HYGIENE
The Jewish diet was generally good for health. (For instance, Daniel and his friends looked far healthier on a vegetarian diet than did their companions who ate meat, Daniel 1:5-16.) The Jewish food laws gave a good degree of protection from food poisoning when cooking temperatures were low. The biggest health problem concerned the water, which
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Paul does three things with slavery: (1) He acknowledges its pervasive practice without comment about its morality; (2) he urges slaves to radical loyalty as an expression of faith in God’s sovereign will; (3) he attacks the inequities of the system by insisting that masters and slaves become like brothers, an unprecedented notion (Philemon 16). In this passage, he wants slaves to excel in their service. Paul’s apparent social conservatism has been the subject of much misunderstanding. He would appear to give biblical sanction to
Continue reading DOES PAUL CONDONE SLAVERY? (1 TIMOTHY 6:1-2)
PLOUGHING
Ploughing and sowing were often one operation. The grain was scattered from an open basket and replenished from a sack tied on the back of a donkey. It took about thirty pounds of seed to the half acre, although the Babylonians had invented a primitive seed drill that was in use in some places and was more economical with the seed. The seed was then ploughed in so that it would not be taken by the birds (Matthew 13:4). This method of
Continue reading MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE BIBLE (AGRICULTURE) “PART 2 OF 2”