The New Testament and Distinction between Clean and Unclean Animals

This study set out to determine the NT attitude (conformity or abolition) toward the OT distinction between clean and unclean animals within the larger context of purity and defilement. The study revealed that in the OT and subsequent Jewish literature the ingestion of unclean animals results in moral rather than cultic defilement. Further the study found that the abolition of the distinction between clean and unclean animals cannot be substantiated from the NT. Thus the distinction between clean and unclean animals is binding for Christians.