Jesus Did Not “Declare All Foods Clean”
I interviewed Dr. Logan Williams on why the antinomian reading of Mark 7:1-23 is wrong.
Did Jesus abolish the Torah’s distinction between permitted (clean) and prohibited (unclean) foods? Many say that he did based on his interaction with the Pharisees in Mark 7:1-23.
In this passage, Jesus says that nothing that goes into a person can defile him (Mark 7:15). Also, in most English Bible translations, Mark 7:19 has a parenthetical statement that reads, “Thus he declared all foods clean.” Hence, it is believed that Mark’s Jesus invalidated the Torah’s food laws.
But is that really what this passage is saying? My guest, Dr. Logan Williams, challenges the antinomian reading of Mark 7:1-23 and offers a more plausible interpretation.
By the way, Dr. Williams recently wrote a paper on this passage that was published in the academic Journal New Testament Studies put out by Cambridge. The paper is “open access,” which means you can download it for free (yay!).