In
Wat
kind of animals may we eat the author of the SAB picks verses
throughout the Bible and without looking at the context. That way he
arrives at the desired conclusion that there is a contradiction. But
we should always look at the context. To do otherwise is blatantly
unfair. You can let a person say anything if you just pick the
appropriate sentences.
In this case the context is the time when the text was written and for
what purpose. There are five Biblical times that are relevant when
looking at the question what animals we may eat:
- When man lived in the Garden of Eden.
- Before the Flood.
- After the Flood.
- In Old Testament times in Israel.
- In New Testament times.
Each of them is discussed in some more detail in the next paragraphs.
Garden of Eden
In the Garden of Eden there was no death. Animals didn't eat animals
and man didn't eat animals either. It is a situation that once will
return, see
Is. 65:25.
Before the Flood
It seems after the Fall man either didn't eat animals, or did eat so
in another defiance of God's commands. We never read of the eating of
animals, but after the Flood
God gave permissions to do so (Gen. 9:3):
Every moving thing that
liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all
things.
After the Flood
After the Flood
God gave
permissions to eat animals (Gen. 9:3), either because man already did
so before the Flood and he was so hardened he wouldn't change his
ways, but probably also because of the changed conditions. The earth
was still barren and the eating of animal flesh might have been
necessary to enhance the scarce and incomplete vegetables at that time.
And of course
the Ice
Age would be coming up, and there would be many years in which the
growing of vegetables was impossible on almost a third of the earth's
surface.
Old Testament Israel
God gave special laws to Israel. They were specific for the Jews and
for their country and for the time up to the New Testament. These laws
were not generally applicable. It was no sin for the heathen not to
obey them, because they didn't apply to them.
For example only certain kinds of animals could be eaten, see
Deut. 14:3-20 among others.
New Testament times
In the New Testament the laws of the Old Covenant were explicitly
abolished. They had fulfilled their purpose. We see this in
the renting of the veil of the
Tabernacle (Luke 23:45),
the vision Peter had (Acts 10:15) and finally the
decision at the Apostle
Convent (Acts 15:19):
Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which
from among the Gentiles are turned to God:
So there are no specific laws now of what animals can be eaten and
what animals cannot be eaten. Each person is free in his own
conscience to do or not to do so.
