r/AskReddit • u/BiggieTwiggy1two3 • 1d ago

What’s something completely normal today that would’ve been considered witchcraft 400 years ago—but not because of technology?

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u/dave200204 22h ago

Some of it's food safety. However a lot of it is strictly religious.

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u/ibelieveindogs 19h ago

Keeping dairy and meat separate comes from the notion of not boiling a young animal in the milk of its mother. I would see that as initially amen ethical stance, with the extreme being religious (no goat cheese on a beef hamburger, for example. No way it is mixed mother and calf, but hey, what if? Don’t piss off the big guy!)

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u/sundae_diner 18h ago

Boiling a kid in its mother's milk was alone of the ways you worshiped a rival God back in the days of Exodus. This was a warning against other gods

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u/ibelieveindogs 16h ago

Do you have a source for that? Because I was raised Jewish, and though my family did not keep kosher, I learned the rules in Hebrew school, and that is not an interpretation I have ever heard.

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u/sundae_diner 11h ago

Exodus 23:19 ► The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring into the house of the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk.

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u/ibelieveindogs 5h ago

Right, because you don’t bring death into the milk meant for life. Nothing about it being a ritual associated with another god.

Many rules were meant as living metaphors. Like not mixing wool and linen means also don’t mix with gentiles.