometimes, I'm sure wild pigs ate anything back then as they do now. Better safe than sorry, wouldn't want to eat a creature that grew up on the flesh of your enemies or kin.
What've you got against recycling?
You mean like Sheep Cows Goats all of which will eat meat if easily and readily available ... almost no animal is strictly vegetarian ....
@john heiskell It does.
@@michaelbooth2890 ay yo😳
But the ancients mostly ate pork, so your argument doesn't stand.
The pork taboo is a Middle Eastern thing, everywhere else in the world pigs have been raised and eaten for millenia.
The only societies that have a pork taboo nowadays are societies that have been islamized at some point in the past.
Besides, any animal (sheep, cow, chicken...) will feed on animal flesh (including human) if readily available. Pigs are no exceptions in that matter.
The books of Maccabees, and others, and the dispute between catholic and reformed about the biblical canon.
Could you explain this in detail, please?
its because the sunday xtian religion has NOTHING to do with Scripture
@@lobogunthergdiesoetewulf9792 If it has *nothing* to do with their religion, why are they constantly reading and studying it?
@@lizzkaayako2270 , let me give you an example, Jeremiah chapter 10, in relation to the xtian celebration of 25 december.
and many things the Scriptures forbid, the xtians celebrate, so they actually do the opposite of what the Bible says. for another example, the 4th Commandment
@@lobogunthergdiesoetewulf9792 Wrong and you have nothing backing that up.
@@lobogunthergdiesoetewulf9792 There is nothing in the scriptures that we need to celebrate Christ's birth but there is nothing against it either including Jeremiah 10. A Christmas tree is not worshipped by anyone. Nor is decorating a tree evil. Yes, the Santa thing is out of hand but the biggest problem is the disgusting "gotta have that thing" that happens during the Christmas season. But that truly has nothing to do with Christ's birth, does it?
I didn’t know the Philistines were a Greek-related culture. I love stories of the bronze-age collapse.
I think it's speculated that their name relates to Peleset, which were one of the Sea Peoples mentioned in Egyptian descriptions of those invaders.
Apparently they were greeks in Palestine even before the bronze age collapse : ua-cam.com/video/pRHdqOR72Yc/v-deo.html
do u read quran king
@@luluflu1140 Palestine didn't exist back then.
It also wasn't called "Philistia", but rather Pleshet, Pilistu, Palastu etc. (probably related to "pelasgós"), and the greek name "Palaistínē" came from those older names.
Before the advent of refrigerators it was considered (in some countries) that pig meat would decay relatively quickly. In France, for example, there may still exist specialised pork butchers (bouchers porcins)
When I was in my mid teens my metalwork teacher gave us a warning as we were learning about melting & casting aluminium that a coworker in his past had spilled molten aluminium onto himself and it smelt like burning pork. Later I personally learnt that badly burnt flesh looks like cooked pork & now we are using pig organs, or parts of, as organ replacements in humans due to compatibility so I have often wondered if this similarity in our biology & the possibility of crossover diseases was the reason for the ban.
I have often thought that the compatibility factor was perhaps the MAIN reason for God's prohibition of eating their flesh. The saying "You are what you eat" comes to mind. When I lived in Iowa ("the pork capital of the world"), I often remarked that people -- who tended to be morbidly obese and who ate a lot of port -- took on the physical characteristics of pigs. They look like pigs standing upright. Even their eyes have a "piggy" shape and their cheeks and noses as well as their hips and thighs have the same configuration as the pig. They look like HYBRIDS of humanoid and pig.
@@earthangel2522 that sounds so scary 💀
actually if you look at all the animals on the scriptural "not fit for human consumption list, they are all scavengers, or bottom feeders, or clean up the environment of poisons, for example clams. The Birds are the predators primarily that eat rodents, snakes , or in the case of vultures, roadkill. So the saying, garbage in, garage out... if you eat an animal designed to eat garbage, you are eating garbage second hand...
But for pork, it is parasites that's the problem primarily,
@@curtismelton_4_8_15 Same as chicken if you die in front of one it will eat you. If you keep farm fowl make sure you keep them away from dogs as they will eat there poop.
Ancient peoples are not aware of parasites so it couldn't be any sort of sanitary reasons for prohibition on pork. They have no understanding or even conception that pig organs can be used in humans. Just religious ignorance.
Religion for breakfast, but definitely not bacon today. Any chance you'll follow this up with discussion of the shellfish prohibition?
@@scottgrohs5940 Yeah, but it has become rare here (Denmark). Unfortunately.
obvious! who would eat anything slimy and smelly that looks like a nasal discharge ... :-)
yes i'd like to know about some of those other food rules too.
Its because Abu hanifa lived in Afghanistan and shellfish werent in afghanistan so
That could be a high land - low land(near sea) thing similar to the pig upper kingdom vs lower kingdom.
@@typograf62 Føtex has it 🙃
I met a Hindu once who ate meat but didn’t eat beef and made a grossed out face when I asked if he ate pork. Interesting!
Adding to the above, it's important to note that historical India was ruled by Muslims during several important periods, and that the early modern period of Mughal rule was especially influential in Indian cuisine as we now know it. Pork prohibitions among the Muslim ruling elite almost certainly contributed to its rarity in modern Indian food. Even moreso in the case of restaurant food, which is more directly linked to historical courtly food.
@Illuminatist he's supporting your point, dude.
@Bored The Vast majority of India was effectively under Muslim rule for over a millenia which leads to that lol, In fact the pork eating areas are the areas where the Muslism didn't really conquer (7 sisters regions and South India like the Coorgs, Southwestern Hindu Malayalis and Southeastern Hindu Tamils). Also Pork can be said to be a taboo in Hinduism since eating any meat was considered taboo and Brahmins had to be vegetarians or face being outcast and you can't enter temples if you've consumed meat that day or if you haven't ritually cleaned yourself after doing so.
@Bored The dharmashāstras make a distinction between wild and domesticated pigs. Varāhas i.e. wild pigs are considered relatively clean and can also be hunted and eaten (depending on one's varna), while Vidvarāhas i.e. village pigs are deemed unclean. Wild pigs are still hunted and eaten in parts of India by some otherwise mainstream traditional Hindus. Now since hunting has become uncommon even the distinction has faded, and so even otherwise meat eating Hindus would hesitate eating wild pigs.
@@kshatrapavan Do you think the Mughal rule over india did indeed cause pork to be absent from modern indian dishes?
It is the eyes - I can never forget those eyes.
I have lot of relatives living in the rural areas. The main reason why they raise very few pigs is that , pigs compete with human in term of food. Pigs does not eat grass , they eat corn or rice , which human also consume, pigs are feed by human left overs, so raising so many pigs is not sustainable when their source of feeds depends on just human leftovers, there are not just plenty of human leftovers to feed so many pigs. Goats , cattle and sheep eat grass , there are just plenty of grass growing all over, so there are no problems to feed them. In your video you said that pork are consumed by the poor people which is the opposite. Pork are served in special occasion like gatherings , marriages, baptism etc.
Pigs will eat grass-maybe not as first choices for nutrition-I personally have fed grass to pigs-but pigs eat everything. In a pig enclosure-there is not a blade of grass left and often the tree bark is also missing up as high as they can reach if large trees are in there before the pigs. All small trees get consumed, all weeds eaten. The place will be bare dirt.
@@beastshawnee Well, pigs can’t survive only on grass - they need some grain in their diet, as do chickens - which is why you never see “grass-fed pork” or “grass-fed chicken” on any packaging. You only see grass-fed beef, lamb, and goat, because these animals eat only grass.” Pigs will survive on grasses but they will not do well. This diet will not sustain them for very long and they will not grow and reproduce well, if at all.
@@beastshawnee We raise animals for food production, we expect them to grow and reproduce. If they dont so whats the point of raising them.
Pigs are a grazing animal and will do well on pasture they do benefit from grain or acorns nuts roots they love to eat Johnson grass roots
There is an old saying, "root hog or die". In many regions, pigs were meant to forage for their own food. Many times people would put them on an island in a river or off the coast, and come back in a year to harvest them. In Spain a swine herder would drive his swine herd through the woods to feed on the nuts that fall from the trees and other edible roots.
I tend towards the theory that pigs are/have always been a little "too human" in both taste and temperament for many cultures. We even use them for human medical analogs today. If anything, having such a "prohibition" is a gift to the pigs who never had to worry about being led to slaughter. The proverbial blessing in disguise.
Again, um, how is it that you know that pork tastes like human flesh. Just wondering.
@@LakhnBer I read it in a books somewhere. Good ol' "long pig" tastes a treat! (I'm Veggie, IRL, but manflesh is big among Orc too, I hear)
@@LakhnBer Pig's molecular muscle structure is closer to human's than any other animal. Thus we can use pig heart valves in human hearts.
@@LakhnBer there is a famous Japanese cannibal, Issei Sagawa, who killed a girl and over the course of a few days ate pieces of her. Later when he confessed, he said that human flesh tastes like pork.
Pig was prohibited for its holiness not for its filth
Your Vulcan eyebrow raise let's me know that you've approached your analysis in a logical fashion. Live long and prosper.
lol
Fascinating
🖖
Awesome! I now feel better about eating pork AND you are the only way UA-cam channel convincing me to try out your advertiser, noom. Also, lobster was fed to cheapen food on Riker’s Island until railroads gave people access, making it a delicacy and raising the price considerably. A recent historic example of food changing class culture.
As a former farm worker and a history buff, I'll give you some information. Many people were wanderers. Especially thebJrws. Simply, you can herd sheep but it is almost impossible to herd pigs. The early Jews knew this. Muslims may also have known this but might have taken the taboo from the Jews.
Hey, do you know in the Jewish Torah, you are not allowed to eat shell fish but you can eat GRASSHOPPERS. Why? Those fish are bottom feeders and take in a lot of poison from the water. In many living areas thousands of years ago, most garbage and crap went into the water. Grasshoppers (locust) eat vegetables. They are also 90% protein. So they are a healthier food source.
I have always misunderstood most of Leviticus, BUT, most of the "dietary" rules make a lot of sense in an age where refrigeration and food safety inspections aren't available.
Shellfish is more likely to go bad than almost any other seafood. Fish with scales dry and salt more easily than those without. And Pork has more parasites (and has similar susceptabilites to human disease)(I really can't spell today.) than other animals Goat and Cow are least likely to transmit to humans as well.
That said, in the modern world with refrigeration food is easier to preserve and is "safer" than in ancient times.
Past that, I am probably a heretic in more than one religion so at least I have that going for me.
There are many dangerous types of food (mushrooms, certain kinds of fish, grass etc) around the mediterranean but nobody bothered to make them a religious taboo. Also there are places around Israel with very similar climate where people eat pork since forever. For example Greece, Cyprus, Syria and all the Asia Minor.
My mom was from Italy. They salted pork and ate a lot of pork. They were never sick from that. They were poor so pork a d fish was their meat. They used olive oil but lard was way cheaper.
Pork I understand, but shell fish for a culture on the Mediterranean has me a bit flummoxed.
@@JWPanimation I believe the shell fish was on a coin perhaps associated with a god. It is possible that was also poor people food so associated with poverty. Shrimp eat garbage. So the poor slaves eat the worst foods too.
They said pork taste almost like human flesh. That's what a cannibals says. And when i look at cut of pork belly, it looks very close to human skin. But don't let me stop you from what you want to eat.
Really appreciate your lucidity and in-depth knowledge, keep up the good work!
I see an Ank in your background. Do you have any videos explaining this? I'd love to know.
This is so funny for me. I have "not pleasant" memories of slopping the hogs when I was a little kid. Watermelon rinds were the most prominent item in the slop bucket with skillet cornbread table scraps a close second. Our family's two pigs were named Pork and Chop. Our parents wanted no questions about their ultimate fate. The other memories were when little kids, my siblings and I, were awakened in the middle of the night to round up the pigs when they got out of their pig lot. I also remember the time that the hole they dug under the hog wire fence was patched with the metal slide from our backyard gym set. They have become fond memories over sixty years later but the video helps to bring it all back into focus.
I have "not pleasant" memories of having to beat off a sow with sucklings with a 2x4 or get bitten. At 13 I was thrilled that she went to the butcher. Today, I'd love to have another, if only I had the space.
As a Muslim, I have never had pigs, but my Catholic neighbor did, and they stink horribly. We had hens, a cow and 2 goats (with 4 adorable and typically playful goat kids), and though the cow sh*t did stink, it was not even half as bad as pigs.
One could say it is because I got used to the smell of the animals we owned, but we smelled them just as often as we did the pigs (unfortunately) because the pigs were less than 30 feet away from our property, and after more than couple decades of not owning any animals, the cows still don't stink NEARLY as bad as pigs.
@@edinfific2576 pigs that are able roam about and forage don't smell nearly as bad, but admittedly pig feces are very like the human brand and do stink more. But it's a male goat in season that I can't stand. We had a neighbor with one and could smell the stink over 300m away.
Ultimately, stink is just part of having livestock. They all pretty much reek if they're in one place long enough. I was confined to bed for 6 months a couple of years ago and no one else cleaned out the chicken coop. The smell was awful.
(Edin, Bosnia?)
@@edinfific2576 also, I LOVE Bacon!
@@frankmueller2781 Yes, Bosnia.
Most people here keep pigs in one place, they usually get a few square meters and that's it.
It was also very disgusting and upsetting hearing a pig squeal during slaughter; even after being slaughtered it emitted sounds.
Personally, I can't watch any animal being slaughtered, and I wouldn't have the heart to slaughter any, I feel sorry for them too much.
Even much more upsetting to me is slaughtering of a human; thank God I haven't witnessed any personally, but there was a short video on the Internet that I saw around the year 2000, and I was in shock for a long time, I could never bear to watch something similar again. It really takes a sick, sadistic mind to enjoy either doing that or watching it.
When my father was slaughtering one of our young goats, I put fingers in my ears so that I don't hear its cries and I was crying out loud (I was 14, it was 1992., beginning of open aggression on Bosnia).
I'm not a vegetarian, but I'm not a meat lover either, although I occasionally enjoy a tasty piece of chicken, lamb or beef.
And yes, goats smell too, but none of them come close to the pig smell.
Pigs do have secondary products, like lard (explained in the video) as well as leather and hair used for brushes
Don’t know if you’re being sarcastic, but that’s not what secondary products are. Secondary products are obtained from living animals and can be renewed periodically. Primary ones are the ones you need the animal to be slaughtered for, and you can only get more of by obtaining more animals to slaughter. You’re right about hair being a secondary product, but we don’t use it enough to constitute raising pigs solely just for their hair. In contrast to entire dairy, egg, and wool farms.
I don't think the ancient Jews and Mesopotamians were mass producing paintbrushes, though. So they wouldn't have been useful in that regard.
and crackling ---- yummy
"Pigs ... don't produce milk."
Baby pigs: *starve to death*
Pigs produce milk like all mammals, but they do not chew cud. As for disease, My parents told me that I must eat only pork that has been very thoroughly cooked because they carry trichinosis and humans can contract that (and other diseases) from undercooked pork.
Raw pork meat used to be marinated in vinegar to remove parasites.
It was poor phrasing, but the difference is that pigs can't be easily milked by humans. Suction is required in order to get their milk out, unlike goats and cows and many other species. In order to milk a pig back then, you'd basically have to suck it out.
@@AnnikaLidne Usefull information, thanks ..
@@harrietharlow9929 Those diseases are a problem of factory farming.
take a drink every time he explains how "people used to eat pork because is was seen as good, but now they don't eat pork because they see it as bad"
Lard would be in direct competition with olive oil as a taxable, wealth producing, tradable commodity. Big (Olive) Oil might have successfully lobbied for pig prohibition. Some things never seem to change.
Genco Olive Oil was probably a big part of that when Vito cornered the market.
Fol.ow the money!
6 pig diseases you should know
1 Exudative dermatitis (greasy pig) The symptoms of this disease are skin lesions caused by an infection of the bacteria Staphlococcus hyicus.
2 Coccidiosis. ...
3 Respiratory diseases. ...
4 Swine dysentery. ...
5 Mastitis. ...
6 Porcine parvovirus.
@@omarlittle-hales8237 Modern tech and some common sense when purchasing and washing pork makes all those points invalid.
@@omarlittle-hales8237 I eat lots of pork as does everyone I know, and we have never gotten sick from it. Food poisoning can be completely avoided by basic cleanliness and thorough cooking.
I read in an article awhile back that they did a study and discovered that Pigs are really clean animals and that humans are the problem. They said they did a study in a review in which they had the Pigs to choose what food to go to eat and each time they chose vegetables, fruit, grass and they rejected the trash and filth and garbage. The scientists determined that Pigs weren't nasty but just like humans and other animals that if that's all you give them to eat is garbage and refuge then that's what they'll eat to survive.
I think I heard something similar. Thanks for mentioning it and explaining it here!
Pigs are like catfish, are created to be bottom feeders. Have you seen a gorilla eating trash? How about a 🦒 giraffe eating trash? They eat heavenly foods that grow high in the trees and they don't carry disease, as well as, live longer life spans than Porky the pig.
@@ladwaloncrownover8986 I don't think they were created to be bottom feeders - they simply eat garbage because when we domesticated them that is what we gave them. It would probably be the same with many animals.
@@LillyTheLonelySock you may be right. I should do more research before making such bold statements. I apologize and will look deeper into the matter.
@@LillyTheLonelySock agreed...biars were here before humans gave them trash to eat.
I'd love to hear about Shellfish restrictions as well. All your videos are so detailed and my fiance and I enjoy listening together!
Shellfish are the trash cans of the water. I used to eat them. They are full of dirt sand and poop.
@@dustanlarkins9315 You make me almost glad I'm allergic lol
@@dustanlarkins9315 POV: you get no shellfish because you are allergic.
This video ignores biblical context to discredit the Bible.
@@bennywolfe4357
I haven't watched it fully nor know what context is missing but I know at least Jesus says that because he has blessed some food including pork that it therefore is sin free and that he has made it holy for consumption...I think
What amazes me is that ancient people had a glimpse about ruminant animals. What Im sayin is that every ruminant animal meat is safer to eat, more nutritious and have a better omega 3 to omega 6 ratio bein that way a healthier option.
"there is no reason to hate these people for doing something slightly different that us, but let's do it anyway" -religion throughout history
I once heard that Japan’s constant history of _necessitating_ cooperation due to natural disasters is part of the reason why it’s so harshly-conformist.
Considering how brutal the kingdoms of yore could be to each other, that could explain why the cultures of that time were also xenophobic/conformist. 🤔
It's the opposite of your example. Instead of "they hate these people for doing something slightly different", it was "doing something slightly different BECAUSE they hate these people". The hate probably began by competing over the limited resources in the area.
Tough conditions create bad neighbors.
Eh, more a people thing than a religion thing. It's just that historically, most people were religious.
I refer you to the antipathy among people identifying with different modern political parties. Not religion based. Just human.
Oh, the narcissism of small differences, as Sigmund Freud called it
The use of pigs as scapegoats reminds me of the story in the Bible where Jesus sends the evil spirits into the herd of pigs that ran over the cliff.
I've read somewhere, possibly in one of Jared Diamond's books, that pork flesh tastes similar to human flesh. And that's another possible explanation for why some ancient cultures banned it.
That raises more questions... Like how would anyone know how human flesh tastes like? Or why....
@@aggersoul23 people have tried it, cannibals
Only the person who eat a fellow would know that...,?
Cannibals would actually call people long pig.
Many societies even modern ones engage in cannibalism during famine. It happened during the great leap forward for example.
Cheers for video! I would watch non-adsense if were at/near very front/back/both rather than interrupting like commercial. Might you place reels with mutual consideration?
I think that ancient Jewish text referring to the pig as "unclean" is a big telltale. Their propensity for eating garbage and rolling in mud (as the ancients likely didn't understand that pigs can't sweat and roll in mud for temperature and pest control) would have seen them as filthy beasts. One thing to note, though, is that while pigs may be the best known prohibition to the modern layman, it was far from the only creature considered "unclean". Carnivores and shellfish, for example, also fell into this category. Many seafood creatures enjoyed today, such as oysters, clams, mussels, snails (a la escargot), shrimp, and lobster were also considered equally taboo. The horse meat popular in many parts of the world, off-limits. Same with wild game other than ruminants like deer, elk, etc. Since bacon, ham, and pork chops are very popular in the modern world, pigs get a lot of the attention here, but it goes far beyond that.
I decided to watch this video and was not disappointed.
It is informative, interesting and engaging which is a great combination while learning something. Thanks for making it.
1:42 "9,700BCE". Well, since Jesus spoke this world into existence roughly 6,000 years ago the probability that humans were eating pigs here nearly 12,000 years ago is ---- zero. Let's believe the Bible.
You sir have to be the best guy ever to explain these topics! THANK YOU SO MUCH!! I learning so much!!!
The problem with this theory is that the Samaritans, descendants of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, also have the pork taboo. The Samaritan Pentateuch bans the consumption of pork just as fervently as the Jewish Torah.
I would suggest 2 additional reasons for ANE pork taboos (cultural and later religious)
1) water - pigs need to bathe as well as drink water while cloven cows, goats and sheep can live on the moisture in fresh grass for a few days. Large portions of the Ancient Near East were dry, so thirsty pigs would compete with humans for water.
2) a nearly universal taboo against indirect cannibalism.
In Islam we see pigs, rats, certain birds of pray and dogs (although hunting dogs less so - but certainly stray and feral dogs!) as haram - similar to Judaism - it may be because these animals will readily scavange human remains.
The cannibalism connection may be much more direct than that. Human flesh is said to be close to pork. See "long pig".
And beer.
Pigs eat the thrash of brewing quite efficiant.
In Europe, countries with a lot of porc, are beer countries.
@@ducx23 the waste products of beer brewing contain little alcohol and are actually quite nutritious - brewer's yeast is an excellent source of B vitamins.
I don't think that beer has a lot to do with it because before Islam most of the ancient near east drank volumes of beer and yet we saw the beginnings of a pork taboo before Islam. Also, Jewish people drink alcohol but don't eat pork.
@@alestane2 absolutely has nothing to do with cannibalism.
It takes 5 times the amount water for 1 pound of pork compared to 1 pound of chicken. Raising pigs in the desert is suicide. It it that simple.
To quote the movie Pulp Fiction:
Vincent: "Bacon tastes _good_ , pork chops taste _good_ ."
Jules: "Sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie, but I'd never know 'cause I wouldn't eat the filthy [things]."
Thanks for the video!
thank you for not eating my pork Jules..
Vincent: "This ice cream tastes good"
Jules: "Well, fecal matter might taste good, but I'd never know 'cause I wouldn't eat the filthy [stuff]"
Me being vegetarian, i wonder how can anyone eat anythings corpse 😢
@@markrobin3666 If you really wonder how anyone can eat [meat], you must be missing a few brain cells since that has a pretty easy and obvious answer. Probably a result of your vegetarian diet - not enough B12 or something.
whelp this man has earned my sub for well-thought-out lectures on interesting topics while showing respect to current practitioners. I always love to learn about the historic roots of religious practices as it helps me understand my faith (I'm muslim) more completely. Sure, I could just take the argument 'because god said so' or I could dig a bit deeper since god also said that seeking knowledge is good (unfortunately this is forgotten by many of my brethren).
This satan channel is saying not eating pork is a taboo 😡
The approved animals "chew the cud," which is another way of saying they are ruminants that eat grass. Pigs "cheweth not the cud" because they possess simple guts, unable to digest cellulose. They eat calorie-dense foods, not only nuts and grains but also less salubrious items such as carrion, human corpses and feces.
@@xS146roar lol
Agreed. It is nice to hear from a thoughtful muslim. I'm post religion at this point in my life but love to hear where these traditions and taboos came from.
@@kristinwright6632 Sorry to hear that.
I would argue soap is pretty important for humans living close together in a city. But then again clean running water for baths and showers to make use of that soap would of been in short supply in desert regions.
Hmmm. So pigs are like cigarettes. Once extremely popular and then banned. Except, perhaps, in the lower classes. Anyone got a light? Gotta smoke some bacon.
😂😂😂😂😂
I wonder if pigs were too easily manageable by the "average" person and tabooing pork centralized the control of food. Also, Gobleki Tepe always made me wonder... not one depiction of pig yet the backfill was littered with pig bones.
Edit: I'm later in the video and youre already addressing the first point.
Maybe they used them for waste control but not food. I think Egypt was doing that a few years back (not sure though)
Mabye people had them as pets but didn't eat them ? They are so similar to humans honestly i understand
Gobekli Tepe
Other animals like cows,goats and pigs are as easy if not easier to raise than pigs.
The animals we make totems are rarely ones we eat or our local teams would be the Steer, Hogs, Chickens and Turkeys. While there are some exceptions one way or the other, as in the Ducks in the NHL and the guy that eats bear meat both are exceptions to the norm. Pork, it's what's for dinner!
It's deeply fascinating to learn that the reason for the pork prohibition may have been less about health and more about the maintenance of power by the ruling classes. It's not shocking at all, but it is fascinating.
and actually makes more sense. The whole trichinosis explanation religions gave didn't go away. However, the Roman Empire relied quite heavily on pork, and so it had to devise a way to make it okay to eat before adopting the religion...hence "Peter's dream" which completely did away with one of the teachings of jesus himself.
Is that not one of the facets of organised religion? They are shared myths which were created (by man) to bring people together then were co-opted (by man) to control people.
@@timq6224 Jesus said "It's not what goes into a man's mouth that defiles him, but what Comes out of the heart" so idk what you are referring to. And Peter himself said that the vision, not dream, was about not calling the gentiles unclean, when God wanted to save them. It had nothing to do with food laws.
health is an excuse . you cant exercise power without an excuse .
no it isn't you sad chump.
love your content. binging a lot today. But im curious to how baal is associated with the boar. thanks.
a good rule of thumb, avoid touching frogs that are colorful. it is still a good rule, eventhough its not the color itself that is dangerous. i think its the same idea as dont eat animals with certain physical apperances, such as split hooves, or claws. in a world before science, i think it become as simple as ppl who do X usually die, therefore dont do X, but then it becomes a tradition where the reason is forgotten and the practice remains.
It might also be a mnemotechnic device - a simple principle that is easy to remember. Who's to say the "cloven hoof" wasn't an Israelite equivalent of an ABC song? 😃
Your videos are awesome! You know you’re doing a good job when people like me see your videos in their recommendations and think “I didn’t even know that I was interested in that, and now I’ve learned more about humanity!”
People are really this gullible now?
For real, this guy don't even acknowledge the fact that all animals mentioned not to eat in the bible are scavengers meant to clean dead things and toxins from the Earth..It's also clear he knows nothing about basic nutrition.Even the World Health Organization Website states pigs are unhealthy to eat.. @@rosemarietolentino3218
Bristles and lard were important non-food products from pigs prior to very recently. Literally was the grease you used for everything and the source of bristles for paint brushes and other brushes Etc
Their tough skin was used for footballs until recently! I'm sure it was used in the ancient world too, when you needed a tougher leather than from cow, goat or sheepskin. The bladders and intestines were also used as containers.
Pigskin was also used for luggage and footwear. (Hushpuppies, most notably...)
@@magdlynstrouble2036 Why did they stop using the skin?
@@faiz5922 I'm no football expert, but it's probably cheaper to use synthetic materials.
I grew up in a fairly small village, we had pigs which we used to let out in the woods to feed. Those were some of the smartest and cleanest animals there are.
They're smarter than dogs. If theres a reason to not eat pigs its that not some silly bronze age myth.
What pig are smart😂😂😂? Maybe you are dump to judge 😂😂😂😂
This presentation was great, in-depth and cogent. The ban on pork consumption explained here is very well based in history and economics as well as relating to religious practices. Thanks for all your hard work.
Now if only all the stupid zealots would watch this...
The human mind is great at adapting. Including adaption to delusion.
And here I thought the ancients forbid pork because it spoiled easily without refrigeration, especially for a nomadic desert lifestyle.
Have you heard of salt pork?
Great job teasing the monastery beer episode. I’m definitely going to watch that! Love monastery beer! 🍻
I dont know why but of all your videos this is my favorite. Thanqs
I"m not qualified to rule on the what's right and what isn't in the presentation -- but I'm astonished by how far archaeology has come from the ancient-treasures-and-powerful-cities emphasis in what I was taught as a kid. I'm also delighted by the breadth of scholarship found here. Well done, Dr. Henry. I'll keep listening.
The approved animals "chew the cud," which is another way of saying they are ruminants that eat grass. Pigs "cheweth not the cud" because they possess simple guts, unable to digest cellulose. They eat calorie-dense foods, not only nuts and grains but also less salubrious items such as carrion, human corpses and feces.
@@omarlittle-hales8237 YES, AND they do not expell any toxic substances that they consume. They have no sweat gland,.so bad things are kept in the meat and organs.
@@ronshook5194 I don't know anything about the etiology of trichinosis, but I can just imagine a pre-Christian era small society falling quite ill. I'm just speculating, but I'd bet that illness from consuming port started the Jewish dietary laws -- just a matter of survival.
@@ronshook5194, You are urged to become VEGAN, since carnism (the destructive ideology which supports the use and consumption of animal products, especially for “food”) is arguably the foremost existential crisis.🌱
@@ronshook5194 Nonsense
I was vegetarian for 12 years. When I returned to meat eating, it was initially difficult to digest, feeling the taste of beef in my stomach and mouth for days. Eventually I adapted.to meat, but I NEVER recovered from problem of vomiting when I eat pork. In Portugal I could feel in my body whenever there was pork.
Interestingly a friend's Asthma is so triggered by Pork. Of course I think it is dangerous to eat carnivores because of parasites (carnivores eat lots of herbivores, so anything carnivorous has more parasites). As explained, pigs are omnivores and have parasites.
I think historically people did realise you're more likely to get ill if eating poorly cooked pig, BUT justified it religiously as simpler for uneducated population.
Just heat it up, I lost count how many times I had gastroenteritis and even have typhoid fever from eating salad. No amount of cleaning is going to vegetables that is smothered with fertilizer and chemicals and animal/insect feces.
So why did you become vegetarian? And also return to meat eating?
@@FauzanARB because he is so educated 😆😆 confused athiest🤭
@@moshrefgamma mate the decision to change your lifestyle does not meat your more stupid or educated it only means that you made a decision
why you had so much trouble in the beginning with eating pig
is pure and simple due to brainwashing by religious communities,when you are brainwashed that it is forbidden and dangerous, you don't believe in anything else, and therefore brainwashing people. it is a method used to this day in religions
Pigs don’t just have lard as a by-product they’re also useful as a source for tough leather and for brush bristles. Not the big in-demand money spinners as wool nor milk but still something.
Another thing: Ovine dairying from goats and sheep is as old as dairying from bovines, and is still continued today in Southern Europe and the Middle East.
Some very good cheese are made from sheep and goat milk.
@@alestane2 Well yeah of course. Italian Pecorino and Greek/Turkish Feta immediately spring to mind.
Not just those regions, I live in Czechia, Central Europe and just bought local... sheep cheese? How do you call that in English? I come from an ancient shepherding culture (Wallachian) that originated in Romania and stretches far to the north - to Czechia, Slovakia and Poland - and of course it makes sheep and goat cheese. When you herd sheep and goats, it makes no sense not to make the most of it. IMHO also the shepherding cultures in Central Asia (Mongols, Kazakhs etc.) use the milk and make cheese.
Isn’t suede leather from pigs used in shoes and coats? A secondary product like other animals.