| Humans, and all other living
creatures, began as vegetarians: "And God said, "Behold, I have
given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all
the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have
them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of
the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that
has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food."
And it was so." (Genesis 1:29-30 RSV) The Seven Days Of
Creation
and The Creation Of Adam And Eve)
Later however, after The
Flood (How Big Was Noah's Ark?), God expanded the permitted diet of humans to
include animals: "Every moving thing that lives shall be food for
you; and as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. Only
you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. For your
life blood I will surely require a reckoning; of every beast I will
require it and of man; of every man's brother I will require the
life of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood
be shed; for God made man in his own image." (Genesis 9:3-6 RSV)
God's Instructions For A Healthy Diet
Although the dietary laws that God specified to the Hebrew people
can be found in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, they actually existed
long before that time. When Noah was preparing the ark, God
instructed him regarding clean and unclean creatures:
"Take with you seven
pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate; and a pair of the
animals that are not clean, the male and his mate; and seven pairs
of the birds of the air also, male and female, to keep their kind
alive upon the face of all the earth." (Genesis 7:2-3
RSV)
"Clean" birds,
animals and insects were generally those that were plant-eaters,
while those "unclean" were meat or carrion eaters e.g. chickens,
cattle and grasshoppers were clean, while vultures, weasels and
flies were unclean. There were some exceptions that may have been
due to their being common carriers of deadly bacterial, viral or
parasitical infections e.g. rats (bubonic plague), bats (rabies),
and pigs (trichinosis).
Clean sea creatures
were apparently those that were found in fresh-flowing water (e.g.
bass, trout), while those unclean tended to be bottom-dwellers (e.g
shellfish, catfish) where natural contaminants collected - a factor
even more relevant in our modern world where vast quantities of
chemical wastes accumulate in the mud of rivers, lakes and oceans.
A full explanation
and examples listing of clean and unclean creatures can be found in
Leviticus chapter 11 and Deuteronomy 14:1-21.
A summary:
|
Clean For
Food: |
Unclean For
Food: |
- cattle
- sheep
- goats
- chickens
- elk
- deer, antelope
- water creatures that have fins and
scales
|
- snakes, lizards
- camels, horses
- weasels, rabbits
- pigs
- vultures, ravens, crows, owls
- bats, rats, flies
- water creatures that do not have fins
and scales
|
While there is yet
controversy as to whether the Levitical dietary laws apply to
Christians today (a subject for another Bible Study which deals with
the principle that all of God's laws apply to all
humans), for most of us it really isn't a problem - snakes,
vultures, rats and the other items on the "unclean menu" don't seem
all that appealing anyway.
The Israelites were
also forbidden to eat the fat and the blood of
any creature, clean or unclean.
Leviticus 7:22-27 Also read Leviticus 20: 25 -
26.
| 
