Swine

My attention has been drawn to the story of the Gadarene swine, in which Jesus expels the evil spirits from an inflicted man into a large herd of pigs, with the result that the man is cured and the pigs charge down into the sea and are drowned. See reference 1.

The point of interest being how a large herd of pigs get into a story about a Jew, to whom pigs were unclean - with a quick look at Bing and Google revealing that this has been a matter of interest to Christian theologians for a long time. Part of the answer is that the likely candidates for Gadara are all in the area  known as the Decapolis, an area to the east of the Sea of Galilee in which Hellenistic influences were strong and where Jewish rules about pigs would not have applied, at least not with their full force. See, for example, reference 2. I also learn that there is an animal rights angle: is it right to kill a lot of pigs to save one man?

There is a clear ruling on the uncleanness of pigs in Leviticus, Chapter 11. To be clean, a land animal must both chew the cud and have cloven hooves. Swine, that is to say pigs, warrant special mention in verse 7 on account of their not chewing the cud. Rules which are elaborated in various places in the Mishnah. Luckily for me the index included 'pigs', listing the dozen or so places - among the 800 or so pages available: lots and lots of rules about all kinds of things. See reference 3.

While Wikipedia tells me that giraffes are clean, although it is not clear if giraffes ranged far enough north in Africa to be relevant. I have not asked whether the Muslim rules, which would be relevant, carry over from those in Leviticus.

Coincidentally, the Guardian ran a piece on the factory farming of pigs in China at about the same time as the swine cropped up. Which apart from telling me all about the enormous, computerised factories being built for the purpose, also tells me that pigs are quite delicate animals and considerable care is needed if one is to make money out of them. Changes of diet or home needed to be carefully managed. See reference 4.

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exorcism_of_the_Gerasene_demoniac.

Reference 2: https://www.christiancourier.com/articles/1011-what-about-those-gadarene-hogs.

Reference 3: The Mishnah - Herbert Danby - 1933.

Reference 4: The trouble with China's hi-tech 'pork miracle' - Xiaowei Wang - 2020. Guardian, 8th October.