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But Jesus Ate Fish…and 10 Other Snags in Veggie-Theology

This post is a continuation from a blog series on Dominion* by Matthew Scully:

While Scully outlines God’s care for animals, he doesn’t  say anything about the times when God allows or even prepares the way for humans to eat animals.
I hunted down a few instances of this to look at.

Some examples:      

1.The Bible doesn’t command vegetarianism.Since God began with a meat-free society, it seems to suggest his original intention was a more harmonic, don’t-eat-each-other planet. But, for reasons not fully explained, he quickly moved to permitting meat eating. Not just refraining from striking meat eaters dead, but literally holding a bit of a press conference and announcing that “You can all eat meat now.”

“Every moving thing that lives shall be meat for you; even — in the same way — as the green herb have I given you all things” (Genesis 9:3).

Some may suggest that this is because the earth post-flood, post-getting-messed-up, post judgment is not what God intended anymore.  Hence why only after the flood, the animals now have a “fear of man” (Genesis 9:2).

2. Old Testament figures made animal sacrifices to God, even before the time of Moses and the establishment of the Levitical priesthood (Genesis 8:20; 22:7-8, 13). This was seen as pleasing to God.

3. Under the law of Moses, animals were ritualistically killed and offered to God as burnt sacrifices. (Leviticus 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.) The priests were allowed to eat from these sacrifices (Leviticus 7:31-35).

4. Each Israelite family was instructed to kill a lamb or goat and eat it by morning, burning all leftovers (Exodus 12).


(Note, in all these cases, Jewish tradition is said to have practiced humane killing and did not involve factory-style slaughtering to provide an excessive meat diet.)

5. Whether God encouraged mankind to eat meat or not, he certainly permitted it. In Deuteronomy 12:20, “You say, ‘Let me eat meat,’ because you long to eat meat, you may eat as much meat as your heart desires.” 

(You might be able to argue that this is a case of humans wanting things God didn’t originally intend for them, similar to how God granted Israel’s demand for a king by giving them the less-than-ideal ruler, Saul. Also note there are instructions against eating meat that still has the ‘lifeblood’ in it, which some suggest was for the purpose of protecting eaters from disease associated with rare or undrained-meat and to prevent them from slaughtering conscious animals.)

6. God provided enormous amounts of quail to the Israelites in the desert (Numbers 11:4, 13, 31-33).

7. Jesus ate fish (Luke 24:41-43; John 21:8-10).

8. Jesus implies a good father would grant his son’s request for a fish (Matthew 7:10).

9. On more than one occasion, Jesus performed miracles by multiplying fish and bread so the people could eat (Mathhew 14:19, 15:34, John 21:13).

10.Jesus performed miracles by providing more fish for the fishermen to catch (Luke 5:6). (My friend Erik points out that Jesus’ cooperation with fish-eating doesn’t necessarily suggest he would approve of some abusive fishing practices used today, like netting systems that contribute to marine mammal suffering.)

11.Biblical writers do not address eating meat, beyond permitting the consumption of meat sacrificed to idols (Romans 14). (Perhaps writers did not address meat-eating in the specific terms we are looking for, in part, because meat was a very small part of the ancient diet and was produced more humanely than today, without the same ethical considerations.)


For the next blog in the series, please click here.

*Please check out “Shop Local”* under the categories to the right for purchase options (or if you’re reading this through a facebook feed, see the blog categories at sarahcunningham.org).
(This content automatically feeds from sarahcunningham.org, the web home of author Sarah Cunningham. Sarah’s next book, a memoir called Picking Dandelions, will be released February 1st, 2010. It is now available to be pre-ordered at Amazon.Com.)
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