In this article, I want to show you that God’s creation – man – was not created to eat the flesh of animals.
I will first show the command The Most High God gave to Adam to eat only the produce from trees. Then I will show that flesh-eating was introduced after the flood.
Trees Made By God To Serve As Food For Man
Genesis 2:7-9 reads:
Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
So here we see that God created fruit-bearing trees to serve as food for man.
The Command To Eat From Every Tree
Genesis 2:15-17 reads:
The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”
What is most interesting here is that a command is given. That command is that man was to freely eat from any tree in the garden except one: The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
There is no command for man to eat the flesh of animals. The first man did not have a desire or craving to slaughter and eat the flesh of animals. It would have been something repugnant to him.
Nowhere in the era before the flood of Noah’s day, do we read of the first man hunting animals or even sacrificing them. Therefore, all of mankind from Adam up to the people of Noah’s day were NOT flesh eaters.
The Introduction of Hunting and Eating The Flesh of Animals
It is not until after the flood of Noah’s day that we see hunting and hunters. At Genesis 10:8-12 we read of the man Nimrod:
Cush was the father of Nimrod, who became a mighty warrior on the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord; that is why it is said, “Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord.” The first centers of his kingdom were Babylon, Uruk, Akkad and Kalneh, in Shinar. From that land he went to Assyria, where he built Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah and Resen, which is between Nineveh and Calah—which is the great city.
Nimrod is here mentioned as a mighty hunter before the LORD. (Or in opposition to the LORD). In what sense was Nimrod in opposition to the LORD?
Nimrod hunted animals for the purpose of eating their flesh and possibly sacrificing them. The command God gave the first man was to eat only of the fruitages of trees, not the flesh of animals. Thus, Nimrod was in opposition to the LORD in that he did not obey that command.
The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Jehovah’s Witnesses teach that Nimrod hunted men for sport. That makes no sense. It is a feeble attempt by that organization to minimize the true contributions to the human family by a son of Cush (the progenitor of the African peoples) and to make it appear that the people back then were backward and savages.
That organization does not look at or highlight the accomplishment that Nimrod, a son of Cush, had the first kingdom on the earth, built the first cities after the flood, and built the first great stone structures. This required a knowledge of people management, mathematics, organizational skills, communication, architecture, and a form of writing. These things are not mentioned by the Watch Tower organization and neither do any religious organization claiming to be Christian mention this fact. A son of Cush, the progenitor of African peoples, is purposefully vilified. We see this being perpetuated today. One would think that people of color made no contributions to the human family. Aliens from outer space get more credit than the Cush and his descendants today.
Was Mankind Created To Eat Flesh?
The answer is obviously no. The people in the world today – by and large – are cannibals; eaters of flesh. The eating of flesh from animals has become an acquired taste, not a natural one. If one really thinks about it, it seems unnatural to take the life of an animal for the purpose of eating it. God did not create them to be eaten. In fact, if one thinks about it, never is mankind told to eat something that has a soul. Trees and plants do not have souls because blood does not flow through them. A soul has blood flowing in it and thus life. It is the blood that sustains the life form.
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. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
The Most High God at Genesis 9:4 says:
But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.
I did not address the eating of flesh today. In this article, I only answered the question “Was Mankind Created to Eat Flesh? “
I will discuss the eating of flesh today in another article.
If you see only with your eyes, you will be easy to fool. R. Jerome Harris
