ADAM & EVE WERE VEGETARIANS

Genesis says that Adam and Eve were vegetarians before they were expelled from paradise. This may not mean much when we consider it a fable^1, but is relevant when we consider it the work of someone enlightened.^2,3

This first book of the Bible says that people once lived in harmony, that they put an end to it by eating a forbidden fruit, and that ten generations later they almost completely destroyed themselves. It thus recognizes the most important lesson mankind has to learn: the fact that a society that doesn’t live in harmony is eventually bound to destroy itself. The author of Genesis foresaw something that we can only comprehend today.

When we reflect upon evolution we see that technology makes weapons become continually more sophisticated, while at the same time it enables an always smaller percentage of the world population to appropriate an always larger percentage of all available resources, thus increasing the tension between the different groups of people, and between them and their environment. Now that we have weapons of mass-destruction, mankind’s self-destruction can occure any moment.

To assure mankind’s survival, we have to ask why we have conflicts, which is the same as asking what the forbidden fruit refers to. By telling us that Adam and Eve were vegetarians before their expulsion from paradise, Genesis associates harmony with a vegetarian diet and suggests that a change in mankind’s diet put an end to harmony.

Jews, Christians and Muslims long for paradise because of Genesis, but ignore that Genesis associates paradise – a harmonious society – with a vegetarian diet. This is because they consider that the Bible holds the word of God and have a ‘pagan’ understanding of God.

People who see God as a father (or ruler) who must be obeyed at all times, allow God to be capricious. They accept that He can forbid something or change His mind without any reason. What matters for them is not why there was a forbidden fruit or what it referred to, but the fact that God forbade eating it. Instead of seeing the end of paradise as a result of eating the forbidden fruit, they regard it as the punishment for having disobeyed God.

God first prescribed a vegetarian diet to Adam and Eve, but later allowed Noah to eat meat. This is why Jews, Christians and Muslims eat other creatures, thus ignoring that Genesis associates harmony with a vegetarian diet. However, this second dietary law conceals a reality to those who do not ask why God changed his mind.

People who don’t question the God⁴ in Genesis, base themselves on this second dietary law to ignore the former. They are so pleased that God allowed them to eat meat, that they do not care why He changed His mind. They do not pay attention to the fact that God gave Noah the second law after exclaiming: "Never again will I curse the earth because of man, because the plans of the human heart are evil from their childhood. Never again will I hurt every living thing as I have done."

God was clearly not pleased with Noah. He had a good reason for being disappointed. He had asked Noah to take the animals with him on the ark so that also they would survive the flood, and the first thing Noah did upon landing was to offer a sacrifice of some of those animals.

The second dietary law says: "Everything that lives and moves will be yours to eat”. It not only allows eating animals, but also humans. Since later it says: "But you will not eat the meat with its soul, that is, with its blood. And I promise to demand account of your own blood. I shall demand it of every animal and of man. All of them and each of them will be demanded account for the human soul. He who sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God was man created", God allows Noah and his descendants to eat other creatures to recover their human soul. Once they recover their human soul, they no longer need to eat other creatures.

Christians justify their omnivore diet by referring to the second dietary law, but eat blood although this second dietary law forbids doing so. This demonstrates that one can ignore in the Bible whatever one wants to ignore.

A lot of people claim that the opposite is true: that one can find whatever one wants to find in the Bible. The fact that in the past people have used the Bible both to defend and to condemn the same idea –slavery, alcohol, etc.– shows that this ‘sacred book’ can indeed be interpreted in many ways. But that doesn’t mean that one can find whatever one wants to find in it. For instance, one cannot find that in the days of Paradise Adam and Eve ate animals.

What is true, however, is that one can ignore in the Bible –and in life in general– whatever one wants to ignore. For instance, one can ignore that God forbade eating blood or that Genesis associates paradise with a vegetarian diet.

In the dietary law that God gives to Noah, He refers to the dietary law given earlier on to Adam and Eve. While in this second law God indicates: "Everything that lives and moves will be yours to eat: I give you everything, the same as I have given you the green herbs" (Gn9:3), in the first law He says: "Behold, I have given you all seed-bearing plants that are upon the face of the whole earth, as well as every tree that bears fruit that holds seeds, this will be your food. And to all the wild animals on earth, and to all the birds of heaven and all the living creatures that creep along the ground, all the green herbs I give them as food." (Gn1:29-30) The fact that God had given the green herbs to the animals means that he regarded Noah as an animal. This explains why God tells Noah and his family to claim their human blood (his human soul).

That Genesis associates paradise with a vegetarian diet should not surprise us. Harmony among people requires empathy –Hillel, a famous Jewish religious leader of the first century BC, said the Bible teaches us not do to others what is hateful to us– and vegetarians are obviously able to put themselves in the place of others, since that is one of the reasons for not eating animals. Besides, paradise is not only for humans (or only for the rich, or for people from a particular race or with a particular religion, etc...). Living in harmony means to respect the environment and the other people and the other creatures of course form part of it.

Since our childhood we get used to a particular diet and so it is so hard to question what we eat or do not eat. That is why Genesis does not openly condemn eating other creatures. In case the Bible had done so, pagans would never have accepted it as a 'sacred book'.

In the past, some people did become aware of the fact that Genesis associates paradise with a vegetarian diet. Whereas Daniel, an OT book about the days of the Babylonian deportation, mentions several Israelites of royal and noble family that that were vegetarians and stayed away from alcohol (Dn1), the NT suggests that also the early Christians –Jesus was of noble descent– were vegetarians (and stayed away from alcohol): Saint Paul says in Romans: ‘It is not good to eat meat’ (Rm14:21).

The defenders of the omnivore diet can oppose that if vegetarianism was really an important issue, God would have forbidden eating other creatures. But they ignore that in the days of paradise God neither forbade to kill, to steal, to lie, etc. That one prohibition –staying away from the forbidden fruit– was apparently enough to guarantee harmony. Keeping themselves to that single rule enabled them to respect the environment, the other humans and the other creatures.

We can wonder whether eating the forbidden fruit started a chainreaction of violence leading to more violence⁵. When we reflect upon history we see that we continuosly make the same mistakes, which means that we do not learn everything there is to learn from our experiences⁶ and there is thus something wrong with our understanding of reality and therefore as well as with our perception of reality⁷. To find out why we have conflicts, we only have to ask what substances alter our perception of reality in such a way that we focus so much on certain aspects that we ignore others…

Bruno Lernout, a self-taught seeker, is the author of secretsinthebible.blogspot.com.es and of secretsinthebible.com.

1 Science doesn’t contradict the Bible, but only a particular interpretation of that book. Adam and Eve, for instance, do not represent the first people, but only the first people that ate the forbidden fruit and thus put an end to harmony.

2 Genesis is a sacred book because it holds secrets.The word ‘sacred’ has the same origin as ‘secret’ and derives from the latin verb ‘segregare’. Our ancestors called the part of the temple that only the high priest could enter ‘sacred’ because it was ‘segregated’ (separated) from the rest. Since what is segregated conceals something from other people, the ideas ‘sacred’ and ‘secret’ were associated with each other from the very beginning.

3 Mystics associate the Greek words ‘genesis’ (beginning) and ‘gnosis’ (hidden wisdom / comprehension) with each other because they have the same consonants.

4. We can consider the forces that govern the universe as God. There are many laws of nature, but all are based on the principle of cause and effect.

5. Violence causes traumas and these are passed on from one generation to the other and eventually create more violence.

6. When one learns everything there is to learn from an experiences one can avoid it to happen again in the future.

7. We obtain our understanding of reality from our perception of reality.