Does the New Testament require Gentiles to eat kosher? We have looked at a couple of passages ( here and here) which are frequently misconstrued to teach that God declared all foods clean. Upon closer examination we discover these two passages do not teach what many people think they teach. God did declare all foods clean, but not in Mark 7 or Acts 10.
Some people say that an event recorded in Acts 15 shows that the leaders of the early church required Gentiles to eat kosher. The Hebrew word “kosher” (כָּשֵׁר) means “to be suitable, fit to use.”1 Kosher is a word applied to food which is considered ritually clean and therefore fit to eat.
Did the conclusions of the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15 result in orders for Gentile Christians to eat only kosher foods? This is one possible interpretation, but it is not the only one. There is a lot going on in Acts 15, therefore, we need to understand the background.
The Gentile controversy in the early church
The idea that Gentiles could become Christians was a huge controversy in the earliest days of the church. Since the Jews were God’s chosen people, they had the default assumption that salvation was only for Jews, or someone who converted to Judaism. The fact that Peter had preached to Gentiles and baptized them hit the early church like a tsunami.
In a short period of time, opinions about the salvation of Gentile believers became a very controversial topic. Some said, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses” (Acts 15:5 ESV). While it may not be apparent to modern readers, this was a call for Gentile Christians to fully convert to Judaism.
Others argued that God had already accepted them as Gentiles. Therefore, it was not necessary to place additional requirements upon them. After all, God had given them His Spirit just as He had given it to the Jewish believers. This debate had to be settled by the apostles and elders of the Jerusalem church.
The Apostle’s ruling
The apostles listened to the arguments. With the guidance of the Holy Spirit they determined that circumcision and obedience to the law of Moses (i.e., conversion to Judaism) was not necessary for Gentiles. Instead, they issued four prohibitions for Gentile believers. They were to abstain from
- Things offered to idols
- Blood
- Things strangled
- Sexual immorality
To abstain from blood and things strangled sounds a lot like the Old Testament dietary restrictions. Were these prohibitions designed to require Gentile believers to eat kosher? All Christians, no matter their ethnic background, must avoid idolatry and sexual immorality, but are Christians also supposed to eat kosher?
Were the prohibitions to encourage Gentiles to eat kosher?
The meaning of these prohibitions have been difficult to determine. Naturally, Bible students attempt to find Old Testament sources for these prohibitions. Two sources frequently cited are the Noahic Laws and Leviticus 17-18. Both seem like good sources, but they do not really explain the situation in Acts 15.
Noahic Laws
The Noachic Laws (aka, Noahide Laws, Noachian Laws, or Noahic Precepts) are a list of Jewish talmudic principles based on Genesis 9:4-6. After the flood, God gave mankind permission to eat all plants and animals. However, God ordered them not to eat meat that still contained the animal’s blood. In this passage, God also established the death penalty for murderers. The Jews considered these precepts to be applicable to all humanity.
“With this as a foundation, later Jewish literature (Jub. 7.20) and rabbinic teaching (t. (Abod. Zar 8, 4; m. Gen. Rab., Noah, 34; 6. Sanh. 56b) developed a more elaborate list of prohibitions. As [J. Julius] Scott notes, ‘The various rabbinic writings offer different lists, numbering from six to more than thirty regulations.’ The most well-known of these lists prohibits idolatry, blasphemy, bloodshed, sexual immorality, theft, and eating from a living animal.”2
Problems with the Noahic Laws view
There are problems with sourcing the Acts 15 prohibitions from Genesis 9. The main problem is that only one of the Genesis 9 commandments aligns with the Acts 15 prohibitions. God said nothing about sexual immorality in the Genesis 9 passage. In addition, there is no explicit mention of idolatry, although one might make an argument that it is inferred.
Furthermore, “there is no evidence that the Noahic precepts were in use in the first century.”3 New Testament scholar Ben Witherington has also remarked that these Noahic precepts were a product of later rabbinic writings and were not concepts known to the early church.4
“Contextually the Noahic view seems difficult to sustain. For one thing, very little in the immediate context would bring Noah to the reader’s mind. The first mention of the prohibitions in Acts 15:20 makes reference to Moses, not Noah. Also in verse 23 the letter is addressed to the churches outside of Israel (Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia).”5
The bottom line is that the Acts 15 prohibitions do not parallel Genesis 9. The text of Genesis 9 simply doesn’t match well with the Acts 15 prohibitions.
Leviticus 17-18
These two chapters are perhaps the most popular go-to passage to explain the Acts 15 prohibitions. These chapters applied to Jews, and also Gentiles who lived among the Jews (Lev 17:8, 10, 12-13; 18:26). The passage addresses sexual immorality as well as prohibitions about consuming meat with the blood still in it. This looks promising, but as with paralleling Genesis 9 with Acts 15, there are some problems.
First, there is no explicit mention of idolatry, although Leviticus 17:7 comes close. Second, these chapters do not deal with “things strangled.” Perhaps the biggest problem with using Leviticus 17-18 as a source for the Acts 15 prohibitions is that the social background is all wrong.
The laws in Leviticus 17-18 were for Jews and included Gentiles who lived within Jewish borders. The Acts 15 prohibitions were for Gentiles who have Jews living within Gentile territory. “[T]he prohibitions in Leviticus 17-18 concerning the “foreigner” in Israel are not wholly congruent with the foreigner living outside Israel (i.e., in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia).”6
No known Old Testament parallels
“There is, in fact, no known Jewish parallel to the selection of precisely these four commandments from the Law of Moses as those which are binding on Gentiles or a category of Gentiles.” Perhaps it is time to stop looking for such a precise scriptural background.7
Both Genesis 9 and Leviticus 17-18 correlate with some aspects of the Acts 15 prohibitions, but not all. As such, these two Old Testament passages do not provide a good background for the prohibitions and therefore are likely not related. What then, were the apostles trying to communicate?
If there does not appear to be a good Old Testament background for these prohibitions, what did the apostles base their decree on?
A call for unity, not to eat kosher
What everyone agrees on is that the four prohibitions in Acts 15 were meant to provide the basis for unity between Jewish and Gentile Christians. James already stated that Gentiles do not have to convert to Judaism and keep the law of Moses. He also did not consider the prohibitions to be any trouble for the Gentiles to keep (Acts 15:19) as they imposed a very light burden (v. 28). This sounds as if James intended to require something of them that all Christians should observe.
Gentile cultural context
The key to understanding these prohibitions is to consider the idolatrous culture of the Gentiles. All four of these prohibitions address practices found in pagan temples. The Acts 15 prohibitions are, in reality, commands to Gentile Christians to abandon any former association with idolatry no matter how remote.
“The focus of the debate now shifts away from the question of what is essential for salvation to one of how to help Gentile believers break away from their idolatrous pre-Christian practices. Each of these four instructions relates to dangers associated with involvement in idolatry.”8
Things sacrificed to idols
We get our first clue that idolatry was the concern of the apostles in Acts 15:29: “abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols” (Acts 15:29 ESV). There can be no doubt about what the Jerusalem Council intended. For the sake of unity with their Jewish brethren, Gentile Christians were to abstain from eating any meat offered to an idol in a pagan temple. Jews would have naturally abhorred this, but Gentile Christians evidently had no scruples against eating meat from the pagan temples.
What about the other three prohibitions? Was there a link between pagan idolatry and blood, strangling, and sexual immorality? “There are a variety of hints in the text of Acts 15 that what is being prohibited is the attending of temple feasts and all that they entail.”9 What are those hints?
Hints of paganism
Of course, the first hint has already been mentioned. The text leads off by talking about abstaining from things polluted by idols (v. 20). The next hint is the Greek term which is translated “sexual immorality” – porneia (πορνεια). This word’s basic meaning refers to prostitution, including “sacred” prostitution inside pagan temples.10 Of course, prostitution happened in many places, but porneia suggests something different from the sin of adultery. If adultery is what James had in mind, he could have used the Greek word moicheuo (μοιχεια).
Another clue comes from ancient literature. Some ancient texts reveal that “the choking of the sacrifice, strangling it, and drinking or tasting of blood transpired in pagan temples.”11 In short, all four of the Acts 15 prohibitions referred to different activities known to take place inside pagan temples.
Did The Jerusalem Council Require Gentiles To Eat Kosher?
When we consider all the evidence, we see that the prohibitions were not about ordering Gentiles to keep portions of the Old Testament law. Instead, they were admonitions to separate from idolatry completely.
The apostle Paul continued this teaching in his ministry among Gentile believers. In several of his letters he commanded believers to turn away from anything connected to idolatry (1 Cor 10:7-8, 23-28; 1 Thess 1:9; etc.). It is noteworthy in 1 Corinthians 10:7-8, sexual immorality is mentioned in the same breath with idolatry.
The Holy Spirit revealed that Gentiles did not need to convert to Judaism. No doubt, this caused consternation and discomfort among Jews who were zealous for the Old Testament law. Of course, no Christian, regardless of ethnicity, was to engage in idolatrous practices. However, for there to be unity between Jewish and Gentile believers, the Gentile brethren would have to take extra care to avoid even the appearance of idolatry.
The apostles and elders were trying to hold the early believers together to prevent a schism in the early church. The fundamental tenet of the gospel is the unity of believers from every nation, tribe, tongue, and people. Unity was the goal of the Acts 15 prohibitions.
References
- Koehler, Ludwig, Walter Baumgartner, and M. E. J. Richardson, eds. The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. Accordance electronic ed., version 3.7. 5 vols. Leiden: Brill, 2000. s.v. “כשׁר,” 2:503.
- Savelle, Charles H. “A Reexamination of the Prohibitions in Acts 15.” Bibliotheca sacra 161, no. 644 (October 2004): 458.
- Ibid., 459.
- Witherington, Ben. The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (p. 738). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.
- Savelle, Charles H. “A Reexamination of the Prohibitions in Acts 15.” Bibliotheca sacra 161, no. 644 (October 2004): 459.
- Ibid., 460.
- Witherington, Ben. The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (pp. 738-739). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.
- Arnold, Clinton E. Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary. Volume 2B: Acts / Clinton E. Arnold, Autor and General Editor. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2019. 144.
- Witherington, Ben. The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (p. 735). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.
- Ibid., 736.
- Ibid., 737.