By Harry Cooper
A Summary of Genesis 1:29
After creating the entire Universe, God creates humans and tells humanity about their special diet. There are many translations for what their diet was: “every herb bearing seed,” “every plant yielding seed,” “every fruit yielding seed,” “every tree that has fruit” or “the fruit of a tree yielding seed.”
What all these translations have in common is that they are clearly stating that trees and plants shall be food and not animals.
Later, in the story of Noah, humanity was told that animals shall be for meat as well. However, in the Garden of Eden, plants and trees were all we needed.
Let’s explore deeper what it means for humanity to be prescribed a plant-based diet in the beginning of the Bible.
Eco Bible
A Plant-Based Diet Is Prescribed to Humanity in Genesis 1:29
Genesis 1:29 – God Said, “Behold, I Have Given You Every Seed-Bearing Plant That Is Upon All the Earth, and Every Tree That Has Seed-Bearing Fruit; They Shall Be Yours for Food.”
One of the only statements God made to people when they were created is to eat a plant-based diet. “It is altogether impossible to conceive of the Blessed Ruler of all creation . . . imposing upon this most excellent creation an eternal decree such as this: that the human race would maintain its existence by going against its moral sensibilities through the shedding of blood, albeit the blood of animals,” Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook writes. “Is it possible to conceive that a highly valued moral virtue, which had already existed as a part of the human legacy, should be lost forever?”(Excerpted from “The Vision of Eden”) Rabbi Kook wrote in the early 1900s that in a “brighter era,” people will return to a plant-based diet and “God shall cause us to make great spiritual strides, and thus extricate us from this complex question.” (Ibid)
Rabbi Elchanan Samet teaches: “What is the content of God’s first statements to man? They do not contain commandments and prohibitions related to man’s relationship to God. Rather, these initial statements are intended to mold people’s relationship with creation. In current times, this question has become crucial, owing to the ecological crisis threatening the world and all its inhabitants. Human beings, having ‘filled the world and conquered it, and ruling’ over all its elements (animal, vegetable, mineral), have brought our generation to this crisis, which already threatens our world and places a question mark over the future of the generations to come.”(Samet) Indeed, our own survival depends on the health and thriving of creation.
God Gives Us A Vegan Diet: Genesis 1:29
Genesis 1:29 discusses eating a plant based diet in terms of “every herb bearing seed”, “every plant yielding seed”, “fruit yielding seed”, “tree that has fruit”, “fruit of a tree yielding seed”, and so on. But what does God telling us to eat a plant based diet mean in a more practical sense?
In today’s world, the movement to live a plant-based life has moved beyond only eating food made from plants.
There are many different types of plant-based diets. There are vegetarian diets which can include food such as eggs and dairy, there are vegan diets that resemble what God said to eat in Genesis 1:29, which include no meat or animals products whatsoever, and there are even flexitarian or reducetarian diets which don’t take any kind of food off the table, but involve trying to eat minimal meat and animal products.
Starting on a plant-based diet can have many health benefits. By starting to cut out meat from your diet and eating more plant-based food you can reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and even increase overall longevity.
Whether you’re a flexitarian who only stays away from the animal products that they know they can live without, or a full fledged vegan that eats plant-based foods, you can still gain the benefits of thinking about your food, and eating less meat.
How The Genesis 1:29 Diet Helps the Planet
As previously mentioned, the Eco-Bible discusses how Genesis 1:29 is not about God commanding us to respect him, but rather respect his creation. In order to understand how respecting God’s creation relates to modern plant-based diets, we have to look at what are the benefits of eating vegetarian/vegan food for the environment.
One of the most important benefits for the environment that comes from eating less meat, and one of the most relevant to Genesis 1:29, is that it uses land more efficiently. In order to produce meat, you have to also grow the food to feed the animals, whereas to grow plant-based food you only need to use land to grow plants. This means a plant-based diet requires a lot less land to feed people.
But what does that have to do with respecting God’s creation?
In a fully carnivorous world, the planet would be dominated by industrial meat farms that represent humankind’s conquering and ruling of the world. However when we use less land for food production, we have more land to to leave untouched and and unconquered.
By respecting the natural world that is God’s creation, we are able to fulfil the commandment God gave us in Eden, help the planet and care for ourselves.
* Featured image source
