Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

“God said, “Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree, which bears fruit yielding seed. It will be your food.“
Genesis 1:29

God told them to look at, take notice, observe, see, or gaze at what He was about to say. It is an interjection that focuses attention. What He was about to say was important. The rule of humanity over the living creatures did not extend to them eating the living creatures. They were to shepherd them, not consider them a food source. Humanity could use them for work, or to do tasks for humanity, but not for food. All living creatures had legal protection from humanity.

It’s easy to interpret this verse through the lens of our understanding of human diet, but it is VERY important to note that this is Pre-Fall humanity. Perfect humans in a perfect Creation. So, yes, fruit with seeds and herbs with seeds are THE ultimate and best diet for a human body. But it was NOT left there. It continued after the Fall until the flood. At that point – since most vegetation had been destroyed or severely damaged in the flood – God gave permission for humanity to eat the flesh of animals (but not the blood – Genesis 9:3-4). From God’s point of view, fruit and herbs with seeds AND the flesh of living creatures is perfectly acceptable for human beings to eat. Some have taken this verse to mean that a vegan diet is neccessary for alignment with God, but that is a demonic doctrine (1 Timothy 4:1-5). God gave us PERMISSION to eat meat. The ONLY thing that aligns us with God is trust in Jesus (Acts 4:12; John 14:6). Our diets have NOTHING to do with it.

The other thing to remember is that death isn’t a part of life. It isn’t NORMAL. It was NEVER meant to be. It is a result of Sin. In the beginning, when Adam was consuming food, there was no death. No killing. He had no reason to harvest flesh. It was only AFTER the Fall that death appeared. And it took a pretty long time for it to be a normal part of life. The animals didn’t immediately swap over their diets any more than we did (Genesis 6:11). Until the flood, humanity had no reason to seek out flesh. Also, it is hard to have dominion over something if the threat of killing them is present. ‘Obey me or you’re dinner’ is not an effective way to shepherd or steward a chicken. So after the Fall, when death was in play, humanity had no reason to change over their diet if looked at from a ‘their task’ point of view. Does that mean that since we get our authority back in Jesus we should avoid meat? No. God gave us permission to eat it.

What does science say about this diet? It agrees! Eating animal products leads to long-term health issues BUT only if you eat a lot of them. Kind of like everything else, you know? Over-indulgence is bad. We are human beings. Created to need fats, grains, legumes, vegetables, dark leafy greens, sunlight and many other things. A BALANCED diet. How much should animal products make up that diet? Science currently can prove that anything up to ten (10) percent of our diet has no real negative side effects. Over ten percent we see issues. Ten, six, or zero? The same results. Well, remember way back when and what our meals looked like? A piece of meat, lots of sides. It was about the ratio that science says is beneficial. We don’t NEED meat to survive. The only vitamin they have naturally that is not found elsewhere is Vitamin B12 (Vit B12 is found in the bacteria on the plant matter animals eat, but that isn’t safe for us to directly consume), but we can get that in supplements and in some other fortified foods. It is not WRONG to eat meat.

The sage Ramban notes that due to the specific language used, it was not the herbs themselves that they were to eat but the SEEDS. Grains of wheat, barley, beans, etc. And that it wasn’t until the curse when they were told to eat the herbs of the field. Also, it was the FRUIT of the tree that was their food. The trees themselves were not meant to be considered food.

Corresponding to this, I often wonder if the negative effects on the human body from consuming animal products comes from what we have done to them. Go back a hundred years and many food animals (the chicken, for example) look VERY different from what they do today. Our breeding of animals and the way we have altered how we farm them has changed many of them into something almost unrecognizable (the Belgian Blue, for example, has HUGE muscle mass and was developed in the 19th-20th century). If we had let animals become the best they could be naturally, instead of breeding them into our ideals (or messing with their genetics), would they be as harmful to us as they are today or would they be beneficial? It’s interesting food for thought. And again, I don’t mean we can’t eat them. God gave His permission. What I wonder is: have we really been good stewards of the animal kingdom?