‘Rise, Kill, and Eat’: Animals as Nations in Early Jewish Visionary Literature and Acts 10

Full title
‘Rise, Kill, and Eat’: Animals as Nations in Early Jewish Visionary Literature and Acts 10
Updated By
Research notes

SHS/not checked/18/08/2019 YKC/reader checked/24/01/2022

Reference type
Author(s)
Staples, Jason A.
Year
2019
Journal / Book Title || Series Title
Journal for the Study of the New Testament
Volume
42
Issue / Series Volume
1
Abbreviated Series Name
JSNT
Pages
3-17
Work type
Label
26/08/2019
Abstract

Peter’s vision in Acts 10 ostensibly concerns dietary laws but is interpreted within the narrative as a revelation of God’s mercy towards the Gentiles, culminating in the baptism of Cornelius’ household. How this vision pertains to the immediately following events has remained a problem in scholarship on Acts. This article argues that the vision depends on earlier apocalyptic Jewish depictions of various nations as animals (and empires as hybrid beasts) and allegorical explanations of the food laws familiar in the Second Temple period in which the forbidden animals are understood as representing those peoples with whom Israel must not mix. What seems on the surface to refer to food is therefore naturally understood within this genre as a reference to nations and peoples. Acts 10 thus makes use of standard Jewish apocalyptic tropes familiar to its audience but less familiar to modern readers.