There have been some questions about something I said regarding the reason I believe God allowed mankind to consume animal flesh in my article about pH levels a couple weeks ago.
Lester writes:
"Dear Rev. Malkmus, I notice you have a strong link to the Bible as the basis of your diet – which I think is good. However, I think there are other reasons why the longevity of people deteriorated after the flood... I wanted to ask you if you had some explanation as to why God gave meat for the people after the flood... If God said He gave it (flesh) to mankind as He had given the green herb... but deep down He knew it was going to be the cause of sickness and death – we can hardly trust God on anything else if this is the case..."Those who try and use Genesis 9:3 to justify the consuming of animal flesh today fail to realize the circumstances under which God allowed this some 1,700 years after God had told Adam he should consume a 100% plant based diet in Genesis 1:29. Let’s go back to Genesis chapters one and two and see what we can learn:
- God plants a garden eastward of Eden and there he puts the man whom He had just created. “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And the Lord God planted a garden eastward of Eden and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food.” (Genesis 2:7-9)
- Then in Genesis 1:29 God gives man the diet He obviously designed His human creation to be nourished with: “And God said, Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat." The word "meat" is properly translated as "food." Look it up in a good concordance.
- Seventeen hundred years later we learn that flood waters covered the entire earth, thus destroying all garden foods: “And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered.” (Genesis 7:19)
- After the flood had destroyed all plant sourced foods, God gives man permission in Genesis 9:3 to consume animal flesh for the very first time since the creation of man: “Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you even as the green herb have I given you all things.”
“And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.”Friend, a leaf does not mean there was fruit available to eat immediately after the flood. Following such a flood it would take time after the tree had put forth leaves, before blossoms would appear and fruit was available for food. It would be difficult for anyone to disagree with what I have shared thus far. Now we get to the contentious part. I contend that God allowed man to consume the flesh of the clean animals that were upon the ark for survival purposes because all plant foods had been destroyed by the flood. Others view Genesis 9:3 as God adding flesh to man’s diet for nutritional purposes because the Genesis 1:29 diet was no longer adequate to meet the nutritional needs of man. Question: Why would God add flesh for nutritional reasons when all the nutrients found in animal flesh and dairy originate in the plant foods the animal ate? When a person consumes an animal source food, they are receiving the nutrients second-hand through an animal rather than first-hand from the plant as God designed (See Genesis 1:29). If God added flesh to man’s diet for some other reason than survival, I have difficulty understanding what that reason might be. During the 1,700 years preceding the adding of flesh to man’s diet man lives to an average age of 912 (age of patriarchs at death) and without a single recorded instance of sickness. Following the introduction of flesh to the diet in Genesis 9:3, sickness begins to manifest and the lifespan of man drops dramatically from an average of 912 years before the flood on the Genesis 1:29 diet to 110 years in ten generations after the introduction of flesh. It should be evident to all that there had to have been something in the consuming of animal flesh that caused sickness to manifest and the lifespan to decline so rapidly. What was that something? As you study the anatomy of man, you find that there is nothing to indicate man was designed by God to ever consume animal flesh on a long-term basis. Man does not have teeth that will rip and tear flesh, nor a digestive tract that can properly and efficiently handle flesh, nor stomach acid sufficient to break down flesh, nor the ability to get the flesh out of the body in a timely manner before it putrefies. Research and experience reveal that animal flesh and dairy are the cause or contributing cause of almost every physical problem man experiences. Eliminate animal sourced foods from the diet and you eliminate almost any potential for a heart attack, stroke, cancer, diabetes, arthritis, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, asthma, heart burn, mucous and allergy problems as well as acid stomach, heartburn, and the list goes on. Tens of thousands of people through the years have written to tell me that after they stopped consuming animal source foods and got back to that 100% plant based (primarily raw) diet God gave Adam in Genesis 1:29, they saw their physical and psychological problems simply go away and they didn’t get sick anymore.
