Clean vs Unclean Animals: The reasons & why it matters today.

Jane Isley
Aug 18
5 min read

Updated: Sep 2

A fluffy, light brown rabbit with floppy ears sits on green grass, looking directly at the camera, creating a cute and calm scene. — unsplash.com

Questions like this are what make the Bible so gloriously fun to me. While digging for an answer, you end up learning all sorts of unexpected things along the way. There’s definitely more going on here than just clean versus unclean animals.

It all begins in Genesis, but let’s start in Leviticus.

It all starts in Genesis, but we’ll begin in Leviticus first.

If you have ever read Leviticus 11, it can be overwhelming at first, and I’m definitely not going to quote the whole thing here or every single animal. I’m just shooting for the specifications and examples.

Clean

“divided hoof and that chews the cud.”
“you may eat any that have fins and scales.”
“some flying insects that walk on all fours that you may eat: those that have jointed legs for hopping on the ground.”
And birds, we get by process of elimination.

Unclean

Here, I’m shooting for a basic list: Pigs, Camels, Thumper, Tom and Jerry, Dogs, Horses, Felines, Shellfish, Lizards, Bear, Squidward, Monkeys, Vultures, believe me, I could go on for quite a bit.

The obvious question: Just why were some animals off limits?

What unclean animals have in common is their questionable eating habits. Such as eating already dead animals, eating decayed matter, hunting the weakest (usually the sickest or weakest) of the herd, meat eaters in general, or even yummier to think about are the ones that eat poo, whether their own or others. The common theme is that the stuff being eaten would make a human sick.

A fun nugget to check out

This is a great educational point if a nonbeliever tries to use this to prove the Bible is in error. (Had this happen to me years ago, got caught with my drawers down and completely blew it, so now you’ll be made wiser because of my mistake)

Verse 6 — Rabbits

“The rabbit, though it chews the cud, does not have a divided hoof; it is unclean for you.”

It’s not that “divided hoof” part that gets attention.

It’s the “chews the cud” part that gets zeroed in on, because technically, they don’t chew cud like a cow, so therefore it's a full-blown Bible error according to nonbelievers, and yes, unfortunately, some will die on that hill.

Without turning this into a 30-minute article.

Have you ever watched a rabbit eat and then watched, say, a cow eat? Looks just like chewing cud, especially if they haven’t recently just finished a meal, but you see them doing it, that’ll make sense in a minute.

So while they don’t have the same internal mechanics that a cow does, they do have to re-ingest partially digested food for the same process, the digestion of food. Basically, they eat one of two types of their own poo to finish their meal.

Also, remember that Leviticus was written in Hebrew, not English. There’s more nuance in the original wording than a surface reading in translation might suggest. You can read about it here at Got Questions, because they nailed that.

Back to unclean animals and Genesis

At the start of this article, I mentioned this all started back in Genesis. I know that probably doesn’t make sense, but there's a really neat layer going on here.

“Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate,” Genesis 7:2

Noah was pre-Leviticus, yet clean and unclean animals were already established. Think about that for a second.

Then consider this: Cain and Abel also both knew about sacrifices, way before Noah.

“Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. And Abel also brought an offering — fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock.” Genesis 4:3–4

Now, while yes, both are acceptable as offerings to God, and we know God didn’t care for Cain’s, but that’s not my point here. My point is that they both knew what was acceptable and what was not.

For a detailed understanding of why Cain’s offering was rejected, I recommend reading A Closer Look At The Bible’s Most Misunderstood Villain by Dan Foster.

There has always been some contention among people that God just sorta left people to figure things out on their own after Eden’s doors were closed, and that’s why things went so bad.

But both Cain and Abel’s sacrifices, then Abel’s being described as “fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock,” (which is very specific) along with Noah’s instructions from God and then his sacrifice of some clean animals and birds right after the flood, disprove that and prove a very direct interaction with mankind from the beginning.

God has always told people what was what from the beginning. He didn’t just drop and walk on anyone. The world pre-flood was absolutely communicated with and made aware of what was acceptable to God and what was not.

Giant leap to the New Testament now

After Jesus died, all sorts of amazing stuff happened, and one of those was a very surprised Peter. Imagine over 400 years of dietary restrictions being lifted all of a sudden.

There were practical and symbolic reasons for the restrictions.

On the practical side, it was to keep the Israelites/Jews healthy; on the symbolic side, it was meant to set them apart from the rest of the world for a greater purpose. Mind you, that’s just a basic gist for the purposes of this article.

So, back to Peter, in Acts 10, we get to see God basically set up one heck of a cool scenario. First, He blows Peter's complete sense of what is acceptable and not right out the window, and then, being brilliant as He is, God already had a plan in motion for Peter to go to a Gentile's place where he ate with them.

There’s a bit more to that whole situation, where Peter got called out by Paul for being a hypocrite because he stopped out of fear of getting in trouble with other Jews. You can read Galatians 2 for that full story.

My point with all this is, Jesus declared everything clean.

“It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles and birds. Then a voice told him, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.” and “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” Acts 10:12,15