Debunking the Latest Scenario on the Rise of the Pork Taboo’

• Authors: Guillaume Phillipe
• Languages of publication: EN FR DE IT

Abstracts

EN

A number of studies from Tel Aviv date the rise of the pork taboo in Israel as early as the Iron Age I in order to salvage the notion that the taboo was a reaction to the pork-consuming habits of the hated Philistines. Though neither DNA analysis nor pig bone ratios support this scenario, these studies explain how the abhorrence of Iron Age Israelites for pork was eventually canonised in the Persian era. The present paper challenges the validity of each stage of the proposed scenario, arguing that the Hellenistic-era ethnic differentiation based on pork consumption cannot be pushed as far back as the Iron Age.

Keywords

EN

pigs; pork taboo; Sus; ethnicity; Iron Age Palestine; Neo-Assyrian Empire

• Publisher: Instytut Kultur Śródziemnomorskich i Orientalnych PAN
• Journal: Études et Travaux (Institut des Cultures Méditerranéennes et Orientales de l’Académie Polonaise des Sciences)
• Year: 2018
• Volume: XXXI
• Pages: 145-166

Dates

published

2018

Contributors

author

Guillaume Phillipe

• Institut für Bibelwissenschaft, University of Berne, Berne

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Identifiers

DOI

10.12775/EtudTrav.31.008