I was talking with my priest about my diet, and when I said that we humans are not in any way carnivorous, he disagreed. He asked me why God would have commanded people to eat meat, in various occasions found in the Old Testament, if we weren't biological designed to eat it---particularly, why God would command them to eat something that was not good for them.
He has a great point there, but I do not know the answer.
To be honest, it doesn't make sense to me either why God would have commanded them to eat meat. Unless they were already accustomed to eating it, then they wouldn't get sick from it? What do you guys think?
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I am reading the Bible for the first time and am in Deuteronomy at this point in my reading. My take on this is that when the Israelites were in the wilderness after leaving Egypt, they complained about eating manna and not having meat and they said in Egypt they had meat. So God was angry with them and gave them meat and then a plague came upon them. So afterwards, to me I think God said, fine, if you want meat, here are the animals you can eat and here are the ones that are unclean and don't eat the blood because the life is in the blood. That's my take on meat eating in the Bible so far, but I haven't read all the books in the Bible yet. :)
Numbers 11:
19 Ye shall not eat one day, nor two days, nor five days, neither ten days, nor twenty days;
20 But even a whole month, until it come out at your nostrils, and it be loathsome unto you: because that ye have despised the Lord which is among you, and have wept before him, saying, Why came we forth out of Egypt?
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers+11&version...
http://http://thebeeteatingheeb.com/2013/05/24/when-god-killed-the-...
Genesis 9:1-6 God did not give us permission to eat meat until after the flood. meaning after the garden (where there was NO killing AT ALL) after the downfall of humans when we sinned. this was also after Methuselah, and all of those other people who lived ridiculously log lives. truth is... you can survive on meat, but NOT THRIVE, eating meat was a back up plan TEMPORARY b/c the ground was not exactly prime for harvesting crops at the time of exiting the ark. also the way Daniel ate... fruits and veggies and he was healthier and SMARTER than any of the other boys
(my dad is a pastor i have become skilled in arguing points of the bible)
I know a 96 year old man in great health who drinks beer and goes to the Claim jumper all the time.
If you are a vegan from thinking that meat is unhealthy for you it is not really a true reason to be a vegan. Being vegan implies you do it out of compassion for animals. It is the very definition of the word. Abstaining from meat for any other reason does not even constitute veganism.
Also I think it is a little off key to say the old testament gives a vegan diet. The lifestyle of the Jews literally revolved around animal husbandry. Case in point the old testament does not apply to Christians except where it is reiterated in the new testament.
I have been studying Christians and vegans fairly extensively(vegans a lot longer than Christians) and quite honestly I find the morals and ethical beliefs and lifestyles of a small group of meat eating, pot bellied Christians to be far superior to that of many self-proclaimed vegans that think very highly of themselves for not eating animals.
It seems to be rather clear that before the fall man was a vegan/fruitarian. It is also rather clear that after the fall he most definitely was not. The old testament is full of killing animals. If someone had a headache they cut an animal in half. if someone needed to talk to God they squirted animal blood on the altar. Killing animals was done for all spiritual purposes. This was the sacrificial system of the Jews. I see no scriptural basis for veganism although I definitely consider it a worthwhile diet to pursue in this age of evil.
Well as God retablished our blessings from the creation through Christ, I was asking myself the same question.
I think it depend on what the holy spirit is convincing you to do.
We still have to look after our body propely.
hi honeybee!
i see what you are saying, however, i have heard from vegans and non-vegan christians that this simply means you need to drain the blood of the animal before eating it.
in addition, in the next verse he says he will require "your lives ...at the hand of every beast [emphasis added] and at the hand of man" so not only is the word beast used, but there is a distinction made between beast and man as two different subjects, but which when murdered will bring about the same punishment.
Now looking over it again, the next part of the phrase is striking as well "at the hand of every man's brother will i require the life of man" implying that non-human animals are man's brother <3
I like this passage more and more every time i read it!
Hey there!
I LOVE when people bring up this argument, because when someone cites this "commandment" they are referring to one part of a whole statement, and the second half of it is quite revealing....
in Gen 9.3 the bible has is documented that god said "Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have i given you all things"
but, if we keep reading...the next verse (9.4) says "But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat." (somewhat inconsequential), but he continues to say.....
"And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man."
.....so basically god is saying, well, i guess you can eat all the other beings now, buuuuut, you're going to pay for it. he literally names the SAME punishment for killing a non-human animal as he does for killing a human animal. In scientific terms this all makes sense, animal products are terrible for us, and when we eat them we suffer with diabetes, cancer, heart disease, eczema, arthritis, etc, all of which "require" a bit of our lives by taking away from the quality of our lives.
as a disclaimer, i wouldn't truly consider myself a christian, but after studying at a catholic university for four years i became exceedingly interested in the way it's proposed morals seem to line up with veganism, and after looking into many of them, like this one, i have become much more interested.
I also read a book recently that argues that Jesus, through historical and religious document analysis, was not only a vegan, but an animal liberationist. Everyone interested in this discussion should definitely check it out! it's called: The Lost Religion of Jesus.
That was a very interesting point you made about Genesis 9 that I have never thought about before. Thanks for pointing that out!
Very interesting answer and not something I had considered before.
Something I always have to remind myself when I get involved in a potentially contentious discussion: "People won't care what you know until they know that you care." The object here isn't to win an argument, but to express concern for the other person and hopefully point them in the right direction.
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