The Bible's stance on eating meat may surprise you (2024)
Q: I have an ongoing problem because I'm living as a hypocrite. I'm an animal lover but I eat meat. I don't eat veal or lamb because they are from young animals, but I eat meat, fish, fowl and eggs. Is there anything in the Bible that refers to this or to Christ's personal practice? Did Jesus eat meat? I'm aware that I'm looking for absolution for eating meat, but I can't get rid of this conflict in my mind. As I say, it is hypocritical. I would never hunt or fish, but I eat what someone else kills to put meat on my table. Is killing and eating animals a sin in the eyes of God or Jesus? What would Jesus have said? -- From L
P.S. I contribute to many animal groups, especially to help farm animals and to ban dog racing, etc., but it doesn't erase the guilt.
A: In Genesis 1:29 God speaks to Adam,
"And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb-bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food."
In the second chapter of Genesis (2:16-17) vegetarianism is re-affirmed as people's spiritually proper diet. However, one tree in the Garden of Eden bore forbidden fruit,
"And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."
Nothing could be clearer. God does not want us to eat meat. People are made in God's image and animals are not, but this spiritual difference is not sufficiently morally significant to allow killing animals for food. Killing another person is a capital crime and a sin. Killing an animal is just a sin.
The moral and spiritual ambiguity about eating meat is made more explicit in the ninth chapter of Genesis (Genesis 9:3-6) when God tells Noah in the covenant made with him after the Great Flood,
"Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things. But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. 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. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man."
So God has a change of heart and strikes what I consider to be a perfect spiritual balance. God is saying that being a vegetarian is clearly the higher way, but it is not the only way. Meat is not murder, but it is not the highest moral level to which we can elevate our diet. Eating meat also makes us comfortable around blood, and blood is life. Spilling the blood of animals makes us less revolted by spilling the blood of people.
This nuanced position that eating meat is a concession to human carnivorous urges but not our highest level helps us to learn that the Bible offers us many levels of spiritual practice. We can live a life on as high a level as we want.
The question of whether or not Jesus was a vegetarian is complicated. There is no direct statement on the subject by Jesus in the New Testament. The story of Jesus feeding fish to people would support the view that Jesus may have been a pescatarian. Paul seems to have been more open to meat eating, but even Paul was open to vegetarianism. In 1 Corinthians 8:13 Paul said, "Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend." So for Paul vegetarianism was a way of not offending vegetarian hosts, but was not an explicit command of God.
Modern Christianity has produced the vegetarian Seventh Day Adventists who are vegetarians because of the teachings of their co-founderEllen G. White.
So what can I say to ease your carnivorous guilt? I would suggest that you experiment with meatless Mondays, and then no meat till dinner, and then maybe a period of time when you eat no meat for a period of time. Your moral intuitions are right. There is something hypocritical about the way we profess life and then eat the world to death. Remember that your journey to God has many levels and you ought to have no shame or guilt about the stage of your journey that you have reached so far.
Send questions and comments to The God Squad via email atgodsquadquestion@aol.com.Rabbi Gellmanis the author of several books, including "Religion for Dummies," co-written with Fr.Tom Hartman.
After the Great Flood, God changes the rule, allowing consumption of meat: “Every creature that lives shall be yours to eat; as with the green grasses, I give you all these” (Gen. 9:3). There are, however, restrictions: “You must not, however, eat flesh with its life-blood in it.
The only dietary restrictions specified for Christians in the New Testament are to "abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from meat of strangled animals" (Acts 15:29), teachings that the early Church Fathers, such as Clement of Alexandria and Origen, preached for believers to follow.
It is a dangerous, sinful act since Paul explicitly links idol food to idolatry in 10:19-20 and never says, ¡°Eat idol food as long as the weak are not caused to stumble.
This disapproval of the pig's food and habits is the most common explanation of the prohibition. Swine do have food habits that are different from the main domesticated animals that are raised for food, in both ancient Israel and the modern world, namely cows, sheep, and goats.
Genesis 1:29: “Then God said, 'I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. '” Ecclesiastes 9:7: “Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for God has already approved what you do.”
Did Jesus eat meat? Many Christians readily assert that Jesus ate meat. Yet there isn't one instance in which he ate meat recorded in the Bible or other historical texts. Historians have frequently noted that Jesus' brother James was a vegetarian and had been raised vegetarian.
forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.
Christians may eat pork because God has declared it once more to be clean. “What God has declared clean you must not call common” (Acts 10:15). Pork is one of those “foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth” (1Timothy 4:3).
In summary, eating meat on Friday is a sin (excluding Solemnities or serious grounds for exception such as illness), but whether it is a mortal sin or a venial one will depend on many factors, including the quantity of meat, the number of Fridays in question, and the significance of the particular Fridays in question.
The moral and spiritual ambiguity about eating meat is made more explicit in the ninth chapter of Genesis (Genesis 9:3-6) when God tells Noah in the covenant made with him after the Great Flood, "Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.
Among the early Judeo-Christian Gnostics the Ebionites held that John the Baptist, James the Just and Jesus were vegetarians. Some religious orders of various Christian Churches practice pescetarianism, including the Benedictines, Franciscans, Trappists, Carthusians and Cistercians.
The only food allowed to Adam and Eve (and indeed all the animals) in the Garden of Eden was plants. Meat-eating was not allowed by God until the time of Noah, when it was clearly a concession to human weakness. In the laws of the Bible, the suffering of animals must be avoided.
In Leviticus 11, the Lord speaks to Moses and Aaron and sets out which animals can be eaten and which cannot: “You may eat any animal that has a divided hoof and that chews the cud. There are some that only chew the cud or only have a divided hoof, but you must not eat them.
Out of all the peoples on the face of the earth, the LORD has chosen you to be his treasured possession. Do not eat any detestable thing. the deer, the gazelle, the roe deer, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope and the mountain sheep. You may eat any animal that has a split hoof divided in two and that chews the cud.
To be specific, Jesus drank water and wine, ate only whole grain bread, abstained from pork and shellfish, and ate large quantities of healthy foods like olive oil, grapes, figs, pomegranates, various kinds of vegetables, and fish. This is “the Jesus way of eating” [p. xv].
It's not. In the Old Testament, it was for the Jewish people. They were not allowed to eat pork. or a bunch of other things like shellfish. But for us, in the New Testament, Jesus said, now, all foods are clean.
It depends on who you ask. There are some Christians who believe it is a sin. The verse in the Bible that most Christians make reference to is Leviticus 19:28, which says,"You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo any marks on you: I am the Lord." So, why is this verse in the Bible?
But in the ancient Middle East, the writers of the Hebrew Bible forbade tattooing. Per Leviticus 19:28, “You shall not make gashes in your flesh for the dead, or incise any marks on yourselves.” Historically, scholars have often understood this as a warning against pagan practices of mourning.
Prohibited foods that may not be consumed in any form include all animals—and the products of animals—that do not chew the cud and do not have cloven hoofs (e.g., pigs and horses); fish without fins and scales; the blood of any animal; shellfish (e.g., clams, oysters, shrimp, crabs) and all other living creatures that ...
The pig is considered an unclean animal as food in Judaism and Islam, and parts of Christianity. Although Christianity is also an Abrahamic religion, most of its adherents do not follow these aspects of Mosaic law and do consume its meat.
Christians have long been inspired by Jesus' command to “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36) to show mercy to animals, for example, and by the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37) to think of compassion for animal neighbors.
Introduction: My name is Lidia Grady, I am a thankful, fine, glamorous, lucky, lively, pleasant, shiny person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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