I have no idea, while I'm no expert in religion I'm positively ignorant about science. But I'll answer anyway. 1) There are a few precepts in the bible that ar

I have no idea, while I'm no expert in religion I'm positively ignorant about science. But I'll answer anyway. 1) There are a few precepts in the bible that are very much aligned with modern understanding of medicine, such as the law that forbids leaving human feces around (soldiers are to carry a spade among their tools, and to leave camp to defecate and then bury their feces). There are many rules that are aligned with ancient superstitions that may have been thought to be about health (think purity laws) and others that prescribe behaviors that can cause illness (incest). That said, the bible generally does not give safety or health as a reason for a prohibition. Rules are listed with no reason at all, or with an explanation of "purity" or "God will turn His back on you if you leave disgusting things like feces around, and then you'll lose the war". So if indeed these rules were created for health and safety, it's unclear to me if the authors knew that that was the reason or if they were just cargo-culting and guessing. 2) To contemporary devotees of Judaism, pretty much everything I wrote in the previous paragraph is blasphemous. Some would take a harder line than others, but among people who keep the rules strictly (ie not those who kinda-sorta keep the "spirit" of the rules), the attitude is that these things are not up for renegotiation based on new science because _they are not based on science at all_. The reason they do these things is that the literature tells them to, which essentially means that God says so. Why did God say so? For any number of reasons, but probably not because of health or safety. Regardless, getting into God's mind is an interesting academic exercise, and one that occupies a place in "softer" rabbinic literature, but not particularly relevant for the "hard" technical literature that is busy with understanding the rules. tl;dr: there may be something to that, but many religious people would be offended by the idea that these laws are mere health recommendations. Note: I wrote this off-the-cuff, if you're interested in sources leave a comment and I'll dig some up.