Must Christians Keep Kosher? Decoding Matthew’s Answer

Episode Outline:
0:00 Did early Christians need to keep Jewish law and stay kosher?
0:46 Intro: Matthew’s take on kosher and Jewish law
2:08 Icebreaker: does the Bible still have spiritual value without belief in God?
4:15 What it means to keep kosher in Jewish tradition
6:49 Does Matthew explicitly say Christians must keep Jewish law?
8:39 Key Matthew passages: Jesus, the law, and intensifying the commandments
11:38 Does Matthew say anything about dietary laws and keeping kosher?
13:42 Promo break: Paula Fredriksen’s Ancient Christianity: The First 500 Years
18:19 Did Gentile followers of Jesus need to convert and keep the full law?
20:25 The heart of the law: loving God and neighbor in Matthew
22:52 Sheep and goats: what actually brings salvation in Matthew
27:30 Who was Matthew writing for: Jews, Gentiles, or both?
29:45 Listener Q&A: prophecy, anti-Judaism, authority, Acts, and the Temple

Episode Description

The rise and spread of Christianity from its Jewish roots posed fundamental questions about religious identity: Should Gentile (non-Jewish) followers of Jesus be expected to follow the Jewish law, including keeping kosher? Should Jewish followers abandon these practices? In Episode 170, Megan Lewis and Bart Ehrman unpack the complexities of Matthew’s approach to Jewish law—exploring what “keeping kosher” means, how Jesus’ teaching in Matthew both affirms and reinterprets traditional law, and the practical and theological distinctions made for Jews and Gentiles as Christianity evolved.

Bart Ehrman then explains how keeping kosher in Jewish tradition means following dietary codes from the Law of Moses, with rules about what foods can be eaten and how they must be prepared—practices still observed by many Jews today.

Diving into Matthew’s Gospel, Bart Ehrman highlights the famously ambiguous nature of Matthew’s position. While Jesus in Matthew says he has “not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it" (Matthew 5:17-20), he rarely specifies whether this includes ritual observance such as dietary laws. Rather, Matthew’s Jesus intensifies the moral commands—teaching that anger carries the weight of murder, or lust that of adultery—without directly addressing kosher or circumcision.

Crucially, Matthew includes subtle hints about ritual observance. Bart Ehrman points out that, unlike Mark, Matthew omits the line “thus he declared all foods clean,” suggesting he does not explicitly override kosher laws. Similarly, Matthew assumes Sabbath observance but does not make it central to salvation. Instead, the main focus for both Jews and Gentiles is radical love—doing unto others as you would have them do to you (the Golden Rule), loving God, and loving your neighbor.

The conversation clarifies that for Matthew, one’s ultimate acceptance into God’s kingdom hinges not on ritual law but on ethical practice—helping those in need, living justly, and enacting compassion. In memorable passages like the parable of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25), Bart Ehrman demonstrates that Matthew sees salvation as rooted in action, not ethnicity, religious status, or even formal conversion.

The episode closes with a Q&A segment addressing topics such as: Why were Greek-speaking Gospel writers so concerned with Jesus’ fulfillment of Jewish prophecy? Who really killed Jesus—the Jews or the Romans? Why don’t the New Testament books say more about the destruction of the Temple? Bart Ehrman explores these tough questions with scholarly nuance and trademark clarity.

3 Key Takeaways
- Matthew upholds the Jewish law, but its core is radical love. For Matthew, ritual observance matter.
- Gentile followers are not explicitly required by Matthew to keep all Jewish ritual commandments.
- Salvation in Matthew is not about mere religious identity or ritual observance, but about living out the fundamental commandments to love God and one’s neighbor

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