Bava Metziah 114b – Non-Jews as People

The citation is garbled.  There is no book called Baba Necia.  The correct citation is Bava Metziah 114b.  In addition, the quote is not entirely accurate as there is no mention of anyone being referred to as a beast.

The context of this quote has to do with the laws of ritual impurity.  Jews who are Kohanim (priests, descended from Aaron) are forbidden to become ritually impure from contact with the dead.  This includes not only directly touching a dead body but also being in the same room or area with them, such as a graveyard.  

The Talmud here relates a story regarding  Rabbah Bar Avuha, a Talmudic sage who lived in the third century, who met Elijah the Prophet.  When he met him, Elijah was standing in a  non-Jewish cemetery.  Since Elijah, in Jewish tradition, was a Kohen, it should have been forbidden for him to be in a cemetery.  Rabbah Bar Avuha then asked him why he was standing in a cemetery, where he might become ritually impure.  

Elijah responded to him that the graves of non-Jews do not impart ritual impurity (and hence, it was not a problem for him to be standing there).  He brought the following verse as scriptural support:

And you, My sheep, the sheep of My pasture, are man.”  (Ezekiel 34:31)  Since the laws of ritual impurity via non-direct contact are taught using another verse that uses the word “man” (Numbers 19:14), it is derived that the laws of non-direct ritual impurity do not apply to non-Jews. 

It should be noted that this is as far as it goes.  Nowhere on the page does it say that non-Jews are beasts.  Nor does it mean that non-Jews aren’t human beings and don’t have all the rights and responsibilities that go with that.  It simply means that, within the narrow scope of the laws of ritual impurity, the laws do not apply to non-Jewish corpses.  This statement here has no bearing beyond that narrow scope.