On Separating Life and Death: An Explanation of Some Biblical Laws

Abstract

Certain biblical laws can be satisfactorily explained only on the basis of their concern to avoid a blurring of the two opposites, life and death. The famous prohibition against boiling a kid in its mother's milk (Exod 23:19; 34:26; Deut 14:21b) is to be explained in this way. In cases where the mother's milk was so used, an ancient observer must have noted that the milk that is naturally associated with the life of the animal was given a reverse role and was now applied to the dead animal. The law represents a reaction against the uncomfortable position of having to juxtapose the natural state of life before death with the unnatural state of “life” after death.