Meat eating in the Bible: finding the truth

There are several passages in the Bible that appear to mention meat eating, and many Christians use them to sustain the idea that meat eating is supported in the Bible. Is it true?

There are several passages in the Bible that appear to mention meat eating. In Luke 8:55, referring to a woman Christ raised from the dead, it's said: "And her spirit returned, and she got up at once. And he directed to give her meat." In John 4:8, it's mentioned: "For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat." Acts 9:19 says, " And when he had received meat, he was strengthened."

There are other passages like that, and naturally many Christians use them to sustain the idea that meat eating is supported in the Bible. Some go as far as maintaining that Christ was himself eating meat. How can we understand that?

Satyaraja Prabhu did a good deal of research on this topic and wrote a small booklet called "You mean that's in the Bible?" There he went to the oldest versions of the Bible available, in Greek, and did research on the words that were originally used. He found the words Broma (food), Brosis (eating food), Phago (to eat), Brosimos (that which may be eaten), Trophe (nourishment), and Phosphafon (anything to eat). It appears that none of the passages where the Saint Jones Bible mentions "meat" actually refer to flesh. These different passages simply speak about eatables or the act of eating or being nourished.

In this way, in Luke 8:55, Christ is simply ordering to give the woman something to eat. In John 4:8 the disciples simply went to the city to buy some eatables and in Acts 9:19 it's simply said that after eating he became stronger.

In reality, the English word "meat" itself had a different meaning in the past. Nowadays we use meat exclusively for flesh, but in the past "meat" was more generally used to mean food in general. In India, because of the influences of old English, it's common for people to call sweets "sweetmeats", although there is no flesh involved.

In passages of the Bible that directly speak about meat in the sense of parts of the bodies of animals, the word "flesh" is used. In Genesis 9:4-5 "But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man. From the hand of every man’s brother I will require the life of man." (in other words, one who eats flesh will have to pay for it with his own life)

Several other passages in the Old Testament directly condemn meat eating, like in Isaiah 66:3, where it's said: "He who slaughters an ox is like one who kills a man; he who sacrifices a lamb, like one who breaks a dog’s neck".

In this way, the reality is that there are a number of passages in the Old Testament that condemn meat eating, and the few passages in the New Testament that appear to support eating are just the fruit of mistranslations of general words for eating. Therefore, the Bible (even in the current edition, after centuries of editions) does not support meat-eating at all.

How come almost all Christians now eat meat regularly? Apparently, it all started with Paul. Although considered one of the apostles, Paul never met Christ. He was converted 4 to 7 years after Christ was crucified, supposedly after seeing Christ in a vision. However, this did not prevent him from becoming a very influential personality in the history of Christianity. He created a new interpretation of the words of Christ based on the idea that faith alone is required to achieve salvation. Before him, the consensus among the apostles was that faith needs to be sustained by good works, according to the laws of the Old Testament. Quickly, the interpretation of Paul became the dominant strain of Christianity, and this led to a great change in the beliefs and practices. It's quite easy to do so since if one believes he or she will be saved by just believing in Christ (instead of being judged by his acts) he will be less propense to follow all the rules.

There is a lot of evidence that early Christians were vegetarian, believed in reincarnation, and valued celibacy and renunciation, much like devotees in the early days of our movement, but soon such values went out of fashion and people started interpreting the words of Christ differently. The number of members grew quickly, but the followers became much less strict. If you see some similarities here, you are not alone.

Three centuries later, when it came the time for formalizing the Christian faith in the Council of Nicaea, most Christians already believed in a philosophy that was substantially different from the one taught by Christ. As a result, the Bible was heavily edited and passages that did not conform to the dominant beliefs at the time were taken out of the text. Went out passages speaking about reincarnation, celibacy, vegetarianism, and so on. The fact that a few passages suggesting these things remain in the Bible up to this day, despite all these editions, just shows that there should be much more originally.

This is also a great warning for us. There is a lot of pressure today to edit the works of Srila Prabhupada to make them more attractive to the public. The problem is that Srila Prabhupada is not here to say what should be changed or not. Any changes are done based on values, ideas, and meanings that are current in our spiritual society, as well as in secular society. This means adjusting the philosophy to what people think currently, which may be different than what was originally intended. Once the precedent is created, people will continue editing the books to suit their beliefs, in a process that may completely deface them in time, like in the case of the Bible.

There are two ways a spiritual movement can change after the disappearance of the founder. The first one is positive and happens as people start to better understand and practice the teachings. For example, schools in the early days of our movement were plagued by problems (to put it mildly) and there was a very high rate of divorces. If at a certain point, better schools appear and couples stop divorcing, this would be a positive change based on a deeper understanding and application of the philosophy. The second way a movement can change, however, is quite negative and is based on misinterpreting and misusing the teachings of the founder-acarya. The first type of change is based on a better understanding of the original teachings, which of course can only happen when the original teachings are preserved. The second type of change however is facilitated by changes and adulterations in the scriptures.

The history of how Christians evolved from being a group of pure people who were vegetarian, celibate, and renunciant, to meat eaters who believe that money is a sign of God's grace, is a great warning against doing so. Even if followers of a certain faith change or relax their practices over time, there is always the chance that people in the future will at a certain point go back to the original texts and correct things. However, if the texts themselves are compromised, the confusion tends to just increase over time. If we are not careful, two thousand years from now someone may be writing a similar text on the history of our movement.