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Bible Encyclopedias
Swine
Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
or Egyptian pictures, the parable of the Prodigal Son, and Christ's miraculous cure of the demoniac, when He permitted swine to be possessed and destroyed by rushing over a precipice into the Sea of Galilee, furnish ample proofs that during the dominion of the Romans the domesticated breeds of these animals were reared in great numbers among the Jews, notwithstanding the strong prohibition in the law of Moses. Commentators ascribe this abundance of swine to the numerous Pagan sacrifices of these animals in the temples: but we do not deem this to be a sufficiently correct view of the case, since hogs of every denomination were less used for that purpose than oxen, goats, and sheep. May it not be conjectured that in those days of a greatly condensed population the poor found in swine's flesh, and still more in the fat and lard, melted for culinary purposes, as it still is in every part of Pagan Africa, a most desirable aliment, still more acceptable than the salt fish imported from Sidon, to season their usual vegetable diet?
Public Domain.
Kitto, John, ed. Entry for 'Swine'. "Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature". https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/kbe/s/swine.html.
