Sri Krishna Mangal

Issue 1: Religion

Vegetarianism in the Bible

By a devout Christian

Praise the Lord.

We see on earth different kinds of bodies living and non-living. Living beings differ from the non-living for the life part of it. Life also differs from one another ie plant life, micro-organisms, complex animals and human beings. Though biologically human beings are also in the category of animals, in one thing human beings differ from other animals, which is the knowledge of the creator. This is the reason why human beings pray to God in some form and worship God. When we consider life, separation of b ody and life or soul is called death. Though death of animals or human beings gives painful feelings in us, the death of humans are more painful than other living beings because the man is considered as the image of God. So death of an animal is not as painful as the death of a human being. There are people who think that unnecessary destruction of plants is not desirable and should be limited to our just needs only. So also it is not desirable to kill animals as they are superior to plant life.

Here it is discussed whether the Bible, which is the scripture of Christians supports killings of animals or not. In general, when we read the Bible, it is seen that the God Jehovah demands sacrifices for the people of Israel when some kind of sin committed by them. The sacrifice was instituted for getting forgiveness of sin in the Old Testament of the Bible. There are various types of sacrifices mentioned in the Bible depending on the magnitude of the sin a person commits by killing the animals/birds. It is believed that the sin of that person is forgiven to him. So God of the Bible demands animal sacrifices, an impression is created when we read this part of the Bible.

However, when we really study the scripture of the Bible in order to know the mind of God revealed in it, it is clear that at the first creation of Man the command was given to eat fruits and vegetables. Genesis Chapter 1 Verse 28, 29 and 30 reads:

Then God blessed them Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves over the earth and God said, See I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed, to you it shall be for food. Also to every beast of the earth, to bird of the air and to everything that creeps on the earth in which there is life I have given herb for f ood and it was so.

Here we can see that at the creation of all things on earth, God had no mind to kill any living being either for food or any other purpose. When we consider further when the first killing of animal took place, we see the first humans, ie Adam and Eve, disobeyed God by eating the forbidden fruit. The consequence was feeling of nakedness of the man in himself and in order to cover that nakedness, they sewed fig leaves to make them aprons, but when God saw it, he had to kill animals to make lasting clothes fo r them. Hence we see the cause of death of animals is in the human beings only. Then comes the sacrifices instituted by God. The sacrifice is symbolically carried out to cover the sin of a person. We further see that the person who comes with the sacrificial animal should confess his sins and the priest will kill the animal and perform the sacrifice. This was a type of the sacrifice God had to perform in the future through Jesus as per teachings of the Bible. So the sacrifice of Jesus was over the old form of sacrifice he suspended and no more animals should be killed as a sacrifice.

When we continue to read the Bible we reach where the people if Israel, ie the descendants of Jacob, one of the grandsons of Abraham, were guided toward the promised land of Canaan before they were slaves in the land of Egypt, where they were freely eating animals, birds and fishes as they wished but their God did not interfere with their free life of enjoying food of their liking. But when they were separated from the land of Egypt they had to pass through the desert where animal food or even animals were not available to them. They were asked to eat a food called manna in the desert which God rained from the heaven for their food. We however read that people started asking/demanding their leader Moses to provide them meat in the desert so Moses prayed to God and God granted the request though it was not his perfect will. We read that while they were eating the flesh the wrath of God was poured on them and so many of them were killed in the desert. We read about it in the Book of Psalms 78 Verse 29, 30 and 31 like this:

So they ate and they were well filled for. He gave them their own desire. They were not deprived of their craving but while their food was still in their mouths, the wrath of God came against them and slew the stoutest of them and struck down the choice men of Israel.

So we see that God of Bible does not demand sacrifice or killing of animals for any reason whatsoever. We see further evidence in the Bible to substantiate the theme of vegetarianism.

(To be continued)