Nothing Is Unclean of Itself

Over the week I was listening to a neat podcast from J.K. McKee: Implementation of the Apostolic Decree. It’s about the controversial ruling in Acts 15 on whether gentiles should keep God’s commandments.

I’m a student of Paul’s letters in the New Testament. And one particular bit from Paul has long made me cringe:

I am fully convinced in the Lord Jesus that no food is unclean in itself.

-Paul, in his letter to Rome

Does the above sentence give you pause? It should. Whether you’re an all-grace, no-law kind of Christian, or a stringent Torah-keeper, there are ugly problems with this statement:

1. It’s written – engraved on tablets of stone, and heard from the mouth of God thundering on Mt. Sinai, that there are, in fact, unclean things. Paul’s little theological musings to the Romans here appears dismissive of a 3500 year-old divine decree from the lips of the Creator. Yikes.
   
   
2. Since Paul seems to be dismissing large swaths of God’s commandments in a single sentence, he would also be contradicting Messiah’s own words. Woops.
   
   
3. When the apostles ruled on Torah & gentiles, their ruling included 3 dietary laws, particularly abstaining from meat sacrificed to idols. With it being, ahem, unclean. Paul’s words here contradict the apostles’ ruling at the Jerusalem Council. Doh!

In other words, and with apologies to the female conservative savior, Paul here is going rogue.

If you’re a pro-Torah Messianic, this bit from Paul is a problem because he’s contradicting the Torah, which says there are, in fact, unclean things.

If you’re a “Torah is for Jews only” Messianic, this bit is problematic because it contradicts the apostolic ruling on gentiles & Torah.

If you’re a all-grace, law-free Christian, this bit is problematic because it contradicts Yeshua’s words and the ruling in Acts.

I said before I listened to a neat little podcast by J.K. McKee. Yeah. He explains how Paul implements the Jerusalem Council ruling in the Messianic community at Rome. Turns out, Paul may not really be going rogue here. Turns out, this may be another case of mistranslation.

Skip to 1:14 in the podcast. You’ll hear McKee document a linguistics and translation issue:

Almost all bible translations read with the word “unclean” in Romans 14:14.

[…]

The Septuagint [Greek translation of the Torah] renders unclean as the Greek akathartos…ceremonially unclean. But Akathartos does not appear in Romans 14:14, and the rendering of “unclean” is inaccurate.

The Greek word that appears instead is the word koinos. This word means “common”, as in the sense of common ownership of property, ideas, etc. Koinos relates to being of little value, because of being common, ordinary, or profane, and can concern that which ordinary people eat.

John is fair, and documents another side of the issue: he recognizes that koinos has, in the book of Maccabees in the apocrypha, been used to denote unfit foods sacrificed by the Seleucids.

A further study of my own suggests that koinos is used in other places in the New Testament, for example, Acts 2:44:

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles.All the believers were together and had everything in common [koinos]. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.

If this research is correct, and koinos is indeed used here, then it would appear we have an inconsistency in our English translation. Had the translators been consistent between Acts and Romans, this Acts verse should read:

All the believers were together and had everything unclean.

-Nonsensical, made up translation of Acts 2, translating the Greek ‘koinos’ as unclean, as is done with Romans 14:14.

If koinos is interpreted properly as “common”, Romans 14 suddenly becomes harmonious with the Torah, Messiah, and the apostles:

I am fully convinced in the Lord Jesus that no food is common in itself. But if someone regards something as common, then for him it is common.

-Paul, in his letter to Rome

I suspect this translation was an attempt by translators to fit Paul’s words to what they thought he was saying: that Jesus rendered the Law, in particular the dietary commandments, of no effect.

But a proper study of the language suggests otherwise. It is interesting to stumble on these translation inconsistencies. I wonder how many more there are.