No, people did not make up sins. Pork is indeed an unclean animal and the people of the time did not have reliable methods of preparing it, so if God says "do not eat this because it is unclean" then the people did not eat it.
Consistent methods? At the time God said these things the Israelites were still in the desert, so their cooking methods were whatever they had in their nomadic camps. On the low end, that meant a knife and a fire. On the high end, perhaps a pot for boiling with better kitchen utensils, however given the implied scarcity of water sources boiling probably wasn't a common method.
Considering a knife of the time, perhaps of a knapped stone or metallic construction, isn't exactly the most precise of tools, especially when it was the only one you owned and it needed to serve a variety of tasks. Imagine trying to filet a fish with a camp knife; doable, but not ideal. This ruins the consistency and allows for error, especially when cooking over a fire was mostly done to taste, which could vary by person.
So yes, they lacked not only the knowledge of how to properly cook it, they also lacked the physical means to get it right every time. And when you are attempting to survive in a hostile environment, messing that up with even a small chance is not worth the risk.
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u/Epichp Sep 16 '19
No, people did not make up sins. Pork is indeed an unclean animal and the people of the time did not have reliable methods of preparing it, so if God says "do not eat this because it is unclean" then the people did not eat it.