(Is. xi, 6-9, lxv, 25). There must further be noted the special shrinking evidenced in many ways from the hybrid and species as de partures from the true order of nature, which was that "all creatures should be after their (Gen. i, 11, 21, 24). This would specially apply to the bat, the hybridous ostrich• of the desert and the "winged quadrupedal creeping things) (Lev. xi, 23) ; the grass-eating locust would alone be excepted of all the insect tribe.
Others have seen in the distinction made between the clean and the unclean the means to separate Israel from the rest of the sur rounding nations. "It was necessary for Israel to sever all intercourse with the desert tribes and in order to accomplish this the camel, for instance, was declared unclean. It was even more necessary to separate Israel from the cor rupt and degenerate Canaanites, and so the swine was pronounced (Ewald). The argument is entirely without warrant, as the kine, sheep and goats were all eaten by the neighboring nations, and yet are regarded as clean for Israel.
Many have striven to connect the food laws of Israel with those of Manu. It is true that the food laws of Mann, with regard to the clean and unclean, have a great many elements in common with the Jewish Code, but the dif ferences are too great to permit of any direct connection. Both give expression to the natural repugnance for certain classes of animals, but the details do not agree. In Manu's laws the hare, rhinoceros, porcupine, hedgehog, are all permitted, but they are unclean in the Jewish Code. The prohibitions relating to the birds, too, are not the same. Manu prohibits birds dwelling in cities and those that strike with the beak. There are also differences with regard to the fish. Mann prohibits all but a few species, and declares the crocodile, turtle and tortoise clean, but these are unclean in the Jewish Code. The Jewish law stands even further removed from the Zend-Avesta, as it knows nothing of the dualism of the latter. (Gen. i, 31; Is. xlv, 7i Ps. cxlviii, 10). The most recent interpretation is the one advanced by W. Robertson Smith and accepted by Stade and Cheyne. He regards the prohibitions as identical with the taboo that Totemism places upon the use for food of the sacred ancestral animals. But it is the essence of Totemism that while sacred animals are not to be eaten generally, they 'are to be eaten eucharistically, as a religious rite and further, these animals being regarded as ancestral, their names are reproduced in the names of tribes and indi viduals. With regard to the first point, there is
absolutely no proof that the unclean creatures were ever eaten eucharistically in Israel. The two verses usually cited (Is. lxv, 4 and lxvi, 17), which condemn the consumption of swine are altogether too doubtful in meaning and too the subject of dispute (Duhm, Marti) to be in any way important. Still less fortunate is the attempt to prove the existence of Totemism from the occurrence of such names as Achbor and Chesir; for there is a larger number of clean animals whose names occur as names of individuals—Zimri ( ?) Hagab, Eglah, Epher, Rachel, Jonah, etc. (Jacobs, (Stud. in Bib. Arch.'). If any further proof were needed that the bestowal of names has no connection with Totemism and is the result of accident or the suggestion of environment, it would be afforded by the large number of plants, excluded from consideration of clean and unclean, that furnish the names of indi viduals. Thus Susanna (Lily), Hadassah (Myrtle), Tamar (Palm), Carmi (Vineyard), Elah (Terebinth), Elon (Oak), Keziah (Cas sia), Zetham (Olive). Totemism, moreover, would utterly fail to account for the extensive ness of the list of the unclean, and for the evi dent principles of selection guiding the com pilation of the list. But the presence of Totem ism altogether, characteristic as it is of the lowest stages of savage life, would be a startling anachronism in the highly complex and ethical civilization of the Hebrews (Noldeke, d. Deutsch. Morg. Gesell.,' 1886). The consider ation of the dietary laws as hygienic enactments will come under the section in this article Health Laws.
Blood—The prohibition of blood is avow edly different from the prohibition of the un clean creatures. Blood was too precious to be used by man. It was identified with the vital sentient principle. It was therefore to be con secrated to God. It is declared to be the medium of atonement representing the very life of the animal sacrificed (Lev. xvii, 11). The injunction concerning the blood is coeval with the very permission to use flesh as food (Gen. ix, 4). It is enunciated as a duty for all human ity, and the stranger was bound to respect the prohibition equally with the Israelite.