14:3-8
We now come to the food laws. As mentioned earlier in my comments on similar passages in Leviticus, attempts to find a rationale for the distinctions between clean and unclean all fail. Some can be explained in terms of health and hygiene, but not all. The fundamental reason is that this is what God has chosen, and the people belong to God. In a sense “just do as you are told”! Thankfully Jesus declared all foods clean (Mark 7:19).
14:9-18
They were allowed to eat fish, but not if they didn’t have any fins or scales. So I guess that would rule out eels, sharks, octopuses etc. Next come birds, with a long list of various species. A common factor here is that most of the birds eat carrion, i.e. they feed off the dead. Now we know how having any contact with the dead rendered anyone unclean, so that might be the reason for these various birds of prey being unclean. However, we are not told this explicitly.
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