The Jewish Pig Prohibition from Leviticus to the Maccabees

Julia Rhyder

Journal of Biblical Literature, Volume 142, Number 2, 2023, pp. 221-241

(Article)

Published by Society of Biblical Literature

For additional information about this article

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 JBL 142, no. 2 (2023): 221–241
https://doi.org/10.15699/jbl.1422.2023.3

The Jewish Pig Prohibition from

Leviticus to the Maccabees

julia rhyder
[email protected]
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138

Pig avoidance is among the most famous and well studied of the customs
described in the Hebrew Bible. Commonly the ban on consuming pork has been
considered evidence of the importance of dietary prohibitions in establishing
boundaries between Israel and neighboring groups. I argue, however, that dif-
ferentiation from other ethnicities by means of diet was not the only function
that the pig prohibition served in ancient Israel. In fact, the relevant biblical texts
are as much, if not more, concerned with employing the pig prohibition as a
device by which cultic norms as well as dietary customs within the Israelite com-
munity were standardized. With the accounts of the Maccabean rebellion in the
second century BCE, the pig assumes a greater significance in identity formation,
[83.55.36.122] Project MUSE (2024-11-02 13:20 GMT) USAL/Servicio de Bibliotecas

but even in these traditions, the relationship between pig avoidance and ethnic
boundaries is more complex than is often assumed. Detailed analysis of the refer-
ences to the pig in Lev 11, Deut 14, Isa 56–66, and 1 and 2 Maccabees, along with
the study of archaeological evidence and comparative materials from the ancient
Near East and ancient Mediterranean more broadly, reveals the multiplicity of
factors that shaped the emergence of pig avoidance as a central custom in ancient
Judaism.

Philo’s Legatio ad Gaium (361), written in the mid-first century CE, tells a
lengthy story about a delegation of Alexandrian Jews, led by the philosopher
himself, who appeared before the Roman emperor Gaius Caligula in Rome in the
year 40 CE. As the spokesman of the delegation, Philo relays the group’s plea that
the emperor reverse the anti-Jewish measures that had been implemented in the

A version of this article was presented at Harvard University in February 2020 and at the
David Noel Freedman Award Session of the SBL Annual Meeting in November 2021. I received
many valuable comments on both occasions, which were of great benefit to the overall argument.
I wish especially to thank Peter Altmann and Deirdre Fulton, who responded to my paper at SBL,
as well as Anna Angelini, Rotem Avneri Meir, Jonathan Greer, Christophe Nihan, and Max Price,
who offered helpful comments on earlier drafts. I wish also to thank the anonymous reviewers of
JBL, whose comments enabled me to significantly improve the manuscript for publication.

221
222 Journal of Biblical Literature 142, no. 2 (2023)

Egyptian city of Alexandria. Gaius is giving orders to staff, seemingly distracted,

when he suddenly turns to Philo and asks, to the great amusement of those Greeks
and Romans present, διὰ τί χοιρείων κρεῶν ἀπέχεσθε; (“Why do you abstain from
eating pork?”).1
The historicity of this exchange is difficult to verify; the delegation is otherwise
mentioned only briefly in Josephus’s Antiquities (18.257–260), a source that gives
no detail of the dialogue between the emperor and Philo. But Gaius’s question is in
keeping with the broader trend in both Jewish and Roman sources from the turn
of the Common Era to construe the avoidance of pork as an especially noteworthy
custom that distinguished Jews from other ethnic groups.2 How did pork acquire
this status as a key marker of Jewish ethnicity? In answering this question, we need,
first, to address something of a paradox—namely, that, for all the significance with
which pork came to be invested, remarkably few texts prior to the Roman period
actually identify pig avoidance as a custom of particular importance among Jews.
Pork consumption is prohibited in only two laws of the Pentateuch, in the books
of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Beyond these passages, issues surrounding the pig
are mentioned in the Hebrew Bible in only three cryptic texts from chapters 65–66
of the book of Isaiah. The pig then appears as a major topic in 1 and 2 Maccabees,
although only the latter book mentions the consumption of pork specifically.
Yet, if the textual references to the pig are comparatively few, these sources,
which stem from diverse time periods, still enable us to trace the processes whereby
the custom of pig avoidance developed, and, as we do so, to discover new and
surprising aspects of this custom in the history of ancient Judaism. In this article,
I propose a new genealogy, so to speak, of the Jewish pig prohibition and explore
the methodological and theoretical issues that the history of this custom raises. In
particular, I explore the continuities and discontinuities between biblical and later
traditions on the subject of pig avoidance, the rhetorical and ideological use of texts
that prohibit pork consumption in different historical periods, and the complex
relationship between external and internal boundaries in the formation of Jewish
customs. In so doing, I build on a long history of research, in biblical studies and
anthropology alike, that has explored the practice of pig avoidance in ancient
Judaism.3 In much of the previous research on the pig prohibition, however, the

1 Unless otherwise stated, all translations are my own.

2 On Jewish pork avoidance in sources from the Roman era, see, among others, Peter Schäfer,

Judeophobia: Attitudes toward the Jews in the Ancient World (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1997), 66–81; Cristiano Grottanelli, “Avoiding Pork: Egyptians and Jews in Greek and Latin
Texts,” in Food and Identity in the Ancient World, ed. Cristiano Grottanelli and Lucio Milano,
History of the Ancient Near East 9 (Padua: Sargon, 2004), 59–93; Jordan D. Rosenblum, “ ‘Why
Do You Refuse to Eat Pork?’ Jews, Food, and Identity in Roman Palestine,” JQR 100 (2010):
95–110.
3 See, e.g., Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo

(London: Routledge, 1966), 42–58; Marvin Harris, Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches: The Riddles of
Culture (Glasgow: Fontana, 1974), 35–57; Walter J. Houston, Purity and Monotheism: Clean and
 Rhyder: The Jewish Pig Prohibition 223

ban on eating pork has been considered primarily as evidence of the importance
of dietary prohibitions in establishing boundaries between Israel and neighboring
groups. Yet, while differentiation from other ethnicities by means of diet was one
function of the pig prohibition in ancient Israel, I argue that the relevant biblical
and Second Temple texts are as much, if not more, concerned with employing the
pig prohibition as a device by which cultic norms as well as dietary customs within
the Israelite community were standardized. To make my case, I begin with an anal-
ysis of the pentateuchal references to pork consumption, followed by the references
to the pig in Isaiah, and then finally the narratives involving the pig in 1 and 2
Maccabees. This textual analysis is combined with the study of zooarchaeological
evidence that reveals patterns of pork consumption in the southern Levant, as well
as comparative evidence concerning the consumption and sacrifice of pigs else-
where in the ancient Mediterranean. In conclusion, I address the implications of
the analysis for how we trace the history of pig avoidance in Judaism, and for shap-
ing our approach to the study of ancient Jewish customs more broadly.

I. The Pig and Food Prohibitions

Turning, first, to the Pentateuch, here the Israelites are forbidden to eat the pig
in two parallel lists of clean and unclean animals found in Lev 11 and Deut 14:3–
20.4 In Lev 11:7 and Deut 14:8, the pig is named as one of the four land animals
classed as ‫“( טמאים‬unclean”) alongside the ‫“( גמל‬camel”), the ‫“( שפן‬rock badger”),
and the ‫“( ארנבת‬hare”). This classification as ‫ טמא‬indicates that the pig is a source
of defilement not only via ingestion but also through touch.5 Given the limits of
this article, however, I will primarily focus on the former aspect of the pig rather
than the latter.
Notably, these lists do not state that the pig had an exceptional importance. It
is simply one among an assortment of unclean animals that should not be con-
sumed. As Jacob Milgrom has observed, however, in Leviticus the pig is differenti-
ated from the camel, rock badger, and hare because it is cloven-hoofed but does not

Unclean Animals in Biblical Law, JSOTSup 140 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993), 135–40, 190–93;
Jordan Rosenblum, The Jewish Dietary Laws in the Ancient World (New York: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 2016), 28–45.
4 The compositional history of the two lists and their possible interrelationship are matters

of ongoing debate. For a helpful summary and compelling analysis, see Christophe Nihan, “The
Laws about Clean and Unclean Animals in Leviticus and Deuteronomy and Their Place in the
Formation of the Pentateuch,” in The Pentateuch: International Perspectives on Current Research,
ed. Thomas B. Dozeman, Konrad Schmid, and Baruch J. Schwartz, FAT 78 (Tübingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 2011), 401–32.
5 On the meaning of ‫טמא‬, see Naphtali Meshel, “Pure, Impure, Permitted, Prohibited: A

Study of Classification Systems in P,” in Perspectives on Purity and Purification in the Bible, ed.
Baruch J. Schwartz et al., LHBOTS 474 (London: T&T Clark, 2008), 33–42, here 35–36.
 224 Journal of Biblical Literature 142, no. 2 (2023)

chew the cud.6 While the other animals would be excluded from the dinner table
simply on the grounds of not having cloven hoofs, the criterion of chewing the cud
seems to have been mentioned with the sole purpose of banning pork consump-
tion.
The dominant scholarly interpretation of this prohibition on pork consump-
tion has been that it codifies a long-standing avoidance of pork that took on new
significance as a means of ethnic differentiation between Israelites and Philistines
in the Iron Age I.7 Typically, pigs did not play an important role as a source of meat
in the southern Levant when compared to sheep, goats, and cattle.8 However, in an
important article from 1990, the archaeologist Brian Hesse observed that, in Iron
Age I, settlements in the rural highlands showed a decline in pig bone frequencies
from their already low rates in earlier periods, while new Philistine communities
on the coastal plain and the edge of the Shephelah began consuming pig at much
higher frequencies.9 Some scholars seized on this as proof that this was a decisive
moment in the emergence of the pig taboo, as near-total avoidance of pigs became
the means by which the Israelites could maintain a firm boundary between them-
selves and their new Philistine neighbors.10
Despite the popularity of this reconstruction, recent studies of Iron I faunal
remains suggest that we should not overstate the significance of the differences
between Israelite and Philistine patterns of pork consumption. The most recent
publication of archaeological remains from Iron I Ashkelon reveals that pork con-
sumption did not rise dramatically with the arrival of the Philistines at the coastal
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city in 1175 BCE. Rather, pig bones comprised only 2 percent of faunal remains at
the city for most of the twelfth century.11 While the rate of pork consumption did

6 Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary,

AB 3A (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 649.

7 See recently Avraham Faust, “Pigs in Space (and Time): Pork Consumption and Identity

Negotiations in the Late Bronze and Iron Ages of Ancient Israel,” NEA 81 (2018): 276–99.
8 See further Max D. Price, Evolution of a Taboo: Pigs and People in the Ancient Near East

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 124; and Yonatan Adler, The Origins of Judaism: An
Archaeological-Historical Reappraisal, AYBRL (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2022), 45–46.
9 Brian Hesse, “Pig Lovers and Pig Haters: Patterns of Palestinian Pork Production,” Journal

of Ethnobiology 10 (1990): 195–225.

10 See, e.g., Lawrence E. Stager, “The Impact of the Sea Peoples in Canaan (1185–1050 BCE),”

in The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land, ed. Thomas E. Levy (London: Leicester University
Press, 1995), 332–48; Israel Finkelstein, “Ethnicity and Origin of the Iron I Settlers in the High-
lands of Canaan: Can the Real Israel Stand Up?,” BA 59 (1996): 198–212; Avraham Faust, Israel’s
Ethnogenesis: Settlement, Interaction, Expansion and Resistance (London: Equinox, 2006), 36–37.
Note, however, Hesse’s own reservations about the use of pig bones for establishing ethnic bound-
aries in the Iron Age I in Brian Hesse and Paula Wapnish, “Can Pig Remains Be Used for Ethnic
Diagnosis in the Ancient Near East?,” in The Archaeology of Israel: Constructing the Past, Interpret-
ing the Present, ed. Neil Asher Silberman and David Small, JSOTSup 237 (Sheffield: Sheffield
Academic, 1997), 238–70.
11 Paula Hesse and Deirdre Fulton, “Faunal Remains,” in Ashkelon 7: The Iron Age I, ed.
 Rhyder: The Jewish Pig Prohibition 225

increase at Ashkelon, and also at other Philistine cities during the eleventh century,
this increase was not mirrored in rural Philistine communities, which still seem to
have consumed pig in very low numbers.12 This difference suggests that the rates
of pork consumption among Philistines may have been primarily related to socio-
economic factors and the different dietary preferences of urban and rural com-
munities. Such evidence therefore introduces a major complication to using pig
remains as a strict means of identifying Philistine ethnicity, because it indicates that
pork consumption rates could vary considerably among the Philistines themselves.
In addition, archaeologists have documented important differences in the
frequency of pork consumption among Judahite and Israelite communities in the
Iron Age IIB. While pigs are absent or rarely attested in faunal assemblages from
Judahite sites, such as Jerusalem and its hinterland, pig bones have been found in
noteworthy quantities in urban sites in northern Israel, such as Hazor, Megiddo,
and Beit Shean (between 3 and 7 percent of faunal remains).13 Again, the Israelite
enjoyment of pork does not appear to have been universal; Jonathan Greer has
noted a dearth of pig bones in the faunal remains from Tel Dan in northern Israel,
an environmental setting that was “in many ways ideal for pig husbandry.”14 This
variation reveals that no uniform attitude toward the pig had yet emerged among
those who might have considered themselves ethnically Israelite in the Iron Age
IIB. Significant regional differences toward consuming this animal therefore seem
to have continued well beyond the arrival of the Philistines in the region.
This, in turn, suggests that if the decision to include the pig in the pentateuchal
lists of unclean animals was, in some way, influenced by Iron Age realities, this was
not a textualization of a custom that was universally practiced across all Israel and
Judah. Rather, the inclusion of the pig in Lev 11 and Deut 14 might be read as an
attempt, by the authors of these texts, to standardize attitudes toward the pig in the
face of regional diversity. Specifically, the lists elevate what archaeological evidence
suggests was a well-established custom—avoidance of pork—among certain groups

Lawrence E. Stager, Daniel M. Master, and Adam J. Aja, Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon (Uni-
versity Park, PA: Eisenbrauns, 2020), 705–26, here 708–9.
12 Lidar Sapir-Hen et al., “Pig Husbandry in Iron Age Israel and Judah: New Insights Regard-

ing the Origin of the ‘Taboo,’ ” ZDPV 129 (2013): 1–20; Meirav Meiri et al., “Ancient DNA and
Population Turnover in Southern Levantine Pigs: Signature of the Sea Peoples Migration?,” Sci-
entific Reports (2013): art. 33035, pp. 1–8, https://doi.org/10.1038/srep03035; Lidar Sapir-Hen et
al., “Iron Age Pigs: New Evidence on Their Origin and Role in Forming Identity Boundaries,”
Radiocarbon 57 (2015): 307–15; Sapir-Hen, “Food, Pork Consumption, and Identity in Ancient
Israel,” NEA 82 (2019): 52–59, here 55.
13 Sapir-Hen et al., “Pig Husbandry in Iron Age Israel,” 6–7.
14 Jonathan Greer, “Prohibited Pigs and Prescribed Priestly Portions: Zooarchaeological

Remains from Tel Dan and Questions Concerning Ethnicity and Priestly Traditions in the Hebrew
Bible,” in Food Taboos and Biblical Prohibitions: Reassessing Archaeological and Literary Perspec-
tives, ed. Peter Altmann, Anna Angelini, and Abra Spiciarich, Archaeology and Bible 2 (Tübingen:
Mohr Siebeck, 2020), 73–86, here 78.
226 Journal of Biblical Literature 142, no. 2 (2023)

in Israel and Judah (perhaps especially among Judahite groups) as normative for
the ‫“( בני ישראל‬Israelites”) as a whole.
This standardizing impulse in the pig prohibition is highly unusual when
compared to food prohibitions known from elsewhere in the ancient Mediterra-
nean world. These tend not to be absolute but rather context dependent, insofar as
they apply only in specific spaces or at specific times. For instance, Mesopotamian
dietary prohibitions are typically found in hemerologies—omen texts that list
favorable and unfavorable days—where the consumption of particular foods is
forbidden only on specific days of the cultic calendar.15 Pork is sometimes men-
tioned in these lists; for instance, the Hemerology of Nazimaruttaš, known from
four Neo-Assyrian tablets from Assur, Nimrud, and Nineveh, recommends that
pork not be eaten on the fifth day of the seventh month in order to avoid a misfor-
tune, specifically a lawsuit.16 Other Mesopotamian texts frame dietary regulations
as applying only within certain spaces, typically temples. Note, for example, the
popular sayings recorded on a Neo-Assyrian tablet, which declare “the pig is not
fit for a temple” because it is “an abomination to all the gods.”17 These warnings
notwithstanding, pork could certainly be eaten in Mesopotamia in other circum-
stances, with Neo-Assyrian archival texts attesting to the common practice of rear-
ing swine for domestic consumption. Indeed, as Pierre Villard points out, the
mention in a letter of a wealthy merchant named Huzīru (translated “Monsieur
Cochon” [Mr. Pig] by Villard), and in an offering list of another man named Kurku-
zannu (“Monsieur Porcelet” [Mr. Piglet]) seem to confirm that pig husbandry was
a profitable pastime among Mesopotamians in the Iron Age (and beyond).18

15 See further Alasdair Livingstone, Hemerologies of Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars,

CUSAS 25 (Bethesda, MD: CDL, 2013); Lionel Marti, “Tabous et hémérologies en Assyrie,” in
Tabou et transgressions: Actes du colloque organisé par le Collège de France, Paris, les 11–12 avril
2012, ed. Jean-Marie Durand, Michaël Guichard, and Thomas Römer, OBO 274 (Fribourg: Aca-
demic Press; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015), 47–67; Stefania Ermidoro, “Animals in
the Ancient Mesopotamian Diet: Prohibitions and Regulations Related to Meat in the First Mil-
lennium BCE,” in Altmann, Angelini, and Spiciarich, Food Taboos and Biblical Prohibitions,
25–42.
16 Cf. VAT 9663; VAT 8780; ND 5545; and a tablet from the Kuyunjik collection of the British

Museum; see further Livingstone, Hemerologies, 177–92.

17 VAT 8807; see further Wilfred George Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature (Winona

Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1996), 215 and plate 55.

18 Cf. SAA 01 159 (“Reclaiming Investments in Dur-Šarruken”) and Billa 80:8 (“List of

Offerings”). For transcription and translation of the letter, see Simo Parpola, The Correspondence
of Sargon II, part 1, Letters from Assyria and the West, SAA 1 (Helsinki: Helsinki University Press,
1987), 125; for image and transcription of the list of offerings, see Jacob J. Finkelstein, “Cuneiform
Texts from Tell Billa,” JCS 7 (1953): 111–76, here 139, 173. For Villard’s translation and analysis,
see Pierre Villard, “Le porc dans les sources néo-assyriennes: Les valeurs négatives du porc,” in
De la domestication au tabou: Les cas des suidés dans le Proche-Orient ancien, ed. Brigitte Lion and
Cécile Michel, Travaux de la Maison René-Ginouvès 1 (Paris: De Boccard, 2006), 205–14, here
213.
 Rhyder: The Jewish Pig Prohibition 227

The dietary regulations known from ancient Egyptian sources also present a
more contextual approach to food prohibitions than do Lev 11 and Deut 14.19 They
never prohibit specific foods outright, but rather ban the consumption of particu-
lar animals within specific territories of Egypt, often (although not always) because
of an aversion that the god local to that area had to a specific animal. This can be
observed, for example, in the Ptolemaic List of Edfu, which prohibits eating fish in
the territory of Latopolis owing to its association with Neith, a goddess who shares
a special connection with the fish species Lates niloticus (after which the territory
gets its name).20 Other texts limit the consumption of particular foods—typically
fish, leeks, or onions—by the participants in a specific ritual, priests officiating
within a temple space, or visitors to palace precincts. The stele of Piânky from the
Twenty-Fifth Dynasty describes the pharaoh’s attempts to prevent kings and counts
of Lower Egypt from entering his palace on the grounds that they had eaten fish.21
Other texts prohibit the consumption of particular foods on auspicious days, as can
be seen in the so-called Calendar of Lucky and Unlucky Days preserved in two
papyri from the New Kingdom (Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties).22 Pigs, how-
ever, are never explicitly banned in Egyptian sources, even though they were typi-
cally excluded from offering tables and generally considered a lowly meat.23
In order to understand why the biblical food prohibitions had an unusual
generality and permanence, we need to consider comments in the texts of Leviticus
and Deuteronomy themselves about what might have been their purpose. Both Lev
11 and Deut 14 position the food prohibitions as integral to ensuring Israel’s dis-
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tinctive status as a holy people. In Deut 14:2, the Israelites are explicitly told to
comply with the dietary laws because they are a holy nation, YHWH’s ‫סגלה מכל‬
‫“( העמים אשר על־פני האדמה‬possession from all the peoples upon the earth”). Levit-
icus 11 also refers to the holiness of Israel in a late editorial addition to the dietary

19 See further Youri Volokhine, “So-called ‘Dietary Prohibitions’ in Pharaonic Egypt: Dis-
courses and Practices,” in Altmann, Angelini, and Spiciarich, Food Taboos and Biblical Prohibi-
tions, 43–55.
20 Edfou I, 338, 3; see further Christian Leitz, Die Gaumonographien in Edfu und ihre Papy-

rusvarianten: Ein überregionaler Kanon kultischen Wissens im spätzeitlichen Ägypten, Studien zur
spätägyptischen Religion 9, Soubassementstudien 3 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2014), 36, figs.
7.3, 8.3.
21 Papyrus Cairo, JE 48862; see further Robert K. Ritner, “The Victory Stela of Piye,” in The

Literature of Ancient Egypt: An Anthology of Stories, Instructions, and Poetry, ed. William Kelly
Simpson (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 367–85, here 385.
22 Papyrus Sallier 4 = p. B. M. EA 10184 (recto; Nineteenth Dynasty) and Papyrus Cairo CG

86337 (recto III–XXX, verso I–IX, 11; Twentieth Dynasty); see further Christian Leitz, Tage­
wählerei: Das Buch “ḥat nḥḥ pḥ.wy ḏt” und verwandte Texte, ÄgAbh 55 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz,
1994).
23 See further Youri Volokhine, Le porc en Égypte ancienne: Mythes et histoire à l’origine des

interdits alimentaires, Collection Religions (Liège) 3 (Liège: Presses universitaires de Liège, 2014).
228 Journal of Biblical Literature 142, no. 2 (2023)

laws in vv. 43–45.24 Beyond this, the role of the dietary laws in separating Israel is
more generally present in the chapter via its return to the topic of meat consump-
tion, which is a key issue in the Priestly account of origins. Earlier in the Priestly
narrative, in Gen 9:3, the deity granted humanity permission to consume all forms
of animal meat following the events of the flood. Now, in Lev 11, this general per-
mission is revised for the ‫בני ישראל‬, who, as YHWH’s chosen clients, are granted
exclusive knowledge of which animals YHWH considers unclean and should
therefore not be eaten.25
How do we explain why the food prohibitions, including the pig taboo, were
considered essential to ensuring Israel’s special status as the holy clients of the deity
YHWH? Two possible explanations can be mentioned. The first is that the adoption
of a standardized diet reflects the broader interest in both Leviticus and Deuter-
onomy to imagine Israel as a united community that serves its patron deity in a
single, central sanctuary. This centralizing vision is articulated in different ways in
the two books: Leviticus focuses on an imagined time of centralized worship in the
distant past, when the Israelites coalesced around a single tent shrine in the desert
at Sinai; Deuteronomy, by contrast, prescribes centralized worship in a ‫מקום‬
(“place”) that YHWH will choose in the promised land. Nevertheless, both books
share a concern to silence diversity in local cultic practice in favor of centralized
authority that emanates from a central cultic node.26 From this legislative interest
in cultic centralization, it logically follows that issues such as pork consumption
should no longer be decided on a local level but must rather conform to a common
standard associated with the central sanctuary.
Second, the textual device of universalizing the scope of the prohibitions
might have been intended to distinguish Israel from other groups, perhaps specifi-
cally when living in foreign contexts. Certain biblical texts suggest that eating in
foreign lands was closely associated with consuming unclean foods; most notably,
when Hos 9:3 speaks of Israelites exiled to Assyria who will not return to the land,
the verse specifically laments ‫“( ובאשור טמא יאכלו‬in Assyria they shall eat unclean
food”). By turning once-local customs like pork avoidance into permanent prohi-
bitions that can be followed at any time and any place, Lev 11 and Deut 14 might
have been intended to provide a “transregional standard” of sorts for how to avoid
unclean foods. This standard might have gained an urgency when an increasing

24 On the secondary nature of Lev 11:43–45, see Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 17–22: A New

Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 3A (New York: Doubleday, 2000), 685–88,
194–96; Israel Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School (Min-
neapolis: Fortress, 1995), 69; Christophe Nihan, From Priestly Torah to Pentateuch: A Study in the
Composition of the Book of Leviticus, FAT 2/25 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 298–99.
25 As argued by Nihan, “Laws about Clean and Unclean,” 426–28.
26 On centralization in Leviticus and its points of similarity and difference with Deuteron-

omy, see Julia Rhyder, Centralizing the Cult: The Holiness Legislation in Leviticus 17–26, FAT 134
(Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019).
 Rhyder: The Jewish Pig Prohibition 229

number of Israelites were living in contexts where pork was widely consumed, for
instance, in Mesopotamia after the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles, or in commu-
nities of Samarians and Judeans living in Egypt.27
If these impulses—cultic centralization and the negotiation of life in foreign
contexts—are accepted as shaping the dietary lists of Lev 11 and Deut 14, then we
might suggest that the pig taboo was introduced to the Pentateuch at a time when
these legislative themes were of particular interest: that is, somewhere between the
seventh and fifth centuries BCE. It should be noted, however, that the textual pro-
hibitions found in Lev 11 and Deut 14 did not result in the immediate removal
of all unclean foods, including pork, from the diets of ancient Israelites. On the
contrary, zooarchaeological data suggest that a number of the prohibited foods
continued to be eaten well into the Persian and even the Hellenistic period; for
example, tabooed fish species such as catfish have been recovered from various
Judean sites, and a limited number of Persian-period pig bones have been recov-
ered from the Tyropoeon Valley in Jerusalem.28 The laws of Lev 11 and Deut 14 are
therefore most appropriately understood as a standardized ideal—one that would
have stood at some distance from the reality of how food decisions were made in
ancient Israel, but which would have progressively influenced Jewish dietary
choices as the authority of the Pentateuch grew in the Second Temple period.
In sum, then, it is appropriate to conclude that the pig prohibitions of Leviti-
cus and Deuteronomy are concerned with differentiating the Israelites from other
groups. But this was not their only purpose. Rather, the pig taboo can also be
understood as a device for promoting standardized norms within the community
of Israel. Archaeological evidence suggests that the avoidance of pork was a long-
standing norm in certain communities in Israel and Judah, perhaps especially
among Judahite groups. The textualization of this prohibition, we can therefore
assume, gave primacy to this dietary preference over others who sought inclusion
in the community of Israel, thereby affirming the value of centralized authority and
common standards for determining communal attitudes toward this animal. The
pig prohibition thus serves as a particularly striking case of the symbiosis between
standardization, centralization, and differentiation from others in the pentateuchal
regulations concerning unclean food.29

27 See further Rainer Albertz, A History of Israelite Religion in the Old Testament Period,

trans. John Bowden, 2 vols., OTL (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 2:408; and Price,
Evolution of a Taboo, 133.
28 On the catfish bone deposits, see Yonatan Adler and Omri Lernau, “The Pentateuchal

Dietary Proscription against Finless and Scaleless Aquatic Species in Light of Ancient Fish
Remains,” TA 48 (2021): 5–26; on the pig bone deposits, see Abra Spiciarich, “Religious and
Socioeconomic Diversity of Ancient Jerusalem and Its Hinterland during the 8th–2nd centuries
BCE: A View from the Faunal Remains” (Ph.D. diss., Tel Aviv University, 2020), 144.
29 On the link between standardization and centralization, see further Rhyder, Centralizing

the Cult, 10–11, 136–52.

 230 Journal of Biblical Literature 142, no. 2 (2023)

II. Pork Consumption Elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible:

Isaiah 65–66

Beyond Leviticus and Deuteronomy, issues surrounding the pig are men-
tioned in the Hebrew Bible in only three other passages—Isa 65:4, 66:3, and 66:17.
These texts form part of a complex unit of so-called Third Isaiah (chs. 56–66) that
stretches from chapter 65 to 66 and imagines the community of Israel divided
between loyal and disloyal members: the ‫“( עבדים‬servants”) of YHWH and an ‫עם‬
‫“( סורר‬rebellious people”). Pork consumption is mentioned as one of the grievous
rites that the rebellious people partake in.
Yet, importantly, this consumption is not referenced as part of everyday,
domestic foodways but rather as part of illicit rituals and transgressive behaviors
undertaken by a group that claims a particularly holy status within the commu-
nity—most likely a group of priests.30 The first reference to eating ‫“( בשר החזיר‬pig
flesh”) in Isa 65:4 forms part of a larger description of illicit rituals that include
sacrifices made ‫“( בגנות‬in gardens”) alongside improper incense offerings, followed
by extended stays ‫“( בקברים‬in tombs”) and in ‫“( נצורים‬guarded places”).
‫העם המכעיסים אותי על־פני תמיד זבחים בגנות ומקטרים על־הלבנים‬3
‫הישבים בקברים ובנצורים ילינו האכלים בשר החזיר ופרק פגלים כליהם‬4
… ‫האמרים קרב אליך אל־תגש־בי כי קדשתיך‬5
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3The people who offend me to my face continually, sacrificing in the gardens and

offering incense upon bricks, 4the ones who dwell in tombs and spend the night
in guarded places, the ones who eat pig flesh and the broth of abominable things
is in their vessels, 5the ones who say “Keep to yourself! Do not touch me, for I
am too holy for you!” (Isa 65:3–5a MT)

The textual history of this description is complex. The garden ritual in verse 3 of
the Septuagint seems to have been expanded to include a reference to apotropaic
rites to demons (καὶ θυμιῶσιν ἐπὶ ταῖς πλίνθοις τοῖς δαιμονίοις, ἃ οὐκ ἔστιν, “and
they burn incense on the bricks to the demons, which do not exist”).31 1QIsaa,
for its part, reads ‫“( וינקו ידים על האבנים‬they shall empty [their] hands upon the
stones”), which Frank Moore Cross suggested might still be a reference to incense
rites, if ‫ יד‬here functions as an equivalent to ‫כף‬, which can mean both “hand” and
“incense spoon.”32 Verse 4 also evinces textual variation, with the Septuagint

30 On the idea that Isa 65:4, 66:3, and 66:17 are aimed at the Jerusalem priesthood, see, e.g.,

Paul D. Hanson, The Dawn of Apocalyptic (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975), 148–49.

31 See further Anna Angelini, “Naming the Gods of Others in the Septuagint: Lexical Analy-

sis and Historical-Religious Implications,” Kernos 32 (2019): 241–65, here 248–50.

32 Frank Moore Cross, personal correspondence cited in Paul D. Hanson, Isaiah 40–66, IBC

(Louisville: John Knox, 1995), 141.

 Rhyder: The Jewish Pig Prohibition 231

preserving an expanded text when compared to the MT and 1QIsaa, in which those
who dwell in tombs are said to engage in incubation rites: ἐν τοῖς σπηλαίοις κοιμῶνται
δι᾿ ἐνύπνια (“in caves they lie down for the sake of dreams”).
The significance of these differences for understanding the rituals being
denounced in Isa 65:3–4 is the subject of a long scholarly debate that cannot be
entered into fully here.33 Most important in the present context is that all the wit-
nesses agree that pig flesh is consumed alongside ‫“( פרק פגלים‬the broth of abomi-
nable things”) served in vessels and that this consumption is symptomatic of the
rebellious faction’s pursuit of ‫“( הדרך לא־טוב‬the wrong way”) that was mentioned
at the beginning of the chapter in 65:2. Hence, pork consumption is one of the
grievous errors that provoke the deity to put the rebellious faction to the sword
(65:12), while his servants who abstain from such rites are spared judgment.
Isaiah 66:3 likewise mentions the pig as part of a larger paragraph that describes
the inversion of ritual norms by the rebellious faction in Jerusalem, although this
time the transgression is their sacrifice of ‫“( דם־חזיר‬pig’s blood”) rather than the
consumption of its flesh. The pig sacrifice is mentioned in a set of four paired
actions described using participles (although note that a participle is missing before
‫דם־חזיר‬, arguably as a means of emphasizing this element of the sequence): ‫שוחט‬
‫השור מכה־איש זובח השה ערף כלב מעלה מנחה דם־חזיר מזכיר לבנה מברך און גם־המה‬
‫בחרו בדרכיהם ובשקוציהם נפשם חפצה‬. The first member of each pair describes a
legitimate cultic act, whereas the second refers to a deviant ritual. As suggested by
Alexander Rofé, the accusations are most easily understood if the first member of
each pair of participial clauses is interpreted as the subject, and the second member
as the predicate and object.34 The verse can thus be rendered in English as follows:
The one who slaughters the ox kills a man,
and the one who sacrifices the lamb breaks a dog’s neck,
the one who presents a cereal offering, pig blood!
The one who presents a memorial offering of frankincense blesses an idol.
They also have chosen their paths, and in their abominations their souls take
delight. (Isa 66:3)

The verse posits an equivalence not so much between the paired acts as between
the persons who perform them; it alleges that the individual who performs lawful
temple sacrifices also acts in ways that do not conform to YHWH’s ritual standards.
Finally, Isa 66:17 returns to accusations concerning the hypocrisy of the
priesthood similar to those found in Isa 65:3–5.

33 For a helpful summary, see Jan L. Koole, Isaiah Part III: Volume 3: Isaiah Chapters 56–66,

trans. Anthony P. Runia, HCOT (Leuven: Peeters, 2001) 413–17.

34 Alexander Rofé, “Isaiah 66:1–4: Judean Sects in the Persian Period as Viewed by Trito-

Isaiah,” in Biblical and Related Studies Presented to Samuel Iwry, ed. Ann Kort and Scott
Morschauser (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1985), 205–17, here 207–13.
232 Journal of Biblical Literature 142, no. 2 (2023)

‫המתקדשים והמטהרים אל־הגנות אחר אחד בתוך אכלי בשר החזיר והשקץ‬
‫והעכבר יחדו יספו נאם־יהוה‬
Those who sanctify and purify themselves [go] to the gardens, following one in
the middle (?), eating pig flesh, the abominable, and the mouse. They shall come
to an end together, thus says YHWH! (Isa 66:17)

The Hebrew of this verse raises serious problems, owing in the main to the expres-
sion ‫ אחר אחד בתוך‬which makes little sense in its current context; John A. Emerton
hypothesized that the phrase is a case of scribal error, possibly caused by words of
similar appearance in verse 16 (namely, ‫ובחרבו את־כל־בשר‬, “and by his sword, with
all flesh”).35 Yet it is nonetheless clear that the verse accuses the sanctified and pure
members of the community of entering gardens, an action that is then followed by
the consumption of ‫“( בשר החזיר‬pig’s flesh”), again alongside other unclean sub-
stances, now named as ‫“( השקץ והעכבר‬the abominable and the mouse”).
In all three references to the pig, in Isa 65:4, 66:3, and 66:17, we can observe
points of continuity and discontinuity with the pentateuchal dietary laws. Much
like Lev 11 and Deut 14, the pig always appears in Isaiah as one among several
unclean elements: ‫ פגלים‬in 65:4, ‫ השקץ והעכבר‬in 66:17, and the ‫“( כלב‬dog”) in 66:3.36
The repeated references to the pig in these verses from Isaiah—it is the only unclean
substance to be mentioned more than once—hints that this animal had already
begun to acquire a heightened significance by the mid- to late-Persian period, when
chapters 65–66 were most likely written.37
The more noteworthy difference between the pig texts of the Pentateuch and
those of Isaiah is the latter’s emphasis on ritual transgressions committed by priests
in connection with this animal.38 This emphasis can be most clearly observed in

35 John A. Emerton, “Notes on Two Verses in Isaiah (26:16 and 66:17),” in Studies on the

Language and Literature of the Bible: Selected Works of J. A. Emerton, ed. Graham Davies and
Robert Gordon, VTSup 165 (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 187–200, here 198–99.
36 Several of these terms create particularly strong echoes with the Priestly writings: ‫פגלים‬

is used in Leviticus to designate the meat of sacrifices that has become unclean because it has been
kept too long (Lev 7:18, 19:7; cf. Ezek 4:14). The mouse is mentioned as one of the unclean rodents
prohibited in Lev 11:29, and ‫ שקץ‬occurs repeatedly throughout Lev 11 to refer to unclean sub-
stances (see Lev 11:10–13, 20, 23, 41–42; see also Lev 7:21, Ezek 8:10). The reference to the dog
is consistent with Western Asian motifs of unclean animals, in which the pig and dog frequently
appear as a pair. In the Neo-Assyrian Great Lamaštu relief, for instance, the goddess breastfeeds
a pig and dog as a symbol of her inversion of customary female roles; see further Frans A. M.
­Wiggermann, “Lamaštu, Daughter of Anu,” in Birth in Babylonia and the Bible: Its Mediterranean
Setting, ed. Marten Stol, CM 14 (Groningen: Styx, 2000), 217–49.
37 Among the many studies that support a Persian-period dating of Isa 65–66, see most

recently Joseph Blenkinsopp, “Trito-Isaiah (Isaiah 56–66) and the gôlāh Group of Ezra, Shecaniah,
and Nehemiah (Ezra 7–Nehemiah 13): Is There a Connection?,” JSOT 43 (2019): 661–77.
38 Adler, Origins of Judaism, 41; and Guy Darshan, “Pork Consumption as an Identity Marker

in Ancient Israel: The Textual Evidence,” JSJ 54 (2023): 1–23 (published online ahead of print
2022), https://doi.org/10.1163/15700631-bja10055.
 Rhyder: The Jewish Pig Prohibition 233

Isa 66:3, where the rebellious faction is explicitly accused of offering the blood of
pigs alongside the ‫“( מנחה‬cereal offering”). Ritual wrongdoing may also be in view
in the references to the pig in Isa 65:3–5 and 66:17. Specifically, the mention of pork
consumption in connection with gardens and tombs could suggest that the pork is
consumed as part of cultic meals for the dead or fertility rites.39 Pig sacrifices are a
known component of chthonic rites elsewhere in the ancient Near East and ancient
Mediterranean. A scholiast on Lucian recounts how, during the Thesmophoria
festival of the goddesses Demeter and her daughter Persephone in Athens, the
remains of piglets that had been thrown into pits before the festival were brought
back up and displayed on altars, before being mixed with seed-corn and used to
fertilize the fields (Dial. Het. 2.1).40 Hittite sources from the Late Bronze Age attest
to similar rites in which pigs’ throats were slit and their bodies deposited in pits to
appease various chthonic deities. Such actions are prescribed, for instance, in the
“Ritual against Family Quarrel” aimed at preventing unwanted interference in fam-
ily affairs, or the “Benedictions for Labarna,” which prescribes giving pigs to the
sun goddess to assure the fecundity of a vineyard.41 While a genetic relationship
between these Hittite and Greek rituals and the pig rites denounced in Isa 65–66 is
unlikely, this comparative evidence could add support to the theory that pork con-
sumption is mentioned in the biblical texts because it was associated with chthonic
rites that transgressed the boundaries of the Yahwistic cult.
A chthonic interpretation of the pig consumption is not without its limita-
tions, however.42 As mentioned above, the pig does not appear in isolation in Isa
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65:3–5 or 66:17. Rather, it is consumed together with other impure foods (‫פגלים‬
and ‫ )השקץ והעכבר‬that are difficult to connect to fertility rituals or chthonic rites
specifically. The wording of Isa 65:3–5 and 66:17 is also slightly ambiguous, such
that it is difficult to know whether the pork is consumed within the gardens and
tombs or whether it is simply mentioned as part of a larger list of practices that are
of illicit or impure character but do not necessarily transpire as part of a unified
ritual. In this case, the consumption of pork and other impure substances could be

39 As argued by, e.g., Susan Ackermann, Under Every Green Tree: Popular Religion in Sixth-

Century Judah, HSM 46 (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1992), 194–212.

40 The highly literary nature of this account makes it difficult to assess the historicity of this

ritual. Nonetheless, the account affirms at least that the pig shared a strong association with
chthonic and fertility rites in how Greek authors imagined the festival.
41 For the “Ritual against Family Quarrel,” see CTH 404.1 III; for transcription and transla-

tion, see Jared L. Miller, Studies in the Origins, Development, and Interpretation of the Kizzuwatna
Rituals, StBoT 46 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2004), 76–78. For the “Benedictions for Labarna,”
see CTH 820.3; for transcription and translation, see Billie Jean Collins, “Pigs at the Gate: Hittite
Pig Sacrifice in Its Eastern Mediterranean Context,” JANER 6 [2006]: 155–88, here 162–63 with
n. 31).
42 As argued in particular by Anna Angelini, “Abominable Food and Forbidden Cults in Isa

65–66: Hebrew and Greek Text” (paper presented at the Society of Biblical Literature Annual
Meeting, Denver, Colorado, 20 November 2022).
234 Journal of Biblical Literature 142, no. 2 (2023)

mentioned in Isa 65:3–5 and 66:17 simply because it illustrates the Jerusalem
priesthood’s utter disregard for proper standards of cleanness and purity, much like
their action of sacrificing in gardens and dwellings illustrates the priests’ failure to
administer the cult in controlled and pure spaces.
Regardless of whether the consumption of pork in Isa 65:3–5 and 66:17 is
specifically chthonic, the evidence of Isa 65–66 again suggests that the references
to pork consumption in the Hebrew Bible are connected to negotiations about
internal management of deviance, as much as about constructing ethnic distinc-
tion from foreigners. All of Isa 56–66, and especially chapters 65–66, deal with
the formation of a new, ideal community, membership in which is determined
by one’s willingness to observe those customs that demonstrate loyalty to YHWH.43
The references to the pig are integral to these polemics, as they construe consump-
tion and sacrifice of this animal as a critical example of the impure practices that
doom the disobedient faction in Israel to divine judgment in the eschatological age.
These inner-communal conflicts are, in turn, closely linked to the broader
concern in Third Isaiah to establish the conditions under which righteous foreign-
ers can participate in the Yahwistic cult. Third Isaiah famously opens in 56:1–8 with
a discussion about admitting foreigners to the Jerusalem temple—an issue that is
resumed in 66:18–24 when all those who survive the final judgment stream to
Mount Zion to venerate YHWH. Despite the clear hierarchy between Israelites and
foreigners that persists in the depiction of the ideal cult and community in Isa
56–66, these chapters nonetheless insist that admission to that cult and community
is no longer to be decided according to ethnic lines alone but also by collective
obedience to key norms and customs. As such, a possibility opens for those foreign-
ers who obey YHWH’s standards to also be integrated.
It would be going too far to suggest that abstaining from eating pork functions
in Third Isaiah as the key determinant in deciding who participates in the ideal
Israel. Consumption of pork is not yet treated as an isolated problem but is rather
included in a cluster of practices involving other unclean animals and inappropri-
ate rituals. Nonetheless, we arguably observe in Isa 65–66 the evolving of a dis-
course in which practices involving this animal are seen as illustrative of the
behaviors that determine inclusion in or exclusion from YHWH’s cult and com-
munity.
What is particularly intriguing about this process of elevating the pig is the
new concern with the ritual problems associated with this animal that is clearly
observed in the reference to pig sacrifice in Isa 66:5, and perhaps also the illicit
practices mentioned in Isa 65:3–5 and 66:17. In Leviticus and Deuteronomy, the
pig taboo is presented as concerning everyday meals by the Israelites as a whole,

43 See further Christophe Nihan, “Ethnicity and Identity in Isaiah 56–66,” in Judah and the

Judeans in the Achaemenid Period: Negotiating Identity in an International Context, ed. Oded
Lipschits, Gary N. Knoppers, and Manfred Oeming (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2011),
67–104.
 Rhyder: The Jewish Pig Prohibition 235

rather than cultic contexts and ritual actors specifically. This difference between the
earlier laws and Third Isaiah suggests that, even if the pig taboo had been textual-
ized for quite some time prior to the composition of Isa 65–66, the scribes respon-
sible for these passages felt free to move beyond the earlier pentateuchal traditions
to highlight new dimensions of this animal and the communal risks it posed.

III. The Pig in 1 and 2 Maccabees

This focus on the pig and ritual impurity is substantially developed in the
accounts of the Maccabean revolt in 1 and 2 Maccabees. In these works of Jewish
historiography, cultic transgressions involving the pig emerge as a decisive issue in
explaining—even legitimizing—the clash with the Seleucid powers and their
coconspirators in the second century BCE. In 1 Maccabees, much as in Isa 65–66,
the pig is not constructed as a problem involving mundane contexts of everyday
consumption. Rather, in 1 Maccabees it is always viewed in a ritual context, namely,
that which concerns the inappropriate sacrifice offered at the command of the
Seleucid king Antiochus IV. According to 1 Macc 1, Antiochus traveled to Jerusa-
lem in 168 BCE and decreed, among other punitive measures, that the population
should construct altars to idols within the temple and sacrifice ὕεια καὶ κτήνη κοινά
(“pigs and common animals”) within its precincts (1:47). The fact that only the pig
is explicitly named as having been inappropriately sacrificed on the altar suggests
that it had emerged as the defining example of unclean animals, at least in the eyes
of the authors of 1 Maccabees. Strikingly, however, there is no suggestion in the
book that Antiochus forced the Jews to consume the meat of the sacrificed pig, or
to eat pork in other mundane contexts. This is especially noteworthy when we
consider that later in the chapter, in verses 62–63, food violations are mentioned
among the ancestral customs that pious Jews risked their lives to defend; these
verses state that the Jews ὠχυρώθησαν ἐν αὑτοῖς τοῦ μὴ φαγεῖν κοινὰ καὶ ἐπεδέξαντο
ἀποθανεῖν, ἵνα μὴ μιανθῶσιν τοῖς βρώμασιν καὶ μὴ βεβηλώσωσιν διαθήκην ἁγίαν, καὶ
ἀπέθανον (“resolved in themselves not to consume common things. They accepted
death in order not to be polluted by the food and to not desecrate the holy covenant.
And they did die!”).44 The absence of any specific mention of pork in these verses
suggests that, while the authors of 1 Maccabees did consider dietary prohibitions
to form part of the Jewish customs that needed to be defended against Seleucid
interference, they did not view the pig exclusively through the lens of illicit diet but
rather as an example of particularly grievous ritual practice. This suggests, in turn,
that the pig serves in 1 Maccabees as a metonym, not for general dietary pressures,

44 On the unusual wording of 1 Macc 1:62, see Natan Evron, “Two Cases of Reconstruction

of the Hebrew of 1 Maccabees,” in The Books of the Maccabees: Literary, Historical and Religious
Perspectives, ed. Jan Willem van Henten, BETL 328 (Leuven: Peeters, 2022), 341–48, here 343–47.
 236 Journal of Biblical Literature 142, no. 2 (2023)

but for the cultic violations involving improper sacrifice that were associated with
Seleucid interference with the Jerusalem temple, and the defilement of the com-
munity as a whole that was wrought by these transgressions.
In the story of the Maccabean rebellion told in 2 Maccabees, forced consump-
tion of the sacrificed pig meat does feature as part of Antiochus IV’s persecution of
the Jews. Second Maccabees 6:3–9 relates how Antiochus introduced a new prac-
tice in Jerusalem and Judea, of celebrating the king’s birthday alongside a new
festival to Dionysus, which required that the Jews eat σπλαγχνισμόν (“entrails of a
sacrifice”). These sacrifices are not yet said to be pigs; but the term σπλαγχνισμός
reappears a few verses later in the context of a lengthy story of an elderly scribe
named Eleazar who refuses to eat the flesh of the sacrifice, which is now explicitly
identified as ὕειον κρέας (“pig meat,” 2 Macc 6:18). Admittedly, the pig meat is first
introduced in verses 18–20 without reference to any sacrificial context, stating only
that Eleazar refused to eat ὕειον κρέας because he was unwilling to consume ὧν οὐ
θέμις γεύσασθαι (“things that it is not right to taste,” 2 Macc 6:20). The text of 2 Macc
6:21, however, quickly clarifies that the meat is consumed in a sacrificial context,
explaining that Eleazar’s refusal to eat the pig meat constituted a refusal to eat the
meat prepared by οἱ δὲ πρὸς τῷ παρανόμῳ σπλαγχνισμῷ τεταγμένοι (“those assigned
to the unlawful entrails of a sacrifice”) at the command of the king. This strongly
suggests that the story of 2 Macc 6:18–31 concerns the specific problem of sacrifi-
cial pork, rather than the general consumption of pork in mundane contexts.
The story of Eleazar’s martyrdom is then followed, in 2 Macc 7, by a grisly
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account of the public torture of seven anonymous sons and their mother, who
refuse to eat pork because it transgresses τοὺς πατρίους νόμους (“the laws [or cus-
toms] of our fathers”). While πάτριοι νόμοι is a complex expression in Greek that
does not always refer to a specific corpus of laws, in 2 Macc 7 there seems little
reason to doubt that the pentateuchal pig prohibition would have been included in
the ancestral customs that the mother and sons considered the consumption of
pork to transgress.45 This reference to the ancestral laws may reveal that the focus
of 2 Macc 7 expands from sacrificial meals to general dietary practices involving
pork, which are seen as particularly grievous violations of the pentateuchal food
prohibitions. It is noteworthy, however, that 2 Macc 7:1 introduces the pork refused
by the mother and her sons using the adjective ἀθέμιτος (“forbidden”), which is the
very same term that was used in 2 Macc 6:5 to describe the illicit sacrificial items
that were placed on the altar following Antiochus’s decree.46 The reference in
2 Macc 7:1 to τῶν ἀθεμίτων ὑείων κρεῶν (“the forbidden pig meat”) also creates a

45 On the meaning of πάτριοι νόμοι, see Hans G. Kippenberg, “Die jüdischen Überliefer­

ungen als patrioi nomoi,” in Die Restauration der Götter: Antike Religion und Neo-Paganismus, ed.
Richard Faber and Renate Schlesier (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 1986), 45–60.
46 Specifically, 2 Macc 6:5 states that the altar had been covered with τοῖς ἀποδιεσταλμένοις

ἀπὸ τῶν νόμων ἀθεμίτοις (“forbidden things that were proscribed by the laws”). Besides 2 Macc
6:5 and 7:1, the adjective ἀθέμιτος occurs on only one other occasion in the book, in 2 Macc 10:34.
 Rhyder: The Jewish Pig Prohibition 237

subtle echo of 2 Macc 6:20, where the nominal form θέμις is used to describe the
sacrificed pig that was forced upon Eleazar. These echoes of 2 Macc 6:5 and 20 could
therefore favor the view that the tale of the mother and seven sons in 2 Macc 7
assumes a narrative scenario similar to that of the story of Eleazar in 2 Macc 6:18–
31, namely, that Antiochus is forcing the Jews not simply to eat an unclean meat
(pork) but to partake in illicit ritual meals involving sacrificed pig.
The reason why the pig is accorded such importance in 1 and 2 Maccabees is
disputed. Some scholars consider that 1 and 2 Maccabees document historical
attempts by the Seleucids to use the pig to undermine Jewish religious practice;
presumably the Seleucids focused their attention on the pig during the persecu-
tions because they knew that the Jews particularly loathed this animal.47 We cer-
tainly cannot rule out this possibility. We might also consider, however, that the
emphasis on the pig in 1 and 2 Maccabees serves a primarily ideological function
in the literary shaping of their respective accounts of the rule of Antiochus IV; that
is, the stories about the pig formed part of an effort by the authors of 1 and 2 Mac-
cabees to depict the Seleucids as so transgressive that the revolt against them was
justified. Pursuing this interpretive possibility, David Kraemer has argued that the
pig was used to represent the threat Antiochus IV posed to the Jews because of a
growing concern in Judea in the second century—the time when both 1 and 2 Mac­
cabees were most likely composed—with increased pork consumption by foreign-
ers living in the region.48 The popularity of pork among Seleucids, he contends, led
the Jews to identify this animal as an important marker that differentiated Jewish
dietary customs from those of hellenized “Others.” The pig thus became a ready
metonym for the cultural pressures imposed on the Jews when living under Seleu-
cid rule and which helped spark the Maccabean revolt.49 Kraemer makes a sophis-
ticated argument that may explain why 2 Macc 7:2 presents the nonconsumption
of pork as a key test of whether the Jews will uphold the πατρίους νόμους in the
face of hostile, foreign forces. Kraemer’s analysis cannot explain the evidence of
1 Maccabees, however, which fails to mention the consumption of pork and
focuses instead on pig sacrifice alone. He also struggles to account for the empha-
sis on illicit sacrificial meals in the tale of Eleazar in 2 Macc 6:18–31, a sacrificial
focus that may be assumed also in the introduction to the mother-and-seven-
sons story in 2 Macc 7:1.

47 See, e.g., Jonathan A. Goldstein, I Maccabees: A New Translation, with Introduction and
Commentary, AB 41 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976), 157–58; and Elias Bickerman, The God
of the Maccabees: Studies on the Meaning and Origin of the Maccabean Revolt, SJLA 32 (Leiden:
Brill, 1979), 88–89.
48 David Kraemer, Jewish Eating and Identity through the Ages, Routledge Advances in Soci-

ology 29 (London: Routledge, 2007), 30–33.

49 See also Price, Evolution of a Taboo, 160: “Pork became the metonym for relinquishing

Jewish identity.”
238 Journal of Biblical Literature 142, no. 2 (2023)

Perhaps a better way to explain how the pig emerged as a defining symbol of
Seleucid domination that can more effectively account for the interest in illicit
sacrifice in the references to the pig in 1 and 2 Maccabees is to note the prevalence
in Greek sacrificial practice of this animal, which was sacrificed at much higher
rates than the other quadrupeds that Lev 11 and Deut 14 consider unclean. Put
simply: while sacrificial refuse at Greek temple sites attests that camels, rock bad-
gers, and hares were occasionally sacrificed and consumed by Greek communities,
the pig figures as a much more popular sacrificial animal than these other “unclean”
quadrupeds.50 Indeed, by the second century BCE, the pig even significantly out-
weighed sacrifices of caprine, cattle, and other quadrupeds at Greek temples, as
Robin Hägg’s study of faunal remains at the Demeter sanctuary at Knossos has
shown.51 Possibly, then, this animal lent itself more readily than other unclean
animals in Jewish tradition to symbolizing the distance between Greek and Jewish
sacrificial practices.
This interpretation suggests that the emphasis on transgressive practices
involving the pig, whether reflecting actual events or imagined transgressions,
forms part of a larger literary strategy in 1 and 2 Maccabees of positioning Seleucid
rule under Antiochus IV as inherently defiling, and thus posing an existential
threat to the Jerusalem temple institution. The elevation of the pig to a defining
issue in the revolt therefore sets the context of Hasmonean dynastic origins as one
in which the cult needed to be protected against pollution. Meanwhile, the specific
emphasis on forced consumption of pork in 2 Maccabees frames the Maccabean
revolt as not only protecting the temple but also defending those Jews who suffered
violent retribution for their unwillingness to participate in cultic transgressions
and polluting dietary activities that contradicted the pentateuchal laws. The rebel-
lion against Seleucid hegemony and the seizure of the temple by a new priestly
dynasty are thereby constructed as necessary and justified.
Beyond this, while the pig emerges in these Hellenistic sources as a defining
issue in how Jews distinguish themselves from the Seleucid powers, it continues to
function as a mechanism of negotiating internal boundaries of proper practice
within the community of Israel. Of course, both 1 and 2 Maccabees lay the ultimate
blame for the forced sacrifice and consumption of pig at the feet of the Seleucid

50 See, as a representative case, the sacrificial refuse at the temple of Artemis at Ephesus

analyzed by Anton Bammer, “Sanctuaries in the Artemision of Ephesos,” in Ancient Greek Cult
Practice from the Archaeological Evidence: Proceedings of the Fourth International Seminar on
Ancient Greek Cult, Organized by the Swedish Institute at Athens, 22–24 October 1993, ed. Robin
Hägg, Skrifter utgivna av Svenska institutet i Athens: Acta Instituti Atheniensis regni Sueciae 8/15
(Stockholm: Paul Åström, 1998), 27–47, here 38; while an enormous number of domesticated pig
bones were found at the Artemision (3,818 in total), only 4 camel bones and 14 hare bones were
recovered (no badger bones are attested).
51 Robin Hägg, “Osteology and Greek Sacrificial Practice,” in Hägg, Ancient Greek Cult Prac-

tice, 49–56, here 51.

 Rhyder: The Jewish Pig Prohibition 239

king Antiochus IV. Yet the imperial edict to sacrifice pig relies on accommodation-
ist members of the community who conspire with the Seleucids to ensure its imple-
mentation. This is clearly stated in the martyr stories of 2 Macc 6:28–7:42, where
the extraordinary piety of Eleazar and the mother and her seven sons contrasts
sharply with the behavior of the other community members who partake in, and
even facilitate, the king’s illicit reforms. First Maccabees 1:52 likewise reports how
ἀπὸ τοῦ λαοῦ πολλοί (“many from among the people”) of Judea willingly agreed to
abide by Antiochus IV’s edict and to offer the illicit sacrifice of ὕεια καὶ κτήνη κοινά
(“pigs and common animals”) (1 Macc 1:47). First Maccabees 2:15–26 then goes
on to narrate how the sight of one of these offending Jews by Mattathias, the father
of the five Maccabean brothers, incites him to such anger that he runs to the altar
in Modein and kills the man who was about to present the illicit offering.52
The stories surrounding pork consumption and illicit sacrifice in both 1 and
2 Maccabees therefore cannot be dissociated from the larger concern in these books
to distinguish the righteous members of the community from those who did little
to resist the Seleucids and their assault on the Jerusalem cult and traditional Jewish
customs. The pig thus remains a potent means of describing internal conflicts
within Judea, now with a specific concern to underscore the threats that required
the Maccabees to take up arms to save both people and temple from defilement and
impurity.
In sum, the references to the pig in 1 and 2 Maccabees expand the focus on
the ritual context for the pig prohibition, already present in Isa 65–66, to articulat-
[83.55.36.122] Project MUSE (2024-11-02 13:20 GMT) USAL/Servicio de Bibliotecas

ing its significance for defining the boundaries of the Jewish cult and community.
In the case of 1 Maccabees, we do not find evidence of a general concern for the
prohibition of pork consumption in mundane contexts. This does not mean, of
course, that the pentateuchal prohibitions were not known at the time 1 Maccabees
was written. It rather reveals the polyvalence of the pig as an unclean animal, inso-
far as the authors of this book felt free to move beyond the issues of diet associated
with the pig to instead emphasize the danger it posed in cultic contexts. This sac-
rificial focus is continued in 2 Maccabees in the story of Eleazar, who would rather
die a torturous death than participate in illicit sacrificial meals involving pig. Sec-
ond Maccabees 7 may expand its focus to include more mundane dietary practices
involving pork, as the reference to the πάτριοι νόμοι would seem to suggest. Even
here, however, it is arguably difficult to distinguish the pork forced upon the mother
and sons from the illicit pig sacrifices mentioned in 2 Macc 6. To find unequivocal
evidence of a narrowing of focus onto the pig as a purely dietary issue, we would

52 While it is not said in 1 Macc 2:15–26 which animal was placed on the altar, the episode

clearly refers back to the decree 1 Macc 1:51, where it is stated that Antiochus IV appointed inspec-
tors to go from town to town to enforce his commands laid out in his letter in verses 44–49, which
includes the command to sacrifice pig (v. 47). See further Daniel R. Schwartz, 1 Maccabees: A New
Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AYB 41B (New Haven: Yale University Press,
2022), 184.
240 Journal of Biblical Literature 142, no. 2 (2023)

arguably need to look to sources written in the Roman period—a time in which it
is widely recognized that pork nonconsumption emerged as a key issue in differ-
entiating the Jewish diet from the diets of foreigners, owing to the Romans’ fascina-
tion with why anyone would abstain from pig, the meat par excellence of Roman
menus.53

IV. Conclusion: A New Genealogy

of the Pig Prohibition

From this analysis of the references to pork consumption and sacrifice from
Leviticus to Maccabees, I can offer a genealogy of sorts of the pig prohibition in
ancient Judaism and the complex ways in which it gained sociocultic significance
as a defining Jewish custom in the pre-Roman era. The practice of avoiding pork
seems to have enjoyed a long history in certain communities in ancient Israel.
However, its inclusion in the Pentateuch as an absolute prohibition, normative in
all locations and at all times, probably reflects an attempt by elite scribes to elevate
this local custom as a central norm—a drive toward standardization that arguably
reflects the dual legislative themes of cultic centralization and negotiating life
in foreign contexts. These legislative themes suggest that the pig prohibition
was introduced to the pentateuchal traditions no earlier than the seventh century
BCE and perhaps more likely during the sixth or fifth centuries BCE. The references

53 Jewish pork nonconsumption in Roman sources cannot be discussed in detail here; see

further my analysis in Julia Rhyder, “Le porc dans les interactions d’Antiochos IV avec les Juifs:
Un réexamen des sources,” RTP 154 (2022): 389–409. We can briefly note that the earliest evidence
of this use of pig nonconsumption as a reason for mockery is probably book 34/35 of Diodorus
Siculus’s Bibliotheca historica (ca. 90–30 BCE), which is preserved in the paraphrase of Photius
(Bibl. 34/35, 1:1–5 [Photius, Codices 379b]). This passage reinterprets Antiochus IV’s persecution
of the Jews through the lens of their dietary habits; it states that the Jews’ refusal to eat pig meat
exemplifies their misanthropy and lack of commensality. This provoked Antiochus IV to sacrifice
a pig in the temple and sprinkle its blood on the altar, on τὰς ἱερὰς αὐτῶν βίβλους (“their holy
books”), and on a statue of Moses housed within the sanctuary. This passage is generally agreed
to have come to Diodorus via an earlier source, which is usually attributed to the Greek writer
Posidonius of Apameia, who lived from 135 to 51 BCE; see further, e.g., Katell Berthelot, “Posei-
donios d’Apamée et les juifs,” JSJ 34 (2003): 160–98. In this case, the Roman fascination with
Jewish nonconsumption of pork might have first taken root among the supporters of the late
Roman Republic who, during campaigns of Pompeius Magnus in Judea, sought to discredit the
Jews as xenophobic and culturally and religiously inferior (see further Anna Angelini and Chris-
tophe Nihan, “The Origin of Greek and Roman Traditions about Jewish Food Prohibitions,” paper
presented at the conference “Food and Identity Formation in the Iron Age Levant and Beyond:
Textual, Archaeological, and Scientific Perspectives,” Weltenburg, 29 April 2019). Jewish pork
nonconsumption in mundane contexts thereby began to emerge as one of the defining features
of Jews, and, along with circumcision and Sabbath, a major target of mockery and satire.
 Rhyder: The Jewish Pig Prohibition 241

to the pig in Isa 65–66 develop the pig taboo further by associating this animal with
impure behaviors that threaten YHWH’s cultic order and the integrity of the priest-
hood, and thus the community more broadly. It is in the time of the Hasmonean
dynasty, however, with the composition of 1 and 2 Maccabees, that the pig emerged
as a metonym of sacrificial transgressions and dietary pollution that transpired in
Judea during the reign of Antiochus IV, and thus as a powerful symbol for the defil-
ing potency of collaborating with the Seleucid Empire.
Returning to where this article began, our attempt to answer Gaius’s question
to Philo “why do you not eat pork?” has raised complex but also fascinating issues
concerning the multiple factors that shaped the emergence of pig nonconsumption
as a central custom in ancient Judaism. Ethnic differentiation by means of diet was
not the only function of the pig taboo in ancient Israel. In fact, many texts are as
much, if not more, concerned with employing the pig prohibition as a device by
which cultic norms as well as dietary customs within the Israelite community were
standardized. By the time Gaius asked his question, the pig taboo was probably so
colored by the Roman disdain for Jewish pig avoidance as an alleged sign of their
lack of commensality that these other facets of the pig in Judaism may have begun
to be obscured. My approach in this article, however, has underscored not only the
need, but also the many benefits, of differentiating the origins of Jewish customs
involving unclean animals from their possible uses in later periods, such that their
significance and meaning at each stage of Jewish history can be analyzed and appre-
ciated.