These are the ones you may eat (11:2). From the rather extensive taxonomy of animals in this chapter (cf. Deut. 14), a modern reader could gain the impression that meat constituted a substantial portion of the ancient diet. However, such was not the case:
Regardless of the place or period in question, diets in antiquity were predominantly vegetarian. The use of animal products was in large measure confined to milk curds and cheeses. . . . Most people could afford to eat meat only on special occasions. Typically accompanying these was a sacrifice of some sort. Indeed, it was not uncommon for a single animal to provide both the sacrifice and the meal. Every use of meat thus became a sacral meal, and every act of animal slaughter a sacrifice.102
There were also restrictions on diet in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, but these were unrelated to each other or to the biblical ones, and unlike the latter, they did not comprise overall dietary systems. In Egypt restrictions were localized, and generally in each geographic area they dealt with only one species that was prohibited for a religious reason. For example, it was forbidden to eat a cow where the principal god was Hathor, who takes the form of a bovine (cf. the sacred cow in India). Mesopotamians were supposed to avoid particular activities at certain times, which could include eating some kinds of animals on specific days of the month. They were also to avoid violating taboos, which perhaps in some cases could involve eating food reserved for deities.103
Leviticus 11 does not provide an explicit rationale for its division of animals into clean/permitted versus unclean/forbidden categories. Interpreters have proposed a wide variety of possible rationales, including effects on human physical health, reflection of societal values (Mary Douglas), analogy to God’s holy sacrificial “diet” (Edwin Firmage), the need to teach reverence for the sanctity of life (within the context of the opposition between holiness-life and impurity-death that pervades the ritual system) by limiting animal slaughter (Jacob Milgrom), and the concept that nonpermitted animals depart from the creation ideal of life in that they are associated with death in various ways (Jiri Moskala). The last three of these rationales are the most persuasive because they are based on the reason given in Leviticus 11 for this dietary legislation as a whole: the requirement that God’s people should be holy as he is (11:44–45; cf. Deut. 14:21).104
And the pig . . . is unclean for you (11:7). Of all animals in Israel’s environment, only the pig has cloven hooves but does not chew cud. “With this one exception, all unclean animals could have been excluded simply by the requirement that they have cloven hooves.”105 So the rules in Leviticus 11 implicitly single out the pig for exclusion from the holy Israelite diet.
Pigs, along with dogs, were regarded with contempt in the ancient Near East because of their roles as scavengers. For example, the Hittite Instructions to Priests and Temple Officials warn against letting a pig or dog into rooms containing sacred bread.106 A Mesopotamian saying goes: “The pig is unholy [ . . . ] bespattering his backside, Making the streets smell . . . polluting the houses.”107 Nevertheless, texts and archaeological remains (especially bones) in Egypt and Mesopotamia, as well as Syria-Palestine and North Africa, confirm that pigs were commonly raised for food by non-Israelites.108 In some ancient cultures (Hittite, Greek, Roman), unlike Israel, pigs could be offered as sacrifices—especially of purification—to underworld deities. In such a sacrifice, the offerer received none of the meat. Pigs could also be utilized in nonsacrificial rites of purification, including symbolic/magical elimination of impurity or plague.
Wash his clothes, and he will be unclean till evening (11:25). Ablutions with water for ritual purification were also practiced outside Israel. For example, in a Sumerian inscription, Gudea prepares to offer a sacrifice by bathing before dressing.109 While the concept of evening-ending impurity appears to be unique to Israel, a Ugaritic text views sunset as a boundary for another ritual category: “At the descent of the sun, the day is profane. At the setting of the sun, the king is profane.”110