Challenges to Veganism in the OT Resolved. By Dr. Chapman Chen
- Chapman Chen
- Aug 7
- 13 min read
Updated: Oct 9
Introd: There are a few passages in the Old Testament that are often quoted to justify animal abuse/consumption. These challenges can indeed be resolved. E.g., “dominion” (Genesis 1:26, 28) means serving the animals, NOT lordship. Note that the ancient, pre-Masoretic Hebrew word for “dominion” is yirdu ( ירדו), which could refer to either radah (רָדָה /subjugate) or yarad (יָרַד /lower oneself) (cf. Ehrenfeld & Bentley 1985:301). IMO, only yarad could be the right interpretation for Jesus “came to serve, NOT to be served!” (Matt, 20:28);“dominion” (Gen. 1:28) is immediately followed by a vegan diet prescribed by God to humans (Gen. 1:29); & humans are particularly assigned merely to be a humble caretaker of the Garden (Gen. 2:15).
Many theologians contend that animals cannot go to Heaven and humans can do whatever they want to animals on the ground that animals don’t have a soul. The fact is: Not only humans but other animals are gifted with a "living soul" (נֶ֣פֶשׁ חַיָּ֔ה nephesh chayyah) (Genesis 1:21, 24; Genesis 1:30), just that the phrase is translated as life or creature in most mainstream versions of the Bible.
"The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them" (Genesis 3:21). Did God actually hunt down animals in cold blood in order to make fur coats for the first humans? It is likely that God just created it as either the human skin or the human body itself, for before the Fall, Adam and Eve were bodies of light “clothed in light” (Psalm 104:2; Taylor 2013; Malan 1882). After the Fall, their bodies of light turned into skinless flesh, which soon dried up, and God found it necessary to cover them with human skin. For עור (`owr), the Hebrew word for "skin" in the verse, means human skin, the physical human body, or animal hide.
“Remes,” the Hebrew word for “moving thing” in "Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you” (Genesis 9:3 KJV), means “creeping thing” or creeper. Pastor Metcalfe (1840) indicates that there are two kinds of creepers: vegetable creepers and animal ones. “Animal creepers”, i.e., reptiles, are out of the question because they are explicitly forbidden as articles of food (Leviticus 11:41-2). Thus, the creeper which Noah was allowed by eat by God was the vine, or grapes, of every kind (Metcalfe 1840: Chapt. 13).
Abraham was never demanded by God to sacrifice his son Isaac nor a ram caught in a nearby bush as a substitute. How could God, who is love (1 John 4:7-21), possibly order anyone to do any evil act as a test of their obedience to Him? Gen. 22:1-18 needs to be looked at from a Freudian-Christian perspective:- Abraham was tricked by the Devil into projecting to God his faith crisis & unconscious, murderous, Oedipal feelings toward his own son (Wellisch 1954:131), and into thinking that he, Abraham, had to sacrifice his only son, or some other sentient being like a ram, in order to prove his loyalty to Yahuah.
The violent animal sacrifice rituals in the OT (e.g. Leviticus 1:9; Exod. 29:18) must be either an evil cult concocted by the "lying pen of the scribes" (Jer. 8:8), or a superstitious practice borrowed by the Israelis from the pagan religions of some neighbouring tribes, while wandering in the desert as a homeless, terrified people (cf. Phelps 2002, 76-77). Otherwise, how would God, who is LOVE (1 John 4:16), delight to see innocent creatures slaughtered and bled to death, and go on to consume them as His favourite dish? Indeed, true Prophets, incl. Isaiah (1:11), Jeremiah (7:22-23); Hosea (6:6), Amos (5:21-22), & Micah (6:6-8) protested against the sacrificial cult & stressed that God demanded obedience rather than sacrifices. Their vegan legacy was inherited by Jesus who declared "I desire compassion, not sacrifice!" (Matt. 9:13, 12:7). #VeganChrist #VeganGod #VeganChurch #VeganTheology
Full Text: https://www.vegantheology.net/post/challenges-to-veganism-in-the-ot-resolved-by-dr-chapman-chen
1. “Dominion” in Genesis 1:26, 28 Means Serving the Animals, NOT Lordship
Over the last 2000 years, numerous church leaders and theologians have (ab)used the term “dominion” in Genesis 1:26,28) to justify the enslavement, torture, abuse, rape, and murder of innocent creatures of God; and their interpretations of “dominion” can be classified as either hardcore or soft.
According to the hardcore interpretation, “dominion” means absolute, despotic authority and power over animals, as purported by St. Augustine (354-430), St. Thomas Aquinas (1224/1225-1274), and Martin Luther (1483-1546), etc.
As for the soft interpretation of “dominion” as stewardship (Linzey 1995:34) or benevolent lordship (Linzey 1995:106), it had existed since at least the 16th century, before it was formally established by Rev. Prof. Andrew Linzey (1995). Linzey justifies his interpretation on the ground that “dominion” is immediately followed by God’s prescription of a vegan diet to humans in Genesis 2:15; and subsequently by God’s commission to them to take good care of the Garden (Linzey 1995:34). Linzey even contends that the killing of a sentient creature who does not want to die could amount to murder (Linzey 1995:121), and that human species has the unique potential to become the “servant species” able to work with God in liberating animals (Linzey 1995:45, 57). Unfortunately, it is precisely the power of “lordship” that has been abused by people with ulterior motives. For example, Karl Barth (1886-1968) associates human “lordship” over animals with the “primary meaning of requisitioning, disciplining, taming, harnessing, exploiting and making profitable use of” them (Barth 1961:351).
I would like, therefore, to propose a third model of “dominion” in the compassionate spirit of Jesus Christ, namely, “dominion” as servanthood with no authority whatsoever on the part of humans over animals. For the ancient, pre-Masoretic Hebrew word in consonantal form for “dominion” is yirdu ( ירדו), which could refer to either radah (רָדָה /subjugate) or yarad (יָרַד /lower oneself) (cf. Ehrenfeld and Bentley 1985:301). IMO, only yarad could be the right interpretation, because, firstly, Jesus stresses, “I came to serve, NOT to be served!” (Matthew 20:28); secondly, “dominion” (Gen. 1:28) is immediately followed by a vegan diet prescribed by God to humans (Gen. 1:29) (cf. Linzey 1995:34); thirdly, humans are particularly assigned merely to be a humble caretaker of the Garden (Gen. 2:15) (cf. Ritenbaugh 1999). To "have dominion over animals" in Genesis 1 therefore signifies that God commands humanity to lower themselves and wait upon other animals as a powerless servant rather than a God-like authority (Chen 2024).
2. Not Only Humans But Animals are Made in the Image of God
Animals at least partly manifest God's image because of the following reasons:- Firstly, The Bible never denies that animals are made in the image of God. Secondly, both humanity and other animals were made out of dust by God. Thirdly, God made a covenant with not only humanity but also other animals (Genesis 9:9-11; Hosea 2:18). Fourthly, many verses in the Bible describe how different animals bear different characteristics of God (e.g. Isaiah 31:4; Matthew 23:37; Luke 13:34; John 1:29; Matthew 3:16). Fifthly, not only humans but other animals are gifted with a "living soul" (נֶ֣פֶשׁ חַיָּ֔ה nephesh chayyah) (Genesis 1:21, 24; Genesis 1:30). It follows that animals are our fellow creatures, that we should go vegan and stop eating and abusing them.
“Subdue” in Genesis 1:28 Means Careful Gardening, NOT Exploitation of Animals! By Dr. Chapman Chen
Apart from the word “dominion” (Genesis 1:26, 28) which is too often misinterpreted as human dictatorial lordship over other animals (Note 1), “subdue” in Genesis 1:28 is also frequently misconstrued in a similar way. Actually, "subdue" here does not mean human entitlement to trample all other sentient creatures of God under their feet; not even to arbitrarily mess with the ecological environment. It means careful gardening instead.
Let’s now look into the verse concerned. In Genesis 1:28 (KJV), God blesses humanity and instructs them to "be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and SUBDUE it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth."
According to Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance, the Hebrew word for “subdue” is כָּבַשׁ (kabash), meaning to tread down, to conquer, to violate, to bring into subjection, to keep under, and to force, besides to subdue. Sounds very violent and tyranncial, eh? But first of all, please note that the object of this verb is the earth, instead of the animals (cf. Mclaughlin 2017).
Equally importantly, this word (kabash) is comparatively uncommon, and no other occurrence is straight similar to its usage here in Gen 1:28. In this case, the most excellent method to decide its meaning is to scrutinize how humankind were supposed to carry out the Lord’s order to ‘subdue’ the earth (cf. Stead 2019). We find the first instance of this in Genesis 2:15 (KJV), where God instructed the first humans to “dress” the earth and to “keep” it. The Hebrew word for “dress” here is עָבַד (abad), which, according to the Strong’s Concordance, means to work or serve; and that for “keep” is שָׁמַר (shamar), which means to watch/preserve. Further, due to human sin in Gen. 3:18, the land becomes full of thorns and thistles. In Gen. 4, Cain works the soil while Abel tends flocks. In Exodus 23:29 (KJV), God says He will not expel the inhabitants of the land “in one year, lest the land become desolate.”
So “subdue” in Gen. 1:28 must mean careful gardening, not brutalizing other sentient creatures, and not even damaging the environment on earth for selfish human purposes. And if it should imply anything forceful, it must apply to the hard work to be applied to ploughing the soil in plant agriculture, in growing trees, in planting seeds, in getting rid of weeds, and to keeping the garden from “being unruly and unproductive”, to borrow Michael R. Stead’s words (Stead 2019).
Full Text Link: https://www.hkbnews.net/post/subdue-in-genesis-1-28-means-careful-gardening-not-exploitation-of-animals-by-dr-chapman-chen
3. Not Only Humans But Animals Have a Soul (Nephesh Chayyah)
The Biblical Hebrew word, נֶ֫פֶשׁ nephesh (soul) is translated "life" or "creature" in most English versions of the Bible when applied to animals, e.g., Genesis 1:20, 1:21, 1:24, 1:30 KJV. Whereas it is often translated accurately when applied to humans, e.g., Genesis 2:7 KJV (cf. Antipas 2014). The same with רוּחַ ruach (spirit), e.g., "For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts... they have all one breath [ר֫וּחַ ruach (spirit)]; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast" (Ecclesiastes 3:19 KJV). The significance of animals having a soul and a spirit lies in its implication that humans and animals are equal before the Creator, that animals are our neighbors; and we are supposed to follow Jesus' commandment and love them (Matthew 22:39), instead of abusing and murdering them.
St. Augustine did believe that animals have souls, but he considered them to be irrational. He often emphasized the rational soul as the defining feature of human beings, which sets humans apart from animals. Augustine's views on the soul can be found in works like De Quantitate Animae (On the Greatness of the Soul) and De Trinitate (On the Trinity). Thomas Aquinas categorized souls into three types: 1. Vegetative souls (plants); 2. Sensitive souls (non-rational animals); 3. Rational souls (humans). Aquinas discussed these distinctions in his seminal work, Summa Theologica. He argued that while animals have sensitive souls that enable them to perceive and move, they lack the rational soul that humans possess, which is capable of intellect and will. These are, of course, Augustine’s and Aquinas’ personal inventions. The OT in Hebrew never mentions anything like a “rational soul” or a “sensitive soul”!
4. Did God Make Fur Coats for Adam and Eve
"The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them" (Genesis 3:21 NIV). This verse has been quoted by many a flesh-eater to argue against Christian veganism. Did God actually hunt down in cold blood a couple of innocent animals, and skin them mercilessly, in order to make fur coats for Adam and Eve to wear? Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? In reality, עור (`owr), the Hebrew original of "skin" in the verse, means human skin, and/or the physical human body, or animal skin, in accordance with the Old Testament Hebrew Lexical Dictionary. In fact, in the context concerned, the death of an animal is in no way mentioned. So where did the Lord acquire the skin with which he provided clothes for Adam and his wife? The text doesn’t say. But it is likely that God just created it as either the human skin or the human body itself, for before the Fall, Adam and Eve were bodies of light “clothed in light” (Psalm 104:2; Taylor 2013; Malan 1882). After the Fall, their bodies of light turned into skinless flesh, which soon dried up, and God found it necessary to cover them with human skin, according to The First Book of Adam and Eve as translated by Vicar Dr. S.C. Malan (1882). Stop wearing animal skins. Or else you are going against the all-loving God by causing unspeakable pains and unnecessary deaths to His innocent creatures.
5. Abel Did Not Kill His Lamb Nor Was Cain’s Offering Rejected by God
Genesis 4:3-8 is frequently quoted by anti-vegan Christians to justify the killing of innocent animals. But actually Cain and Abel each made a bloodless offering [מִנְחָה minchah] to God, as opposed to a bloody sacrifice [זֶבַח zebach]. Cain offered vegetables while Abel brought along the choicest [חֶלֶב cheleb] of his lambs just for God to see how well he Abel has taken care of his flock. [חֶלֶב cheleb] is unfortunately rendered "fat portion" in many versions of the Bible (cf. Denny 2022:100). Abel never killed the lamb because God as the embodiment of love detested animal sacrifice (Proverbs 21:27; Isaiah 6:18). According to Rabbi Chaim Hirschenshon (see Shapiro 2014), both Abel and Cain left their offerings at a peak, expecting God to pick them up. When Abel's lamb went away and was subsequently nowhere to be found, it was assumed that God had accepted it. In contrast, when Cain returned later only to find his veggies still there, he wrongly imagined that God had rejected his offering. Out of envy and spite, he murdered his brother.
6. God Never Permitted Noah and his Clan to Eat Animals
Many flesh-eaters seize upon "Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you” (Genesis 9:3 KJV) to claim that God thereby gave humans permission to kill and eat any animals they fancy. But in the Exegeses Companion Bible (ECB), a literal translation of the Bible, it’s “Every living creeper…”(Jahn 1992: Col.11), which could only mean creeper plant because the eating of creeping animals, i.e., reptiles, was strictly forbidden (Leviticus 11:41-2); and in the Genesis Apocryphon, one of the Dead Scrolls, it’s just “vegetables and plants” (Reeves 2014).
Similarly, Metcalfe (1840), referencing “remes”, the Hebrew word for “moving thing”, argues that a more accurate translation of “every moving thing” is “every creeper.” He indicates that there are two kinds of creepers: vegetable creepers and animal ones. “Animal creepers”, i.e., reptiles, are out of the question because they are explicitly forbidden as articles of food (Leviticus 11:41-2). Thus, the creeper which Noah was allowed by eat by God was the vine, or grapes, of every kind (Metcalfe 1840: Chapt. 13). This is corroborated by God immediately afterwards declaring “Flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof shall ye not eat, for surely your blood of your lives will I require”(Gen. 9:4-5 KJV); by Noah and his sons subsequently planting a vineyard (Gen. 9:20 KJV) (Metcalfe 1840: Chapt.12-13); and by God having inspired His prophet to announce to us most solemnly that “He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man” (Isaiah 66:3 KJV) (cf. Metcalfe 1840: Chapt.11).
7. Abraham Never Demanded by God to Sacrifice his Son nor a Ram
Abraham was never demanded by God to sacrifice his son Isaac nor a ram caught in a nearby bush as a substitute. God loves His creation (Psalm 145:8-9) and He already has everything (Psalm 50:12). Indeed, God has explicitly said that He hated burnt offering (Isaiah 6:18). So why should He need or want any sacrifice, human or animal, from us (Hosea 6:6)? How could He, who is love (1 John 4:7-21), possibly order anyone to do any evil act as a test of their obedience to Him? Genesis 22:1-18 needs to be looked at from a Freudian-Christian perspective:- Abraham was tricked by the Devil into projecting to God his faith crisis and unconscious, murderous, Oedipal feelings toward his own son (Wellisch 1954:131), and into thinking that he, Abraham, had to sacrifice his only son, or some other sentient being like a ram, in order to prove his loyalty to Yahuah. Actually, meatism is sacrificing innocent creatures of God to human gluttony (Proverbs 23:20-21). Therefore, go vegan!
8. Meatism is Animal Sacrifice Detested by God
In the Bible, there are verses claiming that animal sacrifice is a food offering for God's consumption, "an aroma pleasing to the Lord" (e.g. Leviticus 1:9 NIV, Exodus 29:18 NIV). In reality, God never delights in animal sacrifice (Psalm 51:16-17); He is fed up with it (Isaiah 1:11-12); He prefers thanksgiving and a repentant heart to it (Ps. 50:7-14, 23; Ps. 51:17). Leviticus 16 claims that animal sacrifice can take away human sins, but Hebrews 10:4-10 stresses that this is impossible.
Both God and Jesus Christ have explicitly said, "I desire mercy, not sacrifice" (Hosea 6:6 NIV, Matthew 9:13 NIV, Hebrews 10:8). In expelling from the Holy Temple vendors who sold innocent animals to be slaughtered and sacrificed there, Jesus offended the Pharisees and scribes, who then plotted to have him killed (Mark 11:18).
True Prophets, including Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Amos, and Micah (Isaiah 1:11; Jeremiah 7:22-23; Hosea 6:6; Amos 5:21-22; Micah 6:6-8), protested against the sacrificial cult and offered to God bread instead of burnt animal flesh [Leviticus 21:6, 21-22]. The animal sacrifice ritual must be either an evil cult concocted by the "lying pen of the scribes" (Jeremiah 8:8 NIV), or a superstitious practice borrowed by the Israelis from the pagan religions of some neighbouring tribes, while wandering in the desert as a homeless, terrified people (cf. Phelps 2002, 76-77). Otherwise, how would God, who is LOVE (1 John 4:16), delight to see innocent creatures slaughtered and bled to death, and go on to consume them as His favourite dish?
Eating animals is animal sacrifice detested by God. For eating animal flesh means sacrificing innocent animals' lives, a sacrifice to the idol god of the belly (Philippians 3:19), and a sacrifice to gluttony (Proverbs 23:20-21) (cf. Hicks 2018). Thus, go VEGAN!
Full Text: https://www.hkbnews.net/post/meatism-is-animal-sacrifice-detested-by-god-by-chapman-chen-hkbnews
Five Prophets Oppose Animal Sacrifice! By Dr. Chapman Chen
As shown below, there are five great prophets from the Old Testament who expressed opposition to animal sacrifice or showed sympathy for animals, and their stance was later picked up by Jesus.
Isaiah 1:11: “I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts… I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats.”
Amos 5:21–22: “I hate, I despise your feasts… Even though you offer me your burnt offerings…I will not accept them.”
Micah 6:6–8: “Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams…? He has told you, O man, what is good… to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”
Jeremiah 7:22–23: “For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
Hosea 6:6: “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”
These prophets emphasized ethical living and inner devotion over ritual animal sacrifice, often highlighting God's preference for justice, mercy, and compassion.
Their legacy of compassion is inherited by Jesus, who famously declared: “I desire compassion, not sacrifice!” (Matt. 9:13), echoing Hosea (6:6). Jesus didn’t just preach this ethic—He lived it. In liberating the sacrificial animals from the Temple, in calling the Temple-turned-butcher-shop ‘a den of murderers’ (Mark 11:17), He debunked its fraudulent, violent nature; and disrupted the lucrative income stream of the chief priests and scribes, who immediately afterward plotted to have Him killed (Mark 11:18), eventually leading to His arrest, trial, and crucifixion (cf. Akers 2000, 113–134).
As for biblical passages such as Leviticus 3:12–16, Numbers 28:2–6, and Exodus 29, which contain detailed instructions allegedly given by God for offering animal sacrifices, Prof. James Tabor (2024) argues that they are all interpolations added by ‘the lying pen of the scribes’ (Jer. 8:8) and by greedy priests.
Animal sacrifice is also closely linked up with animal flesh eating. Meatism is sacrifice to the belly-idol (Proverbs 23:20-21; Philippians 3:19; Hicks 2018). Indeed, per Clement of Alexandria’s The Stromata (Book VII, Ch. 6), “sacrifices were invented by men to be a pretext for eating flesh.”
Comments