Yahweh spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying to them, “Speak to the children of Israel, saying, ‘These are the living things which you may eat among all the animals that are on the earth. Whatever parts the hoof, and is cloven-footed, and chews the cud among the animals, that you may eat. “‘Nevertheless these you shall not eat of those that chew the cud, or of those who part the hoof: the camel, because he chews the cud but doesn’t have a parted hoof, he is […]
⛓ Read Leviticus 11 forward — the whole chapter and its afterlife →Where this passage surfaces again, sorted by the strength of the link. Each kind of reuse — formal quotation, deliberate allusion, faint echo, figural pattern — carries its own mark. Follow any reference to read it in place.
Allusion5
A deliberate verbal borrowing without a citation formula.
The sheet contains 'all kinds of four-footed animals, wild animals, reptiles, and birds' — exactly the taxonomic categories of Leviticus 11's clean/unclean legislation — and Peter's refusal ('common or unclean') invokes its core distinction. The command 'kill and eat' and the verdict 'what God has cleansed' directly engage and overturn this law. Volume, recurrence, and coherence all high.
High confidenceThe vision's core conflict — a divine command to 'kill and eat' four-footed animals, creeping things, and birds, and Peter's refusal because 'nothing unholy or unclean has ever entered into my mouth' — directly engages the Levitical taxonomy of clean and unclean creatures. Volume is high (the whole pericope turns on these dietary categories); recurrence is strong (the sister account in Acts 10 and the parallel here); thematic coherence is high. The narrative reads the Levitical food law figurally, the abolition of the clean/unclean boundary dramatizing the inclusion of Gentiles.
High confidenceThe Antioch dispute over Peter eating with the Gentiles and then drawing back turns on the clean/unclean food and table-purity system. Volume and coherence are high: the dietary code is precisely the barrier that the withdrawal from common meals re-erects between Jew and Gentile.
High confidenceThe clean/unclean food dispute underlying 14:1-12 (and explicit in 14:14,20, 'nothing is unclean of itself... all things indeed are clean') directly engages the Levitical purity code distinguishing clean from unclean animals (Leviticus 11; cf. Deuteronomy 14). The 'weak' likely keep these distinctions; Paul's verdict that nothing is koinon in itself overturns the categorical force of Leviticus 11 for those in Christ.
High confidencePaul's declaration 'nothing is unclean of itself... all things indeed are clean' (14:14,20) directly engages and relativizes the Levitical clean/unclean food code (Leviticus 11). The very term koinon ('common/unclean') is the purity vocabulary of the dietary law; Paul affirms the law's categories exist only for the one who reckons a thing unclean.
High confidenceEcho1
A fainter, low-volume reuse, carried by recurrence or thematic coherence.
Peter's 'it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with one of another nation, but God has shown me not to call any man unholy or unclean' transfers the clean/unclean categories of the dietary law (and its boundary-keeping function) to persons; recurrence of the Levitical theme from 10:9-16 within the chapter.
Medium confidence