Genesis 1:29, God Allows Eating Meat, Part I of II

Posted on Thursday, October 9, 2014 in Bible Commentary | 0 comments

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 meat.

//Today’s verse seems to be saying that God intended us to be vegetarian. Fruits and vegetables and herbs: these are our “meat.” The same is said in the next verse about animals: they are to eat green herbs for their meat.

Many bible scholars take these verses to mean exactly what they say, that the author(s) was claiming God made the animal kingdom (including us) vegetarian. God’s divine order did not include killing of animals.

The problem is, people like meat. So humankind descended into chaos and began killing and eating. The writers of the Bible liked meat, too. So after Noah’s flood came along, which was supposed to clean up the chaos so we could start over, God conveniently rewrote his law:

Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.

So now we can all eat animal meat, right? We’re not stuck with just herbs anymore. God gave in and allowed this evil. But he did so with a certain stipulation, which served to make the eating of meat acceptable. Can you guess what the stipulation is?

I’ll give you the answer tomorrow.