Mark 7:1-21 – Is it about eating any food or eating food without the tradition of washing the hands? Let us study Mark 7, from verse 1, and work our way down to the verses in question. Looking at the context of the 7th Chapter of Mark leading upto verse 19 was essential to make this decision. Whether Yeshua was clearly stating that the Food Laws were no more. Since this was cleared out, I now had to make sure whether the decision by the Translators to add “(In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean)” was valid. And this was the reason why the KJV Bible did not have this part included. This had been a later addition by some of the translators to give this verse more clarity. You can check this for yourself here, in The Codex Sinaiticus. The Original Greek Manuscripts do not carry “In saying this, Jesus declared” which is in Mark 7:19. Why didn’t the KJV, one of the earliest translations into English done in 1611, not contain this portion? And why did the rest of the versions carry it within brackets? As I dug into the issue, I found out an interesting piece of information. King James Version “Because it entereth not into his heart, but into the belly, and goeth out into the draught, purging all meats?” New American Standard Bible “because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach, and is eliminated?” (Thus He declared all foods clean.) New International Version “For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.)Įnglish Standard Version “since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) Interestingly enough, the KJV did not contain this part, while all of the other versions had this in brackets. So I read through a couple of English Translations of the Bible, and most of the versions said that “Jesus declared all foods clean”. The only place I could find Him saying something close to “We can eat anything we want” was in Mark 7. And doesn’t the Gospels even show Messiah Yeshua declaring all foods clean?īefore I addressed Paul, I needed to see whether our Savior (who we are meant to follow) really did change the Food Laws given by God. Does this mean, we have to still eat and not eat according to what God said in Leviticus 11? But what about Paul’s writings? He seems to be saying that we can eat anything. When I first started looking at the Scriptures as a whole, where no verse can go against or annul another, something dawned on me.

This worked out fine with our lives, society and our diet, because most of what we ate was what God had told His People not to, in the Old Testament (ie Pork & Fish without scales and fins which included prawn, crab, cuttlefish, shellfish, lobster, etc). He was portrayed as the “God of Love and Grace” instead of the Old Testament version which was the “God who was a consuming fire”.įurthermore, it was taught that Yeshua(Jesus’ true name) came with a New Covenant, a new teaching, new Laws and we were no longer under the Old Covenant Laws. Growing up, we were taught that God is now more loving than in the Old Testament. I couldn’t think of a life without Seafood in my diet. I myself was a fan of Bacon and had prawn & cuttlefish regularly. With the Dutch, Portuguese & English influences in our country, we had come to love Pork as well.

A meal without seafood at least once a week was unthinkable. Prawn, Crab, Cuttlefish were the norm in our diet. Living in an island nation, I was brought up as any other child in our country, to love our sea food.

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