Are you suggesting that Jesus really meant to say that eating bread was okay even if someone had touched it with sin but said something different altogether because perhaps he just wasn't all that good a at being specific
What in the world??
Let's just "look" at what it says.
Mark 7
hen the Pharisees and some of the scribes came together to Him, having come from Jerusalem. 2 Now when they saw some of His
disciples eat bread with
defiled, that is, with unwashed hands, they found fault. 3 For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash
their hands in a special way, holding the
tradition of the elders. 4
When they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other things which they have received and hold,
like the washing of cups, pitchers, copper vessels, and couches.
5 Then the Pharisees and scribes asked Him, “Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders,
but eat bread with unwashed hands?”
1. The first thing we see is that they are not debating the idea of eating rats. They are talking about eating bread from the market place.
2. They are not debating scripture - but rather "a tradition of the elders"
3. That tradition had to do with baptized the sin off of hands, cups, pots etc and the idea that "sin comes from the marketplace" - it gets on things.
4. Conclusion - they were avoiding the sin problem getting inside them - by first baptizing their hands after coming from the marketplace.
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Mark 7
..
14 When He had called all the multitude to
Himself, He said to them, “Hear Me, everyone, and understand: 15 There is
nothing that enters a man from outside which can defile him; but the things which come out of him, those are the things that defile a man. 16 If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear!”
Jesus said that you don't become a sinner because something from the marketplace with sin on it - is eaten without first "baptizing it".
Notice this is NOT an argument that you can eat rats from the marketplace if you first baptize your fingers - it has nothing at all to do with eating rats.
20 And He said, “What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. 21 For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, 22 thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.
A list of sins.
The argument is not that eating rats will make someone murder or become a thief - neither the Jews nor Chris were arguing such a thing.