Figure 7.1. The genetic replacement of pig haplogroups across the Near East. Four regions compared: Anatolia, Levant, N. Mesopotamia/S. Anatolia, and Iran/Caucasus. Points indicate locations of sites.
We come now to the Iron Age, a dynamic and tumultuous period in which the first versions of the pig taboo (at least those for which we have solid evidence) took root. In the early part of the 12th century BC, dozens of cities along the Levantine and Anatolian coasts of the Mediterranean were sacked, and the great imperial powers of the Late Bronze Age lost control of the Near East. Scholars continue to debate the causes and consequences of this collapse, but likely contributing factors include drought, migration and warfare, the disruption of trade routes, and internal rebellions.1
In the Levant and parts of Syria and Anatolia, the power vacuum left by the retreat of the Late Bronze Age empires created room for a regionwide process of ethnogenesis. This process was inspired in part by the migration to the Near East of people from the Aegean and other parts of the Mediterranean, especially those known in Egyptian inscriptions as “Sea Peoples.” One of these groups, the Peleset (or Philistines), came to rule several city-states in modern-day Gaza and southern Israel. These people, perhaps unsettled by the calamity at the end of the Bronze Age, brought with them their customs and food habits.2 In some cases, these traditions contradicted those of local peoples.
At the same time, local Near Eastern peoples reconfigured themselves into new groups. One group, the Hebrew-speaking Israelites, coalesced as a distinct ethnic group in the 12th–11th centuries BC in the southern Levant, the region between the Aramaean kingdoms to the north, the Jordan River to the east, and the Philistine city-states to the south. By the 10th–9th centuries BC, the Israelites were organized into two distinct kingdoms—Israel in the north and Judah in the south.3 It was in this setting that the most long-standing and most widely applicable pig taboo would emerge.
The first five books of the Bible (the Torah; literally “instruction”) and the books of Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings provide a narrative of these time periods, beginning with the creation of the universe by the Israelites’ god Yahweh (sometimes “Elohim”) and ending with the conquest of the kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians in the 8th century BC and that of Judah by the Babylonians in the 6th century BC. This story, perhaps first composed in the late 8th or 7th century BC in the kingdom of Judah, contains a mixture of facts, myths, and heavily spun accounts of historical events. However, extrabiblical sources provide independent verification of some of the events described in the Hebrew Bible. The Merneptah Stele (dating to 1207 BC), found in Egypt, provides the first mention of a people called “Israel” living in the Levant. Other texts and monuments, such as the Mesha Stele found in Jordan, records a war between the Moabites and the kingdom of Israel in the mid-9th century BC (mentioned in 2 Kings 3).4 In general, while the events described in the Torah are largely mythological (including the exodus from Egypt, for which there is no concrete archaeological or historical evidence)5, the historical accuracy of the Hebrew Bible appears to increase with time up to the 8th–7th centuries BC.
The small territorial kingdoms of the Israelites and other groups would ultimately fall to the major empires that reappeared in the Near East beginning in the 9th century BC. The greatest powers were based in Mesopotamia, the Neo-Assyrian Empire (ca. 900–609 BC), and its short-lived successor the Neo-Babylonian Empire (609–539 BC). These empires developed a clear imperial ideology that justified conquest as a divine mission.6 As part of this imperial project, the Assyrians and Babylonians conducted mass resettlements of conquered or rebellious peoples. Many of the inhabitants of Judah, whose kingdom the Babylonian Nebuchadnezzar II destroyed in 586 BC, spent a roughly 50-year “exile” in and around the city of Babylon. During that time, they built upon a new form of theology that had begun to emerge in Jerusalem in the century prior. Central to this theology—Judaism—was a special attachment to their god (Yahweh), their holy texts, and the land of Israel and its people.
The Iron Age came to a close with the rise of the Persian Empire. Persia began to emerge as a major power in southern Iran in the 6th century BC. The empire expanded rapidly beginning in 559 BC with the ascension of Cyrus, who captured Babylon in 539 BC. The Persians’ policy of imperial domination, while remaining focused on conquest, differed from that of their Neo-Assyrian and Babylonian predecessors in that they adopted a more tolerant stance toward local customs and traditions. In this spirit, Cyrus issued a decree allowing the Jews in Babylon to return to Jerusalem, where they would soon rebuild the temple to Yahweh that had been destroyed by the Babylonians.7
The partial historical validity of the Bible brings up a question about when it was written. The Hebrew Bible contains three main section—Torah (“instruction”) or the five books of Moses, Prophets (in Hebrew, Nevi’im), and Writings (Ketuvim)—each of which is composed of texts from several sources that were later joined together. The dating of the sources varies. Much of the latter half of the Prophets and the Writings deal explicitly with events that occurred during or after the Babylonian Exile. They are late 1st millennium BC compositions. The Torah and the first few books of the Prophets are earlier in date, but even these books consist of texts written centuries apart that editors in the late 1st millennium BC compiled and modified. Dating these texts is a complex issue. We need not get too bogged down in the debate. But it is important to establish when, where, and how those parts of the Torah related to the pork taboo were composed in order to understand the context in which it was codified.
Since the 18th century, scholars have adopted a skeptical stance toward the Torah and its authorship. Rejecting the idea that Moses composed it shortly before his death, scholars have identified a number of clues suggesting that the Torah was a living document, edited and reconfigured until well into the Persian period.8 At least five major authors (or groups of authors) have been identified: the Yahwist (J), Elohist (E), Priestly (P), Holiness (H), and Deuteronomist (D), the last of whom composed many of the historical books of the Prophets, the so-called Deuteronomistic History.9 Using place names, word choices, and references to historical events, scholars have attempted to provide dates for these authors, ranging from the 10th to the 5th century BC.10 In the biblical timeframe, this encompasses the time of David to the post-Exilic period.
Particularly important for the pig taboo are the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, especially Leviticus 11:7 and Deuteronomy 14:8, the passages that explicitly ban the consumption of pork. These portions of the text relate to the P, H, and D sources.11 Scholars have proposed various dates for these sources, especially P. Many argue that they were composed by, or at least have their origins in, small groups of priests writing in the 8th and 7th centuries BC. This time corresponds to the reigns of Hezekiah, Josiah, and other later kings of Judah. Other scholars argue for a composition in 6th or 5th centuries BC, corresponding to the Exilic/post-Exilic period, when the remnants of the Judahite priesthood reconfigured their religion into something we would now recognize as Judaism.12 We can be reasonably sure that priests of Judah, and not Israel, wrote these texts, as they exhibit a clear bias in favor of the southern kingdom and its monarchs.13
Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman have proposed one particularly convincing argument, and one that is based on historical and archaeological data.14 These authors argue for a pre-Exilic date for many of the sources, and they identify the D source as living under the reign of Josiah (639–609 BC), with the P source living somewhat later. Other sources, like H, may have lived a bit earlier. Assuming Finkelstein and Silberman are correct—and I stress again that dating the Torah is a complex and heavily debated topic—we can date the textual codification of the pig taboo to the late 8th or 7th century BC in the kingdom of Judah.
Archaeology tells a somewhat different story of the origins of the Israelite people than the Bible. Early archaeologists largely accepted the biblical account of an exodus from Egypt, nomadic wandering, and the conquest of southern Levantine cities.15 But a century of research has painted a very different picture of Israelite ethnogenesis. The archaeological data strongly suggest that the Israelites coalesced as a distinct group a bit before 1200 BC from local southern Levantine (“Canaanite”) groups living in the hilly regions west of the Jordan River.16 In this sparsely inhabited territory, several dozen new villages appeared in the Iron I period (1200–950 BC) that were characterized by their location on hilltops, lack of defensive walls or fortifications, densely packed houses with a four-room layout, agricultural terraces, an absence of socioeconomic differentiation, and very few or even no pig bones.17
Relying on these facts and drawing on parts of the Bible, several modern theories have sought to explain the origins of the Israelites. Some scholars have argued that the Israelites descended from people who revolted against the Egyptian-backed Canaanite city-states and their presumably oppressive social institutions.18 Others, not necessarily accepting the revolt hypothesis, have argued that the Israelites descended largely from people who left Levantine cities at the end of the Bronze Age.19 Another group of scholars have argued that the Israelites descended from nomadic pastoralists, either native to the region or arriving from the east, who had settled down into agricultural villages in the relatively empty hill country.20 Seeking consensus, some recent publications have argued that the Israelites were a mixture of groups, including nomadic pastoralists, fleeing urbanites, disenchanted peasants, and even the ‘Apiru bandits sometimes mentioned in Bronze Age texts in Mesopotamia and Egypt.21
Whatever its origins, several features defined Iron I Israelite society. First, Israelites were not monotheistic, but worshipped a number of gods in addition to Yahweh. These included Baal, the Canaanite storm god mentioned in Chapter 5. Also important were Astarte (or Ashtoreth), the goddess of erotic love whom Solomon allegedly worshipped (1 Kings 11:5), and Asherah, a fertility goddess who was probably initially the consort of Yahweh.22 Eventually, these gods would become targets of the biblical writers’ ire as they attempted to elevate Yahweh to the status of the one and only god.
Israelite society was also characterized by a strong tribal ideal. This contained three components. First, it prized a family-centered social organization built on paternalism and filial obligation.23 Even though powerful and independent female figures populate the biblical texts (e.g., Deborah and Yael in the book of Judges 4–5; Naomi and Ruth in the book of Ruth), male heads of households were perceived as the building blocks of society. Second, the tribal ideal promoted a fiercely egalitarian ethos, at least among adult Israelite males. This is detectable archaeologically at early Israelite sites by the lack of prestige objects and the overall uniformity of house sizes.24 Third, it encouraged pastoralism of sheep, goats, cattle, and, later in the Iron Age, camels.25 This pastoral archetype, especially one based on highly mobile or “nomadic” pastoralism, is abundantly clear from the Bible, whose writers projected—and exaggerated—the image of their ancestors living largely by herding animals.
These ideals, however, did not always match reality. Most Israelites by the Iron I, and perhaps at any time in their history, were not nomadic pastoralists. By the Iron II, Israelites would form monarchic societies that would set aside social equality. But the tribal ideal remained intact. Though contradicting daily realities, the tribal ideal served as a rallying point for revitalization movements later on. Jewish, Christian, and Muslim thinkers alike have drawn on its archetypal principles for centuries.26
Beginning around 950 BC, in the Iron II period, the Israelites abandoned their small hilltop villages and congregated in larger, walled settlements.27 A more rigid social hierarchy was adopted, and political power was centralized in the hands of kings. This might have occurred in response to military confrontations with other groups in the southern Levant, such as the Philistines.28 Whether these developments coincided with a united monarchy (under Saul, David, and Solomon) or not remains the subject of considerable debate.29 Regardless, by the 9th century BC, two Israelite kingdoms existed: a larger and more prosperous one to the north (Israel) and a smaller one in the south (Judah).
Archaeological and extrabiblical textual evidence corroborates much of the history of the two kingdoms—their wars, accomplishments, and ultimate downfalls—recorded in the books 1 and 2 Kings. The events correspond to a date beginning around the 10th century BC and ending with the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC. However, it must be stressed that the biblical authors’ agenda was not to write an accurate history. Rather, it was to understand and glorify their god Yahweh, explain folktales and traditions in terms of Yahweh’s relationship to his people, and sanctify the authority of the kings under which the priesthood worked. We must therefore examine critically the biblical presentation of history. We will focus especially on the developments in Judah after the Assyrian conquest of the kingdom of Israel in 722 BC. The Bible depicts Judah being ruled in the late 8th and 7th century by kings who are described as righteous (Hezekiah and Josiah) or wicked (Manasseh and Amon). The righteous kings reformed religious practice, gained Yahweh’s favor, and led Judah to new prosperity. Indeed, from the late 8th century until 586 BC, Judah’s kings and priests initiated a series of policy and religious reforms. These changes must be understood in their political and social contexts, which can be inferred from archaeological and historical data.
After the fall of Israel, Judah found itself the center of Israelite culture. Over the next few decades, as Assyrian power waxed and waned in the Levant, Judah’s kings embarked on a series of military expeditions to conquer territory in the north and incorporate it into their kingdom. Judah’s elevation to a position of prominence was bolstered by the fact that populations in and around Jerusalem had swelled to unprecedented levels beginning in the mid-8th century BC, turning the Judahite capital into a much more important civil and religious center.30
In this context of, on the one hand, newfound glory and, on the other, a real threat of foreign imperial conquest, the kings and priests in Judah sought a new identity for themselves and their subjects. They pursued a strategy, so common among states in the ancient and modern world, of promoting ethnogenesis within their territory—akin to what we would call nationalism today.31 And like so many other kings and politicians, they did so by concentrating political power in the hands of a single person (one approved of by the priesthood) and painting an image of a glorified version of the past to justify their ambitions.
This process of glorifying and unifying Israelite identity began in the late 8th century BC when, according to the biblical narrative, Hezekiah centralized political leadership, in part by banning all religious sanctuaries except the Temple in Jerusalem. He also may have commissioned a history of the Davidic kingly lineage and a code of laws.32 These reforms served to transform Jerusalem into the center of Judahite religious and cultural expression.33 Reforms continued into the 7th century BC, reaching a critical moment during the reign of Josiah, which lasted from 639 to 609 BC. Josiah initiated a religious-political revolution that constituted, according to Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, “the most intense puritan reform in the history of Judah.”34 His reforms tolerated only one type of religious expression—the worship of Yahweh—and he commissioned his priests to write down codes of moral behavior. These codes, perhaps in combination with ones written in Hezekiah’s time, probably included at least the nucleus of Leviticus.35 Over the next several centuries, priests continued to redact Leviticus and added Deuteronomy (which was allegedly discovered in 622 BC by Josiah’s priests).
The codes written down in Judah would serve as the basis of Jewish Law (halakha) and included taboos on pork and many other foods, as well as numerous other commandments (mitzvot), such as laws dictating sexual behavior and dress. The writing down of these mitzvot, inscribing them in holy documents ostensibly of divine inspiration, was revolutionary.36 It cemented the moral prescriptions of the Judahite priesthood as law, bestowed upon these practices a permanency that was integrated into the core of Judahite and later Jewish life, and prevented any “cultural drift” that could mute or alter them over time. Henceforth, any violation of this Iron Age code of moral behavior would represent a self-conscious rejection of halakha and all its associations with Judahite and Jewish identity.
Nebuchadnezzar II’s sack of Jerusalem in 586 BC brought an end to Judahite autonomy. According to the Bible—and the brutality of Babylonian kings leaves no reason to doubt the biblical account—Nebuchadnezzar forced the last king of Judah, Zedekiah, to watch as his sons were executed. Nebuchadnezzar then had Zedekiah blinded, shackled, and sent into exile (2 Kings 25:6–7). Along with the king, Nebuchadnezzar deported a portion of the Judahite population to Babylon, several thousand people that included most of the elite. This deportation unexpectedly laid the foundations for the development of a uniquely Jewish identity. It is at this time that we identify those following the Judahite religion as “Jews.”
During the so-called Babylonian Exile, Judaism crystallized around the religion and laws promulgated by the Judahite kings and priests. The Jews in Babylon made heavy redactions to existing biblical texts and composed new ones, fortifying halakha. The laws served as a covenant that bound Jews to a set of daily practices. These practices set Jews apart from their conquerors and inspired a sense of dislocation. This perception of being “a stranger in a strange land” (Exodus 2:22) inspired Jews to direct their gaze toward Jerusalem, a city to which they could not return but which became the center of their shared ethnoreligious experience.37 It was also at this time that the Jews adopted a philosophy that can be summarized as being “the counter-culture of the oppressed.”38 It would serve as a rallying point for future revitalization movements, including Christianity. Accordingly, although the Jews might have experienced political and social hardships, they perceived themselves as loftier in the eyes of their (one and only) god, a position they maintained through adherence to his commandments.39
The Persian king Cyrus conquered Babylon in 539 BC and issued an edict allowing Jews (or Yehudim) to return to Jerusalem. Many did, bringing with them a new form of religious and ethnic identity refashioned in the crucible of the Babylonian Exile. Plans were soon laid to rebuild the Temple, and Jews repopulated the southern Levant with particular zeal. They continued to redact parts of the Torah and to write down new material that would be included in the Bible.40 But the Persian period also witnessed the first Diaspora communities. Ironically, at the same time that Judaism emerged firmly focused on Jerusalem, it also became a pan–Near Eastern ethnoreligious entity. Thus, some Jews chose to stay in Babylon, which would remain a center of Jewish thought for centuries to come. Others traveled as far as Elephantine in Upper Egypt, where a group of Jewish mercenaries guarded Egypt’s southern borders and constructed their own temple to Yahweh sometime in the 6th century BC.41 Although spread across the Near East, Jews maintained their identity based on monotheistic worship of Yahweh and observing halakha.
Before examining the pig taboo and its evolution, it is important to establish the patterns of pig consumption around the Near East. Unfortunately, zooarchaeological data from many key regions are sparse. Nevertheless, the available data largely show that, continuing traditions begun in the Late Bronze Age, pork contributed less to the average Near Eastern diet than it had prior to about 1600 BC.42 Pork consumption even declined in Egypt, where pig bones make up only around 10–25 percent of the remains of livestock recovered from sites spanning the 11th–4th centuries BC—a far cry from the predominance of pork consumption in earlier periods.43 In fact, the only places where pig husbandry remained the leading type of meat production in Egypt were settlements with a strong presence of foreigners, such as the 5th-century Greek emporium at Naukratis.44
Nevertheless, patterns of pig husbandry were quite variable, judging from several Iron Age faunal assemblages in Anatolia, Syria, and the Levant. At some settlements, pigs were almost or completely absent.45 At others, faunal assemblages yielded pig bones at a relative abundance of 20 percent or more of the main livestock species.46 This variability in pig relative abundances is striking, but not well understood. However, it is interesting that pork consumption did not correlate with social class in the Iron Age. At two cities, the Neo-Assyrian city of Ziyaret Tepe (ancient Tushan) and the Phrygian capital at Gordion, pig bones were just as common in upper-class residential areas as in lower-class ones.47 This might suggest that pig consumption had less to do with social status than with other facets of social identity—at least in certain contexts.
Researchers have spilled much ink in the past few decades over the ethnic significance of pig bones in the Iron Age Levant. The general understanding is that Israelites did not eat (much) pork, while their frequent rivals, the Philistines, did. While that is essentially true, the reality was more complicated than this simplistic identification between pigs and people.
Zooarchaeologists remain divided over their approaches to Levantine pig bones.48 Complicating matters is the difficulty of identifying ethnicity in the archaeological record.49 The material record is not always a reliable indicator of people’s self-ascribed identities. For one thing, people frequently adopt “hybrid” identities or practices. People also borrow materials, techniques, and traditions from other groups. Additionally, communities can be composed of two or more ethnic groups, which may deposit artifacts in the same archaeological contexts.50 These problems notwithstanding, several patterns emerge from the zooarchaeological data.
The Philistines occupied the Levant beginning around 1200 BC. Their presence is typically deduced from ceramic styles (including those of cooking vessels), architectural features, and unique linear script.51 Their settlements also generally included higher proportions of pig bones.52 Pork consumption also increased over the course of the Iron I period at many Philistine sites.53 As a result, many have emphasized the importance of pork and other foods, as well as certain cooking styles, to the Philistine identity.54 That is, there appears to have been a unique Philistine cuisine or foodway in which pork was one component. However, it is important to recognize that pigs at most constituted around 20 percent of the main livestock animals slaughtered for meat in Philistine centers—a far cry, for example, from the pork-dominated diets of Bronze Age Mesopotamian and Egyptian cities (see Table A.3 in the appendix).
Philistine settlements exhibited considerable variability in their pig husbandry. For example, while pork consumption was common in Philistine cities, it appears to have been rare in rural villages, such as Qasile, where pig bones constituted around 1 percent of the livestock remains.55 Additionally, although Philistines consumed more pigs over the course of the Iron I, they ate considerably fewer after about 950 BC.56 By the Iron II and Iron III periods, the percentage of pig bones dropped at several key sites—for example, 4 percent at Tel Miqne (ancient Ekron)57 and less than 1 percent at Ashkelon58—although they remained stable at 13 percent at Tell es-Safi (ancient Gath).59 Some have argued that the Philistines underwent an “acculturation” to local southern Levantine food traditions at this time, adopting many of the local practices. Indeed, the Philistines stopped using certain types of cooking ware in addition to reducing the amount of pork in their diets.60 Others have argued that this variability over time and space weakens the link between Philistine identity and pigs.61 If so, archaeologists must reconsider the importance of pork to Philistine identity.
A contentious issue is the impact that Philistines’ foodways had on their rivals, the Israelites. Many archaeologists have argued that Philistine pork consumption inspired a pig taboo among the Israelites.62 While I essentially agree with that assessment, the matter is complicated. First, as I stressed in Chapter 6, we have to think of the taboo as an evolving cultural element. It did not emerge fully formed. The backward projection of the taboo as it exists in modern Judaism and Islam is anachronistic. Second, identifying pig consumption solely in terms of ethnic identity ignores the other reasons that pork may or may not be eaten (the pig principles discussed in Chapter 2), such as the practical benefits of swine husbandry in urban environments. Third, detecting a taboo in the archaeological record is by no means a straightforward endeavor.
The difficulties inherent in the archaeological identification of taboos63 are perhaps best illustrated by a hypothetical example. If a team of archaeologists in the future were excavating garbage dumps from a modern Midwestern American town, they would not find many dog bones. The reason for the absence would, of course, be that most 21st century Midwestern Americans harbor a taboo on eating dogs. But the excavators would also not find many bones of other locally available animals, like beavers or cranes, to which no specific taboos are attached but nevertheless are not eaten. They might not find many bones of goats, animals that are eaten, but infrequently. To make matters worse, assume a team member found a single dog bone and that the bone displayed cut marks suggesting it had been butchered and eaten. How should the archaeologists interpret that find? Did someone break the taboo? If so, under what circumstances? Perhaps the community was culturally heterogeneous and included a minority population that occasionally ate dogs. Archaeologists would have trouble evaluating these possibilities and sorting taboos from other forms of meat avoidance or nonconsumption. Unfortunately, when it comes to the pig taboo in the Iron Age, many scholars fall back on preconceived and potentially anachronistic notions of what they imagine pork meant to Israelites and Philistines.
The zooarchaeological detection of a taboo is possible, however, through inspection of the data for unusual spatial or temporal patterns.64 To detect a taboo that was applicable to an entire ethnic group, one should expect the presence of absence of certain species to match up against other potential archaeological signatures (e.g., architectural, ceramic) of ethnic groups. One need not expect a total absence—rituals can nullify taboos,65 or certain members in the community may chose not to follow them, even at the risk of social isolation. What is important is a stark and “conspicuous absence”66 of a food source—one that is eaten at nearby sites. In this sense, when viewed against the backdrop of the Philistine faunal data, there is evidence for a “conspicuous absence” of pig bones at settlements identified with Israelite occupation. At the vast majority of sites, pigs represent 1 percent or less of the livestock remains in the Iron I.67 This is obviously not a complete absence, and it represents only a slight decrease in patterns already present in the southern Levant in previous periods.68 But both the extreme infrequency of pig bones and the contrast to Philistine settlements just a few dozen kilometers away are nonetheless striking.69
Interestingly, however, like the Philistine faunal data, Israelite pig husbandry patterns changed over time (see Table A.4 in the appendix). In fact, there was an increase in pork consumption in the Iron II period at some sites in the northern kingdom of Israel. Namely, at Megiddo and Beth Shean, pig bones represent around 8 percent of the admittedly small assemblages of livestock remains.70 And on the acropolis of Iron II Tel Hazor,71 archaeologists found the cranium and vertebral column of a domestic pig—the remains of an animal that had been butchered, the limbs and ribs presumably taken elsewhere for consumption.72
One can interpret the uptick in pig husbandry in the Iron II in a number of ways. It might reflect the presence of people who originated elsewhere and had been resettled in the Levant by the Assyrians in the late 8th century BC. Alternatively, the pig bones might be an indication that some people of Israelite ancestry were adopting new traditions. Perhaps the increase in city size in the 8th century BC inspired some Israelites to take up pig husbandry, a form of livestock production ideal for urban environments, despite an existing pig taboo or traditional rejection of pork.73 One could even read this in light of the biblical authors’ railings against the people of northern Israel for their transgressions in 1 and 2 Kings.74 If so, perhaps we should imagine the pig taboo as a more negotiable feature of Israelite identity, at least until the religious reforms initiated in Judah in the 8th and 7th centuries BC.
Working under an instrumentalist understanding of ethnicity, it is in fact reasonable to suspect that the meanings attached to pigs evolved within Israelite communities over the Iron Age. Philistine pork consumption probably initially inspired a taboo among the Israelites, which evolved out a passive nonconsumption of pork to a more self-conscious avoidance of it in the Iron I. But pork avoidance would have played a minimal role in identity construction after the 10th century BC, when Philistines themselves largely gave up eating it. At that point, the significance of the pig taboo probably began to wane. To understand why the taboo became codified in Leviticus centuries later, we have to search for factors not only in the Iron I, but also in the cultural and political situation of the 8th and 7th centuries BC.
Scholars have posited different timelines for the origins of the pig taboo, from the earliest phase of the Iron I through the Babylonian Exile.75 The various authors in this debate, however, tend to treat the taboo as something that emerged fully formed rather than as something that evolved slowly over the course of the Iron Age, growing like a tree from a sapling until it eventually became enshrined in Leviticus and Deuteronomy as one part of halakha. In fact, treating the taboo in this manner can be a way of reconciling many of these previous arguments. Above, I have alluded to this evolution in my review of the arguments that exist among archaeologists and biblical scholars. Here I spell it out more concretely and offer a hypothetical reconstruction of the pig taboo from the 12th through 5th centuries BC.
The nonconsumption of pork was a part of Israelite food practices from the earliest moments of their ethnogenesis. The Israelites’ Iron I hilltop villages generally—if not entirely—lacked pig bones beginning in the 12th century BC. By themselves, these data are unsurprising. The reason pork was such a rare feature of the traditional Levantine diet by 1200 BC was probably that the people who settled in the hill country west of the Jordan River did not think to bring swine with them. At least initially, the extreme paucity of pig bones at Iron I Israelite settlements most likely did not reflect an intentional rejection of pork so much as the mostly unconscious continuation of food traditions.76 On some level, the tribal ideal and the romanticization of sheep- and goatherding may have inspired a glorification of eating ruminant products. But privileging certain types of food need not entail reviling others.
Pork avoidance likely became more active as Israelites came into contact with other peoples who ate pork—namely, the Philistines. The Philistines were originally an Aegean or Cypriot people. Zooarchaeological data from Late Bronze Age Aegean and Cyprus indicate that people ate a significant amount of pork—pig bones comprise typically 20–40 percent of the livestock remains.77 The Philistines who colonized the southern coast of the southern Levant thus brought with them a food tradition quite distinct from those of their new neighbors.78
Food is a potent marker of social identity and the boundaries that groups of people (whether social classes, ethnicities, or gender and age groupings) construct between each other. Food helps shape how we conceive of ourselves and the people we are closest to. Unique food traditions therefore helped Philistines define themselves in a new land among foreign peoples. This might explain why pork consumption increased at some Philistine cities over the course of the Iron I period.79
On the other hand, boundaries between people are not static; they are constantly under negotiation. Israelites and other non-Philistine peoples in the Levant adopted some of the Philistine food traditions; for example, ceramic styles crossed ethnic boundaries.80 Similarly, pigs were not prominent features of daily life in the Philistine countryside, where the mingling of groups may have been more common and the pressure to adopt local Levantine foodways more pronounced. Pork also became increasingly rare in the Philistine diet after the Iron II.81 This may well be an example of the process of Philistine “acculturation.”82 But it could also indicate that pork was not as crucial to Philistines’ self-definition as some scholars have assumed. Pork consumption, remember, was only a small component of the overall tableau of ethnic-based practices among the Philistines. Indeed, centuries later, biblical authors focused their revulsion on Philistine foreskin, not even mentioning pork (e.g., 1 Samuel 18:25–27, Judges 14:3, Judges 16:8).
Whether or not pig husbandry defined Philistine identity to the Philistines themselves, it created the opportunity for Israelites to reflect on their own traditions and markers of ethnicity. It is reasonable to suspect that, as enemies living in close proximity to the Philistines, the Israelites of the Iron I defined themselves in part against this Philistine “other.” In all likelihood, they drew on male circumcision, language, dress, religion, and food to distinguish “us” from “them.”83 In this context, the inherited tradition of pork nonconsumption became a more active form of pork avoidance—a taboo.
While Philistines stopped eating much pork in the Iron II, the pig taboo evolved in a new direction. The uptick in pig remains at Iron IIB (ca. 780–680 BC) sites located within the political boundaries of the kingdom of Israel might reflect a growing tendency among city dwellers in the north to abandon the pig taboo, which may no longer have been relevant, in favor of food production techniques suitable for urban environments.84 Or perhaps the remains indicate the presence of ethnic mixing in these cities.85 In any case, a change occurred following the dismemberment of the northern kingdom of Israel. Judah, once second fiddle, now found itself the sole independent political entity of the Hebrew-speaking peoples.86 As their political ambitions to control northern cities grew, the kings and priestly class in Judah may have sought to abolish pig husbandry via religious decree.87 This was part of their larger political-religious project designed to unite the Israelite peoples and resuscitate the lost glory of an imagined past.
As noted above, Judah in the 8th–7th centuries BC represented a unique political context. To recap: Cultural, religious, and economic friction between the two Israelite kingdoms, as well as the threat of foreign invasion, created a sense of urgency in consolidating power in Judah.88 Additionally, Judah’s expansion into the former territories of the kingdom of Israel after the retreat of Assyrian power in the 7th century inspired the political elite in Judah to forge a nationalist pan-Israelite narrative. The kings and priests of Judah achieved this by cementing Israelite identity around a set of core beliefs and practices that ultimately served to enhance their positions at the head of religious and secular life. Their reforms emphasized “One God, worshipped in one Temple, located in the one and only capital [Jerusalem], under one king of the Davidic dynasty.”89
To forge a new identity that would serve as the foundation of an expansive Judahite state capable of resisting external threats, the biblical authors needed an origin story that was both believable and sufficiently glorious. They felt the need to stress that their ancestors’ might ultimately derived from the power of their god, to whose cult the priesthood was devoted. While embellishing truths and, perhaps, inventing others, the biblical authors probably relied on reframing existing folk stories and traditions. Using existing traditions provided an air of legitimacy to the authors’ claims. Weaving them together, they depicted their ancestors as paternalistic, pastoral, pious, and, ultimately, pigless. These traditions formed the core of an ideal life, one that moored the people to the will and power of Yahweh. At the same time, they adorned their ancestors with a melodramatic degree of heroism. In addition to identifying the Israelite people as precious to the most special (and later, only) god, the biblical authors connected their patriarchs to great ancient cities, such as Harran and Ur in northern and southern Mesopotamia. They scripted a drama of rebellion and escape from one of the greatest Near Eastern powers (Egypt). These stories, perhaps inspired by the tumultuous events at the end of the Late Bronze Age, established the magnificence of the Israelite people. But the biblical authors were at pains to show that this past glory was dependent on the proper behavior of a people that, almost comically, kept giving in to the temptation to flaunt the rules of tradition.
Food represented an important set of behaviors. The biblical authors spent much energy detailing food laws and taboos, which they believed were crucial to reestablishing the Israelites’ past glory. Since the Bronze Age, ruminant meat and milk were the main forms of animal protein in the Levant. This traditional Levantine diet fit well with the cultivated nostalgia for a nomadic pastoral ancestry. But if food connected the Israelite people to their god and his plan for his people, food traditions would have to be written as absolute laws and not simply celebrated as accomplished facts. Thus the authors decreed that, among the mammals, the only animals fit to eat were ruminating ungulates, the animals owned and exploited by pastoral nomads and representing a category in which pigs did not fit.90
The existing, but by now fading pig taboo lent itself to this project. The taboo was another piece of tradition that the authors could use to support their claims about the past, the power of their god, and the legitimacy of the monarchy. It is unclear exactly what the taboo meant to biblical authors and to the people of Judah in the 8th and 7th centuries. They may have perceived the lingering memory of pork’s association with an ancient enemy, which perhaps persisted in oral traditions. If so, the pig taboo still possessed power, even if transgressions against it were becoming more commonplace. In any case, the authors were able to rely on the fact that most Israelites probably retained an inkling that pork was not part of their traditional diet—that there was something wrong about it.
The authors may also have drawn upon existing cultic or religious anxieties about pigs—perhaps pigs’ association with chthonic rituals or magic91 or as potential pollutants of sacred spaces. In any case, the biblical authors likely mixed the two pork taboos together—one derived from ancient Israelite-Philistine interaction and one derived from the ritual associations that pigs developed in the Late Bronze Age. Both added a sense of credibility and power to the newly-codified taboo.
While labeling pigs abominable was nothing new in the Iron Age, the priests of Judah made a revolutionary move by applying the taboo not only sacred places and people, but to all the children of Israel at all times (e.g., Leviticus 11:2). Only food fit for the altar was now acceptable on the table.92 This democratization of ritual purity and its extension into everyday life facilitated the transition to monotheism by providing a constant ritual connection between Judahites and their one and only god.93 Ultimately, this connection, while focused on Jerusalem, could be forged anywhere. The mitzvot made it possible for the Jewish religion to flourish in a Diaspora setting .
We should pause here and note that, among the hundreds of mitzvot, the avoidance of pork was just one (Leviticus 11:7, Deuteronomy 14:8). The texts also prohibit the consumption of reptiles, fish lacking scales and fins, several (all?) birds of prey, camels, rock hyraxes, and other mammals that do not possess both hooves and a ruminating stomach. Like many other animals, pigs were described as impure (tame),94 and one is instructed not to eat them or even touch their dead carcasses—although Leviticus stops short of banning the raising or handling of pigs or other impure animals.
In the end, in their desire to resuscitate a glorious pastoral past, the biblical authors inspired a revitalization of foodways. It is perhaps not a coincidence that food represented a way for the authors to draw upon the traditional tribal ideal in a way that did not directly confront or contradict kingly power and social hierarchy. While many passages of the Bible articulate an egalitarian ideal, the authors were careful to avoid undermining their own positions of power and the institution of the monarchy. Instead, much like neoliberals today, they focused on moralizing personal behaviors. An erosion of values, and not the political machinations of those in power, was to blame for any suffering that came upon the people of Israel, including conquest by foreign armies. This habit-based revitalization movement created an opportunity to breathe new life and meaning into the pig taboo.
It would be a mistake to conclude that the biblical authors conspired to invent a tradition and use it to trick the populace of Judah. Rather, it is important to recognize how self-deception is a powerful force in mythmaking and political projects. The biblical writers probably did not fully understand the pig taboo and other traditional food habits they turned into law. They simply believed, or convinced themselves to believe, that their ancestors followed a nomadic pastoral way of life and, through the foods they ate, were connected to a special god who had a special plan for them.
The biblical authors attempted to understand food in terms of the relationship it forged between people and a god. If eating was a sacred act, and Yahweh an all-powerful creator-god, the food rules must be legible in creation itself. Thus the authors sought justification for the food taboos on physiological grounds. Essentially, they attempted to explain the meaning of these taboos in animals’ essences, the unique forms that Yahweh gave different beings at the creation of the universe. The explanations for the taboos the biblical authors penned were therefore reflections of the truths to which they aspired.
When initially written, the pig taboo played a minor role in the consolidation of the people of Judah’s identity. The connection between an existentially threating “otherness” and pork had waned with the changing Philistine diet, and even the Israelites in the northern cities who ate pork did so infrequently. But the pig taboo would have certainly resonated in the Diaspora. Jews living in Babylon, Egypt, and other places during the Babylonian Exile and Persian period daily confronted other people eating pork; indeed, it is likely that this animal was the most frequently consumed of all those banned by Leviticus and Deuteronomy. The stark contradiction between biblical commandment and the food habits of Jews’ host communities likely amplified the anxieties of forging a Jewish identity, of sensing themselves as a separate and superior people.95 It is perhaps for this reason that texts dating to the Persian period supply some of the only biblical passages that specifically condemn people consuming pork (Isaiah 66:3–17).
Thus, by the Persian period, the Jewish people embraced a taboo on pork consumption that they self-consciously connected to their ethnic identity and that was written down in unambiguous terms. Whatever initial associations it may have had, by the 4th century BC avoiding pigs was a part of how Jews reproduced their own sense of self and connection to their deity. Yet, at least on paper, the pig taboo held no special status relative to the other mitzvot. This situation would change in the Hellenistic period, when Jewish people in the southern Levant were once again faced with a pork-loving political enemy and rival ethnic group (Chapter 8).
Beyond the Israelites and Jews, other cultures across the Near East persistently held negative attitudes toward pigs. In Chapter 5, we saw that texts dating to the Late Bronze Age indicated that pigs, as well as dogs, were capable of polluting temples. These specifically religious taboos helped separate the sacred from the profane. While they continued into the Iron Age, there is no evidence that they were ever applied to an entire ethnic group.
Mesopotamian texts clearly indicate the persistence of injunctions against pigs in temple contexts. The references are mostly found in popular sayings and aphorisms, the so-called Babylonian wisdom literature. One tablet dating to 716 BC proclaims:
The pig [.]. has no sense;
lying [in. .] . . he eats his food
They do not [say,] “Pig, what respect have I?”
He says [to] himself “The pig is my support!”
The pig himself has no sense;
. [ . . . ] corn [. .] in the oil pot.
When at leisure [ . . . ] he mocked his master,
His master left him [ . . . ] the butcher slaughtered him.
The pig is unholy [ . . . ] bespattering his backside.
Making the streets smell. polluting houses.
The pig is not fit for a temple, lacks sense, is not allowed to tread on pavements.
An abomination to all the gods, an abhorrence [to (his) god,] accursed by Šamaš.96
This passage provides some interesting if rather ambiguous explanations for why pigs were considered polluting—they apparently have “no sense,” smell bad, and are reviled by Šamaš, the sun god. However, the passage also demonstrates that, while people considered pigs abominable, they continued to raise and eat them. Thus, it reveals that pigs were encountered on streets and near houses, probably scavenging food and urban waste. The passage also indicates that people brought their pigs to the butcher to be slaughtered.
Other textual and iconographic data indicate that pork remained on the menu and continued to play some roles in ritual life. While there is little evidence for institutions raising pigs, Assyrian kings at least occasionally provisioned their armies with pork.97 Meanwhile, boar-hunting scenes meant to extol the masculine prowess of princes were depicted on seals in the Persian period.98 Pigs also remained associated with the demon-goddess Lamashtu,99 and an Assyrian text,100 probably dating to the 7th century BC, describes the sacrifice of a pig to the “Mistress of Babylon” during the spring Akitu festival.101
Beyond Mesopotamia, textual evidence reveals that other Iron Age societies continued to practice, or adopted, taboos on pigs in certain religious settings. The Egyptian pig taboo, introduced in Chapter 6, provides a good example.102 And while we must remember that our primary source of evidence for this taboo is Herodotus, a 5th century Greek historian who probably did not understand the nuances of Egyptian culture, later works corroborated its existence and defined it more explicitly as one applying only to priests (e.g., Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism 24.223).
But like the Babylonians, Egyptians continued to sacrifice pigs in certain contexts. According to Herodotus, pigs were sacrificed once a year on a full moon to the lunar deity (Histories 2.47). The 2nd–3rd century AD writer Aelian backed up this claim (On Animals 10.16), citing the now lost works of the 3rd century BC Egyptian historian Manetho. Additionally, tomb drawings dating to the Late Period (664–332 BC) occasionally depicted pigs being ferried away on boats on Judgment Day, indicating the removal of sins for the purification of the soul and reflecting the long-standing tradition of pigs as ritual substitutes for humans.103
It is something of a pastime in Egyptology to speculate on whether the Jewish pig taboo derived from the Egyptian one.104 For this there is no evidence. Not only is there no evidence to indicate that an ethnic-based taboo ever applied to ancient Egyptians, but also the date of its first reference is late. Herodotus, the first to unequivocally identify a pig taboo in Egypt, wrote his Histories around two centuries after the composition of Leviticus. In fact, one has to wonder if Diaspora Jewish communities may have inspired a pig taboo in Egyptian religion. We know that a thriving Jewish community resided at Elephantine in the 6th century BC and that Egyptian and other Near Eastern religions were certainly not averse to syncretism. Moreover, although Diaspora Jews and Egyptians were often at odds in the Classical period,105 there is evidence that Jewish rituals percolated into Egyptian magical rituals.106 The so-called Greek Magical Papyri are a collection of charms and curses dating to the 2nd century BC through the 5th century AD that reflect an amalgamation of Jewish, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman beliefs.107 They contain a number of incantations in Hebrew or citing Jewish traditions, including one that prohibits the person on whom the spell is cast from eating pork.108
Another possible example of a religious pig taboo—one that may also have been influenced by Jewish tradition—was reported at the city of Comana in the Cappadocia region of Anatolia. The evidence derives from a passage written by Strabo (63 BC–AD 25) in his Geography. Strabo stated that the people of Comana had banned pork and pigs not only from the sacred precinct, but also from the whole city—that is, until a certain 1st century BC warlord named Cleon of Gordiucome attacked Comana and, to humiliate its citizens, committed sacrilege by eating pork within its walls (Geography 12.8.9). While Strabo’s story is intriguing, there are, unfortunately, no additional archaeological or textual data to corroborate it.
A final, and quite problematic, example of a pig taboo in the Iron Age concerns the Phoenicians, coastal traders living in modern-day Lebanon. Ostensible evidence for the Phoenician pig taboo derives mainly from a very late source: the 3rd century AD philosopher Porphyry of Tyre.109 Porphyry advocated vegetarianism and the ethical treatment of animals, but he also contemplated taboos on meat. When he mentioned pigs, he wrote that “Phoenicians, however, and Jews, abstain from [pork], because, in short, it is not produced in those places” (On Abstinence 1.14). This seems to suggest that pork avoidance among the Phoenicians and Jews was a passive custom, not an active proscription. We know that was not the case for Jews, especially by the time of Porphyry’s writing, but perhaps he was projecting his own experiences as a Phoenician. In fact, in a later passage, he writes:
[T]he Syrians indeed will not taste fish, nor the Hebrews swine, nor most of the Phoenicians and Egyptians cows; and though many kings have endeavoured to change these customs, yet those that adopt them would rather suffer death, than a transgression of the law (On Abstinence 2.61)
If an injunction against pork existed in Phoenician tradition, it would be unusual for Porphyry not to mention it in this passage. It is more likely that the Phoenicians avoided eating pork, not because it was taboo, but for the sake of passively maintaining a tradition.
Zooarchaeological data also offer a perspective on a possible Phoenician taboo on pigs. As in other parts of the Levant, Phoenician sites generally contained very small numbers of pig bones.110 But pigs were far from absent at Phoenician colonies around the Mediterranean. At 10th–9th century BC Utica in modern-day Tunisia, excavators found a large pit with the remains of feasting debris that included the bones of pigs,111 and at Carthage, pig remains increased from around 5 percent in early phases to around 40 percent in later phases of the city’s history.112 Both of these lines of evidence cast doubt on the existence of a Phoenician pig taboo.
In sum, there is good evidence for pig taboos in religious contexts in Mesopotamia and Egypt in the Iron Age. This suggests that many Near Eastern peoples were in agreement that pigs had certain properties that made them dangerous or powerful and therefore unfit for temples. However, in none of these cases is there clear evidence for a taboo outside of strictly religious contexts. These other pig taboos had nothing to do with ethnic identity, and people remained content to raise pigs and eat pork. The Israelite/Jewish pig taboo was different. Building on an earlier ethnic taboo, it served the remarkable function of democratizing ritual purity for all Israelites at all times as part of a covenant binding a people to their god.
Taboos have monopolized the bulk of scholarly interest in pigs in the Iron Age, but other important changes were occurring. Archaeogeneticist Greger Larson and colleagues113 published evidence indicating that Near Eastern pigs, which initially descended from wild boar domesticated in the Neolithic, were replaced by ones whose ancestors were European wild boar. Recall that in Chapter 4, Anatolian farmers brought swine into Europe in the 7th and 6th millennia BC, where those animals bred with local wild boar. By the 4th millennium BC, most domestic pigs in Europe could trace their ancestry to European, and not Near Eastern, wild boar.114 Unexpectedly, Larson and colleagues115 found evidence that a similar genetic replacement took place in the Near East sometime before or during the Iron Age. By the later part of the Iron Age, as depicted in Figure 7.1, the bulk of Near Eastern domestic pigs’ ancestry derived from European wild boar.116
Figure 7.1. The genetic replacement of pig haplogroups across the Near East. Four regions compared: Anatolia, Levant, N. Mesopotamia/S. Anatolia, and Iran/Caucasus. Points indicate locations of sites.
Studies conducted since Larson and his team published their findings have added new details to the picture. Prior to 2017, researchers were working almost exclusively with mitochondrial DNA, genetic material that is inherited only through the maternal line. Recent studies, however, have largely corroborated the pattern observed in mitochondrial DNA with nuclear DNA, which is inherited from both sets of parents and is therefore a more reliable indicator of ancestry.117
A more comprehensive treatment of mitochondrial DNA in pigs in the Near East, utilizing genetic data from 192 pig bone specimens from the Neolithic to the Medieval period, identified four prehistoric lineages: Y1, Y2, Arm1T, and Arm2T.118 These lineages clustered geographically, with Y1 and Y2 having been more common in western and central Anatolia and Arm1T and Arm2T more common in eastern Syria, the Caucasus, Iran, and Iraq. All domestic pigs and wild boar sampled fell into these four groups until the Middle and Late Bronze Ages, when a small number of European-derived individuals appeared at the site of Lidar Höyük in southeastern Anatolia.119
Similarly, in a study focused on the Levant, Meirav Meiri and colleagues120 detected a rapid replacement of local Near Eastern pig stocks in the Iron Age. In addition, they found that all of the modern wild boar in the southern Levant that they sampled had European ancestry,121 which suggests that feral or extensively managed pigs carried European genes into the wild. Meiri and colleagues122 connected the introduction of European haplotypes to the arrival of the Sea Peoples, chief among them the Philistines.
The connection between Philistines and new pig genes is, however, problematic. For one thing, Meiri and colleagues could not actually find a single pig specimen with European-derived mitochondrial DNA at an Iron Age I Philistine site.123 Even more problematic was the fact that the researchers found a specimen at Ashkelon with European ancestry in Middle Bronze layers. That is, the earliest European pigs appeared to predate the arrival of the Philistines by centuries. Meiri and her team,124 however, suggested that the specimen could be intrusive from later levels. While possible, offering a post hoc explanation for a piece of data that contradicts one’s hypothesis is a convenient and quite problematic approach. Indeed, the presence of European-derived pigs in the Middle and Late Bronze Age levels at Lidar Höyük125 gives support to the hypothesis that a small number of European-derived pigs began to infiltrate Near Eastern swine stocks well before the beginning of the Iron Age.
European-derived pigs probably began trickling into the Near East in the early 2nd millennium BC or perhaps earlier. But Meiri and colleagues are correct in identifying the Iron Age as a key period. Something happened in the Iron Age that affected how pigs in the Near East passed on their genetic material to succeeding generations, accelerating the genetic turnover to the point that Near Eastern-derived lineages were uncommon by the beginning of the Classical period.
What exactly caused the rapid turnover in swine ancestry is unclear. One possibility is that European-derived pigs were better suited as livestock animals. A study of modern wild boar from Italy might hold the answer.126 It compared two European genetic lineages that Larson and colleagues127 had labeled “A-side” and “C-side,” with A-side individuals becoming more prevalent over time than C-side ones. Wild boar belonging to the A-side lineage exhibited faster growth rates and had average adult body weights about 7.63 kg larger than C-side individuals. It is not hard to imagine that the bigger and faster-growing pigs were more successful as livestock over the long term. Might something similar have played out in the Near East? Perhaps, but no comparable comparison has been made, as yet, between Near Eastern lineages and their phenotypes and those of European lineages. The answer will have to await further research.
The Iron Age thus saw major changes in pigs in the Near East. On a genetic level, for reasons that remain unclear, the local pig lineages that had dominated the Near East since their domestication in the Neolithic were replaced by European ones. On a cultural level, people continued to raise pigs and eat pork, but there were notable declines in pig husbandry in many parts of the Near East, especially in Egypt. In some religious contexts, people across the Near East perceived pigs as impure, although people continued to sacrifice pigs in other ritual contexts .
The Torah’s taboo on pigs was unique. It drew upon a taboo that probably had its origins in the ethnic conflict between Israelites and Philistines. While this taboo waned over the 10th–8th centuries BC, the biblical authors revitalized it during a period of political expansion and state-inspired ethnogenesis. In building an idealized history, the biblical authors found existing southern Levantine food traditions, including the pork taboo, particularly relevant. These already-at-hand traditions exemplified a glorious pastoral ancestry and were mobilized in the writing of the biblical tale.
The biblical authors sought explanations for the taboos they wrote down within the logic of their creator-god, Yahweh. Accordingly, they emphasized animal physiology. In doing so, the biblical authors naturalized existing traditions and used them to construct a wall of taboos around the foodways most redolent of a glorious pastoral ancestry. The food laws in Leviticus and Deuteronomy thereby underscored two of the most important themes of Genesis: the creation of the universe according to a divine and perfect plan and the special place of the Israelite people within that universe.
The puritanical reforms that took place in Judah in the late 8th and 7th centuries BC, especially under Josiah, represent a watershed moment. The writing down of the taboos and other mitzvot in the Torah, whose texts were considered sacred, was critical. It made them resistant to change. In the Exilic and post-Exilic periods, regular reading and recitation of the Torah created among Jews a state of perpetual ritual awareness, one in which pigs were a defiling element. Thus, the injunctions against eating pork and other foods became part of a central code of behavior applicable to each individual and necessary for the reinforcement of his or her Jewish identity.128 Even today, the mitzvot make Judaism a religion and ethnic identity defined by daily practices, what religious scholars call orthopraxy.
Yet the abstention from pork was but one of hundreds of practices that defined a Jew. It held no special place. This would change when Jews came into contact with Hellenistic and Roman empire builders, who inadvertently helped transform the pig taboo into one of the strongest in the world, while at the same time laying the groundwork for very divergent thoughts on pork in Christianity.