Is the Bible’s Anti-Vegan Teaching Really God-Inspired? By Dr Chapman Chen
- Chapman Chen
- 5 minutes ago
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Anti-vegan bible passages—such as those in which God commands people to engage in bizarre rituals involving the offering of aromatic burnt animal flesh and fat (e.g., Exod 29:18–41; Lev 3:16; Numbers 15:2–10), or those depicting Jesus distributing and eating fish (e.g., Matt 14:13-21; Luke 24:42–43; John 21:9–13)—are probably interpolations, as argued by Prof. James Tabor (2012) and Keith Akers (2000), among others. Many anti-vegan Christians will, however, retort that every single word of the Bible, including all its authorised translations, is inspired by God and therefore cannot be questioned.
1. All Scripture is God-Breathed, Paul Claims
This defence rests primarily on the well-known statement:
“All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realise what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right” (2 Tim 3:16 NLT)
Significantly, this claim was made by none other than Paul, whom critics such as Keith Akers (2000), Prof. James Tabor (2012), Prof. Robert Eisenman (2012), and Thijs Voskuilen (2005) regard as an anti-vegan apostate, and who encourages people to eat whatever is sold in the meat market without guilt (1 Cor 10:25).
2. Paul Made his Own Words Infallible
Now, out of the 27 books of the New Testament, 13 to 14 are traditionally attributed to Paul. Further, Luke, the author of the Gospel of Luke and Acts of the Apostles, was a devoted fellow labourer and loyal companion of Paul (2 Tim 4:11; Acts 16; Philemon 1:24), whom Paul calls “the beloved physician” (Col 4:14). So many people think Luke was Paul’s mouthpiece.
Thus, Paul’s declaration that all Scripture is inspired by God is inherently self-serving, since it effectively renders his own writings in the Bible infallible, indisputable, and unchallengeable.
3. Paul Reinvented Christianity
Some may object that Paul expected Christ’s imminent return (e.g., 1 Thess 4–5), making long-term canon planning unlikely. However, Prof. James Tabor (2012) argues that Paul re-engineered the Hebrew Bible to construct a fundamentally new faith distinct from the original movement of Jesus and the Jerusalem community. In this light, Paul may well have intended his own writings to function as Scripture.
Indeed, 2 Peter 3:15–16 already refers to Paul’s letters as Scripture:
“Our beloved brother Paul… some things hard to understand, which the ignorant twist, as they do the other Scriptures.”
Yet many critical scholars regard 2 Peter as pseudepigraphal, meaning that its author may be invoking Peter’s authority to legitimise Paul’s writings.
4. A Chameleon and a Liar?
Moreover, Paul described himself as becoming “all things to all people” (1 Cor 9:19–22), which reminds us of the classic definition of “chameleon” as a metaphor, and pathetically repeated that he was not lying (Romans 9:1; 2 Cor 11:31). The proclamation of Christ’s imminent return may therefore have functioned rhetorically to attract believers, much as certain modern preachers periodically predict specific dates for the Rapture.
5. Rev. & Proverbs Warn Against Textual Manipulation
Admittedly, Scripture itself warns against textual tampering. Revelation 22:18–19 and Proverbs 30:5–6 threaten severe punishment for anyone who adds to or removes God’s word. Yet such warnings presuppose that manipulation is possible. Jeremiah 8:8 speaks of “the lying pen of the scribes,” and Prof. Robert Eisenman (2012) identifies the “Liar” in the Dead Sea Scrolls as Paul.
6. Canon Formation as a Bloody Process
“Every translation is interpretation” (Heidegger 1942). According to the researches of Bart D. Ehrman (2003), Elaine Pagels (1979), and Ramsay MacMullen (1984), the consolidation of the Christian canon occurred through centuries of theological conflict, political struggle, and, at times, coercion and violence against dissenting groups, particularly after the church became allied with imperial power. The Pauline camp, dominant since the Council of Nicaea in AD 325, has ensured that “all Scripture” is understood to mean the version of the Bible that it publishes, approves, and promotes.
7. Conclusion
In other words, the mainstream Bible has been heavily manipulated to suit various political agenda. The claim that “all Scripture is inspired by God” functions as a barrier preventing believers from seeing through “the lying pen of the scribes” and from retrieving the original vegan good news of God.
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