Did Jesus Declare All Foods Clean?
A reading of Mark 7:1-23/Matt 15:1-20 raises some big questions about Jesus, Torah, and food laws. Why does Mark say that “Jesus declared all foods clean” and why does Matthew omit that from his version? Is this about the validity of the Torah (Mosaic laws) or an in-house discussion with Pharisees about halakhah (interpretation)?
The complicating factor is that Paul could be taken as saying that, for the Christians in Rome at least, the cleanness/suitability of food is a matter of conscience not kashrut (i.e., Jewish dietary laws): “I am convinced, being fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for that person it is unclean” (Rom 14:14). Or is Paul saying, the categories of clean and unclean food apply, but how you interpret them is up to you, and Paul says he is more liberal or flexible in the matter.”
I have to say that understanding the biblical purity laws and restrictions about food in the Pentateuch is one of the things that most of my students struggle with because they are so foreign in the prescriptions, prohibitions, concerns, and logic. Many are happy to swipe them out of the way on the grounds that “we are under grace not law.”
But if Jesus was a first-century Galilean prophet, it might be a tad anachronistic for him to advocate for the separation of law and grace like a sixteenth century Protestant.
Added to the mix is Logan Williams’ recent article The Stomach Purifies All Foods: Jesus’ Anatomical Argument in Mark 7.18–19, which has created some excitement on social media, as he argues that:
Jesus’ argument, I suggest, is that ritually defiled food cannot defile humans through ingestion because humans purify all foods from ritual impurity through digestion. This reasoning depends on a widespread Jewish view that excrement is impervious to ritual impurity: because all excrement is pure, the stomach acts as a purifying agent that purifies all food from ritual impurity. I proffer that the common translation of Mark 7.19c – ‘Thus he declared all foods clean’ (NRSV) – should therefore be abandoned.
I’m currently mulling that over, but in my forthcoming book on the historical Jesus, here is what I have so far on Jesus and the scriptural food laws.
Debates about purity and impurity provide the context for understanding Jesus’s contentious remarks about handwashing, food, and impurities in Mk 7:1-23, in particular, v. 15: “Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.” I’d aver that Jesus here does not nullify the laws of unclean foods. The Marcan aside “Thus he declared all foods clean” is either a parenthetical remark for Gentile readers, or else is a statement to the effect that, “Jesus declared all kosher food clean and not requiring hand washing,” a point proved by the Matthean gloss, “to eat with unwashed hands does not defile” (Mt 15:20).