The Vegan Christian Resource

Why did God command lamb’s blood to be smeared on the doorposts just before the final demonstration of God’s wrath against Egypt? This is a very intriguing and extremely important question because it involves a tradition that is central to the Jewish observance of Passover. I will not go into great detail what the implications are for modern-day Jewish people nor the nuances of Passover observance between the various sects of Judaism. I will, however, attempt to elaborate on what these traditions, and in particular that of the sacrificial lamb, mean for Christians. I should also take a moment to say that this is a very complicated topic that one could write an entire book to fully explain. Naturally, I don’t have time to do that here so my explanation will be slightly superficial, but I am happy to elaborate on aspects if you still have questions! First, let’s look at the passage that you are referring to:

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt:  “This month is to be the beginning of months for you; it is the first month of your year. Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month they must each select an animal of the flock according to their fathers’ households, one animal per household. If the household is too small for a whole animal, that person and the neighbor nearest his house are to select one based on the combined number of people; you should apportion the animal according to what each person will eat. You must have an unblemished animal, a year-old male; you may take it from either the sheep or the goats.  You are to keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembly of the community of Israel will slaughter the animals at twilight. They must take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses where they eat them. They are to eat the meat that night; they should eat it, roasted over the fire along with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Do not eat any of it raw or cooked in boiling water, but only roasted over fire—its head as well as its legs and inner organs. Do not let any of it remain until morning; you must burn up any part of it that does remain before morning. Here is how you must eat it: you must be dressed for travel, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. You are to eat it in a hurry; it is the Lord ’s Passover.

“I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night and strike every firstborn male in the land of Egypt, both man and beast. I am Yahweh; I will execute judgments against all the gods of Egypt. The blood on the houses where you are staying will be a distinguishing mark for you; when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No plague will be among you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. - Exodus 12: 1-12 HCSB (emphasis added)

The passage is very clear in its direction for an ever-lasting tradition to be observed by the future generations of Israel. I think that the issue you have with it is the specific incidence of placing blood on the doorposts so that the Spirit of the Lord will not bring plague to those houses, but I want to emphasize that you cannot segregate this one incidence in Egypt from the greater tradition of Passover. So how does the second testament of the Bible address Passover and the practice of the sacrificial lamb? The answer is on one hand very simple: Jesus and the lamb whose blood painted the doors of enslaved Jews are not so different from one another and in truth Jesus takes that lamb’s place. This is in a sense a very clear-cut answer to the issue but I will admit it is somewhat unsatisfactory. I think it is unsatisfying in part because this is a theme that overarches all of scripture and is one of the most salient and cumulative metaphors of the entire biblical story and so to fully appreciate it we would have to start in Genesis and end in the book of Revelations assessing nearly every every chapter in their turn. For time’s sake, I won’t do that here, there are a wide variety of books that address that very metaphor.

The question that is pertinent here: why is the metaphor necessary? One could argue that the metaphor is not necessary, but rather, it is a symptom of the dynamic relationship between God and humanity writing the story together. Think back to the book of kings, Israel desperately desires a monarchy to rule over them as is the case with all of the nations around them. Despite not wishing to give them this God grants them a king and does great work to reclaim this cultural rebellion as an institution worthy of the kingdom of God. Christ is the culmination of that reclamation as well, as it turns out, but I digress. Christ taking on the role of the sacrificial lamb of Passover is more than just symbolism, and it is more than the atonement of human sin. Christ atones for our sin by allowing himself to be sacrificed, but it is so often overlooked that Christ did not only take on the metaphor of the Passover lamb, he replaced it. Christ by taking the lamb’s place pardons the lamb of any future sacrifice that would be expected of them. As He says “it is finished” and may no more lambs be sacrificed because the sacrifice that made a difference has been willingly given. This brings us to a sobering reality: the lambs’ blood was not necessary, as you insinuated in your question. After all, Hebrews 10 reads:

Since the law has [only] a shadow of the good things to come, and not the actual form of those realities, it can never perfect the worshipers by the same sacrifices they continually offer year after year. Otherwise, wouldn’t they have stopped being offered, since the worshipers, once purified, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? But in the sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. - Hebrews 10:1-4

This is important to recognize because Jesus was not just the perfect sacrifice, He was the only sacrifice that worked at all because he was truly without blemish and He chose to be sacrificed. It is because of this we know that not only where the sacrifices of animals unnecessary, but without worth. None of them truly did anything, they gave cultural cleansing, but not spiritual cleansing. That leads us to question why they were done in the first place, why would God demand them? This is about more than the Passover lamb but all animal sacrifices, a topic I have written about multiple times here and here and here. A general take away is that sometimes, or even quite a lot of the time, the peoples in the bible establish tradition and culture, and even religion based on things that are not of God. Much like in the book of kings God lets Israel take on a practice that He does not condone so that He can reclaim it for Himself to show His glory through Christ. It’s not an answer that always easy to stomach, but it is one of hope. It means that God did not have a malicious perspective towards animals nor did He rejoice in the slaughter of His creatures. God wished to bring them into salvation just as He did for us.

You will find that the answer is very similar for the instance of the sacrifice of Isaac. Just before Abraham sacrifices his beloved son an angel appears and says:

… “Do not lay a hand on the boy or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your only son from Me.”  Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught in the thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram and offered it as a burnt offering in place of his son. - Genesis 22: 12-13

This is a powerful analogy for God interceding in the sacrificial system of the temple only to replace it with another sacrifice, a miraculous sacrifice. Abraham himself said to Isaac as they climbed the mountain “God Himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” He was more correct than he realized at the time he said that. God did provide a sacrifice, but the take away is not that a ram was put to death, the take away is that God will provide the sacrifice, not us. It will not be a young ram from our flocks that will atone for us, only God can provide a sacrifice that will be good. God gives us the lamb for the altar and the blood for the doorposts, any sacrifice before that was nothing more than a shadow of the coming Christ. In short, the sacrifice of those animals was not just, they were a reach towards justice but as is typical of humanity it was a poor and unethical alternative. Not pretty to hear, but a huge portion of the bible is a reflection on the rebellion of humanity against God and their religious practices, even God’s chosen people are no exception. In short, we must entertain the thought that Moses demanded the sacrificial lambs because sacrifice was the culture of the day, God never wanted the blood of rams or bulls.

For I desire loyalty and not  sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings - Hosea 6:6

In a way, this relates to your last two questions. First, the ritual cleanliness of some animals and the uncleanliness of other animals. The key word there is “ritual.” I know that you did not use that word, but Peter does when he has a vision pertaining to the cleanliness of animals.

The next day, as they were traveling and nearing the city, Peter went up to pray on the housetop about noon. Then he became hungry and wanted to eat, but while they were preparing something, he went into a visionary state. He saw heaven opened and an object that resembled a large sheet coming down, being lowered by its four corners to the earth. In it were all the four-footed animals and reptiles of the earth, and the birds of the sky. Then a voice said to him, “Get up, Peter; kill and eat!”

“No, Lord!” Peter said. “For I have never eaten anything common and ritually unclean!”

Again, a second time, a voice said to him, “What God has made clean, you must not call common.” This happened three times, and then the object was taken up into heaven. -Acts 10: 9-16

Granted, the word “ritual” is not independently represented in the greek, but the word for unclean (ἀκάθαρτος) is translated as ritually unclean. This is because in a scriptural sense when something is referred to as “unclean” what is generally implied is that the item, task, or essence is against the cultural ethic, or is inappropriate to contact a priest. From an anthropological perspective, a number of these things make sense to be avoided. Things like dead animals (Lev. 11: 24) and rodents (Lev. 11: 29) because touching them would lead to the spread of disease. Others are less obvious such as women experiencing their periods. In these cases, the cause seems to be more cultural, and at times misogynistic. Although you could also consider the possibility that innate fear of human blood could be a motivator here also due to the transmission of disease. As I have already pointed out, we would be wrong to assume that the people of ancient Israel are a moral benchmark to aspire to because they lived in a time and culture that did not reflect the ethics of modern cultures. So, animals are called “unclean” for reasons that are biological and cultural. Women are referred to as less worthy because men of that time were sexist (not to suggest that men are no longer sexist, misogyny is alive and well sadly enough). The Christian perspective of women has changed radically over that past century and so most will read those passages with a grain of well-deserved salt. I’m sorry that this is not a very satisfying argument either I know, but while the scriptures are God-breathed, we cannot expect everything in them to be God’s own beliefs, the men who wrote these words were subject to their own personal and cultural prejudices just as we all are. The task is to wrestle through the scriptures to see God’s intentions and His love as He time and again reaches His hands into human affairs to reconcile us to Him.

Again, I am sorry that this response is not terribly in depth. If you want me to go into more detail on anything I would be more than happy to! This is just an overview way of analyzing the texts you brought up.

May the Lord be with you always, 

The event is recorded three times in the second testament: Matthew 8:28-34, Mark 5:1-20, and Luke 8:26-39. Each of the accounts has more or less the same content but with several notable differences. Matthew is the least descriptive of the three describing the region differently, saying there are two demon-possessed men instead of one, and the demon(s) is not given a name. Mark and Luke are more similar to one another describing the single man more specifically and being more ambiguous about the actual location of the event, though they mention the tombs in the are “Gerasenes” is a more broad term than “Gadarenes” which is used by Matthew only.

Matthew and Luke both state that the herd of pigs is “large” but Mark actually provides a head count to give us an idea of how many pigs there actually are: about 2,000 pigs. Now, this should raise a few questions before we can get any further. Irrespective of the rearing methodology 2,000 pigs constitutes a very large swine operation by modern standards and when we consider that these pigs are apparently “free-range” this is almost an inconceivable occurrence. The likelihood of any pig owner in this region of the world at this time having 2,000 pigs in the same place is highly skeptical. The resources required to maintain such a herd and to monitor them as free-range would necessitate that the owner is fantastically wealthy. To put it in perspective, there are around 73,000 pig farms in the USA and we process approx 120,000,000 pigs through market annually, if the number of pigs per farm was equal there would still only be about 1,600 pigs per operation [2]. Obviously nowadays the pig herds are nor equal in size, rather there are few very large “factory” operations and many much smaller pig farms around the country with far fewer than 2,000 pigs. Surmise it to say that this pig herd is the equivalent of a modern-day factory farm operation. As an animal scientist myself, I seriously doubt that we can take Mark literally and assume that there were actually 2,000 pigs. Furthermore, swine farms in that time period would typically have had around 150 pigs at best [3], a far cry from 2,000. This leaves me contemplating two possible alternatives: Mark was exaggerating the number of pigs, or the pigs did not exist and possibly represent something else.

So, is there any reason to entertain Mark’s absurd remark? Actually, yes, there is. The answer might be in the name of the demon. “My name is Legion,” the demon says to Jesus, “because we are many.” The name “legion” to our ear might be inconspicuous but to the peoples of that time it meant the Roman army. Now, “the legion” as a phrase is used a lot to refer to the entire Roman military, however, “a legion” was the largest subunit of that military. The exact number of units in a legion varied over time but was often used to refer to 3000-6000 men, though the number appears to decline over time and by the third century may have been around 1000-1500 men. It has been suggested by some theologians that this story is actually a political message of anti-Roman sentiment. This actually makes a lot of sense when we consider that actual wordage of the passages, I will use the Mark verse as my example for the sake of brevity. The Greek word translated as “legion” is  λεγιών the phonetic pronunciation being: leg-eh-ohn’. Now, this word is unique compared to many that I have discussed before because it is actually of Latin origin and means exactly what you might expect: a Roman regiment. This word is the same in the Luke passage but is used once more in the Bible in Matthew 26: 53 where Christ admonishes his disciples for drawing swords during his arrest reminding them that he could call on His Father for 12 legions of angels to defend Him. But it is not just the name, the whole passage is riddled with military verbiage. In his book Discourses of an Empire: The Gospel of Mark from a Postcolonial Perspective New testament scholar Hans Leander suggests that the phrases surrounding the sending of the demons into the pigs is reminiscent of a commander sending forth an army. The Greek word “send” varies between verses, first, the demons beg not to be sent away (5:10), the Greek word apostellō (ἀποστέλλω) meaning to be set apart or sent with a purpose which Leander suggests has a military connotation for dispatching an army. The second “send” (5:12) is the Greek pempō (πέμπω) which according to the Strong’s Biblical dictionary actually does mean “dispatch.” Leander’s writing goes much further to demonstrate how the “legion” demon is an allegory for a Roman occupancy in the Middle East leading to the torment of those occupied. This sentiment is hardly unheard of for ancient Jewish peoples as 20 years before this would have taken place one of the violent rebellions against the Roman occupancy in about 7 CE and others were yet to come. Had Jesus truly sent 2,000 pigs to their death in a rather politically charged context it would be fair of us to expect a little backlash against Him for this. The three versions agree that Christ was asked or forced to leave the region by the peoples there but then we never hear of it again. Does it seem reasonable that Christ could simply drive a super herd to their deaths and then just have it appear that nothing had happened? Might the, presumably many, men watching over those pigs not have made more of a fuss over the unimaginable fortune lost in the death of the pigs? As I said before the term “Gerasenes”  is bit ambiguous because it could be in reference to Gergesene the aboriginal peoples of Palestine, or simply in reference to the city of Gerasa which is in the region of Decapolis. The latter makes sense because Decapolis was a confederation of Greek city-states and the Greeks did not consider swine to be culturally “unclean” as the Jewish did thus explaining why a large group of pigs would be in the area to start with. However, Decapolis is southeast of the sea with Gerasa being nowhere near the water’s edge [see map]. I have read others suggest that the region is more interference to the city of Gadara but the most likely location of this city was 5 miles southeast of the water and both Mark and Luke suggest that he encountered the demon almost immediately after coming onto land. Frankly, the story does not add up to be a depiction of an actual event, rather the argument that it is a political allegory is both more practical, believable, and generally more relevant to scripture.  

Map 

We can choose to believe that Mark’s account is a literal transcription of a real event but to do so we must reject practical and historical agricultural data, the numerous verses and Bible stories depicting God’s love and care for animals, and common sense. Alternatively we could just argue that Mark was exaggerating and that Luke and Matthew are better sources but to that we must ignore that Luke and Matthew don’t agree on where it happened, how many men were possessed, the fact that both accounts still contain the military and political connotations, and that there should have been a stronger response of the people and owners of said pigs in response to their death. I am personally more convinced by the argument that the story is allegorical, and it is an allegory that peoples of that time would have been more receptive to given that the connotations for the word “legion” had not been so obscured. In fact, some etymological sources that I have used suggest that the ambiguity of the word to mean “a large number” resulted from English interpretations of these passages, but I digress. 

I hope this helps you and doesn’t just make things more confusing. If you have any questions just let me know and I will be happy to talk through things with you. 

Christ’s grace be with you, 

-Christopher