The Bible on Flesh Eating
By James Montgomery
JUST before the flood, it was declared that the wickedness of man was great in those days, and “every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Gen. 6:5. Besides this, “there were giants . . . in those days” (Gen. 6:4), so that with giant bodies and long life there was almost no limit to their power for evil. The world was destroyed by water, and another trial made. Noah was set down in the earth after the waters dried up, and was commanded to eat of both clean and unclean beasts. Before this, the clean animals were used for sacrifice, but not for food; but now both were to be eaten: “Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.” Gen. 9:3. It may be questioned that the purpose was merely to reduce the average years of man’s life, but the very fact of seeing the average severed in the middle in the first generation proves it to be true. The original span ranged from the 930 years of Adam’s life to the 969 of Methuselah’s, who was the oldest of all. Noah died at the advanced age of 950 years, while his oldest son reached only 602; and the next generation is recorded at less than 450; and after that it recedes quickly to 239 years. Genesis 11. At the time of Moses it was said that man’s life was rated at “threescore and ten” (Ps. 90:10), which is considerably less than men lived during the centuries of a vegetable dietary. According to sacred chronology, about fourteen centuries elapsed from the creation to the deluge, with no decrease in the years of the lives of men, as against eight centuries from the flood to the time of Moses, with a decrease of something like eight hundred years in the longevity of men. The cause of the rapid falling off of the allotted time of man’s existence on earth is no doubt traceable directly to meat eating. When extinction of the species was threatened because of the brevity of life, God called his chosen people out of bondage, away from the “flesh-pots of Egypt,” and fed them forty years on “corn from heaven,” and gave them divers laws and regulations respecting hygiene and diet. The law upon which is placed greatest stress is that forbidding the use of certain animals and fowls as food, but it is unnecessary to mention these unclean beasts here, as the whole record may be had in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14. It may be interesting to note that certain restrictions were placed even upon the use of clean meats; as, for instance, the forbidding of the use of fat and blood. The animal was to be used only on the first and second day after it was killed, “and if it be eaten at all on the third day, it is abominable” (Lev. 19:7), which is very different from the modern custom of allowing meat to “ripen” before being used. It is said that some customers complain of meat if it is too fresh, as it is not so tender then as when it has had time to “ripen,” or decay. Too much can not be said against the inhuman practice of eating half-decayed flesh. It is “ripe” with germs, and pregnant with disease. The modern practice of eating animal fat is not consistent with Bible teachings at all, for do we not read that “ye shall eat neither fat nor blood” (Lev. 3:17)? and again is it not written: “Ye shall eat no manner of fat, of ox, or of sheep, or of goat”? Lev. 7:23. How, then, can any one claim that the Bible supports the modern practice of flesh eating? Meat eating as permitted by the Bible is about as follows: no pork nor other unclean flesh, no fat, no blood, and no “ripe” flesh, only such things as do the least harm. Therefore, for the champion of a meat diet to affirm that the Bible sanctions the modern way of eating flesh is, to say the least, rather far-fetched. And were these same individuals restricted to the Bible plan of using flesh, they would become vegetarians in a very short time; for the blood and fat contain all the flavor of the meat.—James Montgomery, in Health.