Cannibalism
Cannibalism: Most have heard the story immortalized in the book with the very misleading title, “Miracle In The Andes” When the plane called “Fairchild” made contact with the Andes mountains and crashed. Along with the Old Christian Rugby Club heading to an exhibition match against a Chilean team. After much suffering, they turned to eating the dead bodies for survival; methodically cannibalizing their friends, even to the point of discovering the most delicate meats. All in an attempt to survive one more day in the wretched, freezing conditions they found themselves in. Even justifying their actions by comparing the act to be much like the Lord’s Supper. And telling themselves that they drew life from the blood of their friends, in the same way we draw spiritual life through the Lord’s Supper.
Also, most have heard of the cannibalistic “Donner – Reed Party.” Or, as I jokingly call it out of disgust and horror, the “Donner Dinner Party.” In 1846, as they travelled across the United States to start a new life, they took a supposed shortcut enroot to California from Illinois. They became trapped in the Sierra Nevada Mountains by an 8 day freak snowstorm. To this day, the location is called the “Donner Pass”. The gruesome reminder of how when the food ran out, and they ate their oxen, dogs, and cow hides; they then took to eating one another’s relatives and accountancies. If you fell in the snow, you might become dinner.
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We find similar stories of desperation, depravity, and cannibalism in the Bible. Like the following story, found in 2 Kings 6:24-30 :“Later King Benhadad of Aram assembled his whole army. They went to Samaria and blockaded it. (25) The shortages caused by the blockade of Samaria became so severe that a donkey’s head sold for two pounds of silver and a half-pint of dove manure for two ounces of silver. (26) As the king of Israel was walking on the city wall, a woman cried to him, “Help me, Your Majesty!” (27) He answered, “If the LORD doesn’t help you, how can I help you? I can’t give you something from the threshing floor or the winepress.” (28) Then the king asked her, “What’s the matter?” She answered, “This woman told me, ‘Give up your son. Let’s eat him today. We’ll eat my son tomorrow.’ (29) So we boiled my son and ate him. The next day I told her, ‘Give up your son. We’ll eat him,’ but she hid her son.” (30) When the king heard the woman say this, he tore his clothes in distress. As he was walking on the city wall, the people saw that he was wearing sackcloth under his clothes. (31) He said, “May God strike me dead if the head of Elisha, son of Shaphat, stays on his body today.”
We have heard of the infamous cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer, the serial killer who ate his victims, and many other such horrendous and disgusting stories of cannibalism. The rest of the Bible is no different in the accounts provided. This is what we will be talking about today- Cannibalism from a Biblical point of view. So, hold onto your taste buds, and wet your appetites for the meat of the Word of God. I promise we will season it with salt. 😉
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What Does The Bible Say
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When looking into Cannibalism, we cannot overlook this dire warning from Jesus. It was given before His death, talking about the destruction of the temple and Israel.
Luke 21:20-24 “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near. (21) Then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains. Those who are inside the city must depart. Those who are out in the country must not enter it, (22) because these are days of vengeance, to fulfill all that is written. (23) Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing their babies in those days! For there will be great distress on the earth and wrath against this people. (24) They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led away as captives among all nations. Jerusalem will be trampled down by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.”
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You see those who were trapped in the city, through starvation and hunger, began eating the children. Rome offered an opportunity for people to leave the city. Yet, the zealots threatened that anyone trying to leave would be put to the sword. Over time, and through the destruction of their food stores, things got very bad. But there is more to this story than this service level review.
First, let us cover some basics before we go any further.
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Made in God’s Image.
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- Man Was Made In The Image Of God.
Genesis 1:26-27 “Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness, so they may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move on the earth.” (27) God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them.”
- While God Does Not Have Flesh And Blood Like We Do.
John 4:24 “God is spirit, and the people who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
- We Bear The Similitude Of His Appearance.
Genesis 9:6 “Whoever sheds human blood, by other humans must his blood be shed; for in God’s image God has made humankind.”
- Just As There Is Life In The Spirit.
Job 33:4 “The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.”
John 6:63 “It is the spirit who gives life. The flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and are life.”
- There Is Life In The Blood.
Deuteronomy 12:23 “However, by no means eat the blood, for the blood is life itself – you must not eat the life with the meat!”
- So We Can See The Connection Of the Spirit and Blood, And The Spirit’s Connection To The Blood.
Isaiah 57:16 “For I will not be hostile forever or perpetually angry, for then man’s spirit would grow faint before me, the life-giving breath I created.”
1 Corinthians 15:45-47 “So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. (46) However that which is spiritual isn’t first, but that which is natural, then that which is spiritual. (47) The first man is of the earth, made of dust. The second man is the Lord from heaven.”
While we are made in the image of God and God is not flesh and blood, but spirit. Jesus, the Son Of God, came in like flesh and blood to walk as we walk the earth -Both Spirit and Blood.
1 John 4:2 “By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses Jesus as the Christ who has come in the flesh is from God,”
2 Corinthians 4:4 “in whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the Good News of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn on them.”
As we learned in “Unclean Meats, Cannibalism, and Food Sacrificed to Idols- Part 1”, God has given us fruits, vegetables, and meat of animals to eat. This is our food.
In Leviticus 11, God lays out the possible objects for eating. During this period, He limits what is clean and unclean food. Despite this, God provided the definitive list of what food actually was. While during this period some we considered unclean, we are still left with the outline of possible food sources. Humanity was not on this list.
- As We Can See, Humans Have A Different Type Of Meat From Animals, Birds And Fish.
1 Corinthians 15:39 “All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one flesh of men, another flesh of animals, another of fish, and another of birds.”
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It is wrong to add to this list. Now we can come up with possible recipes mixing the prescribed ingredients. Yet, we can never add to the list that was given in Leviticus 11 as possible food items. Example: we cannot eat people nor can we eat food made from human DNA. This would be an abomination to God. Not just because you would be eating from your own form/Species. You would literally be eating your brothers and sisters, and of the very type of flesh you are made of. We are not animals, but are made in the image of our God. All of us have the same common ancestor in Adam and Eve, then Noah and his family. To be a cannibal and eat a human being or food made from human beings would mean to eat your own relatives.
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Now To The Logistics Of Cannibalism
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- We are told not to murder each other.
Exodus 20:13 “’Thou dost not murder.”
The Bible is fine with self defense, and political punishment, yet prohibits the bloodshed of the innocent. In order to eat human beings, you would have to kill or be party to having someone killed to do so. You would be associated to the chain of event by your consumption, no matter how to goes down. Therefore, making you guilty by being the end consumer of the chain of events that brings human flesh to plate.
We are told not to shed the blood of man, and if we did without just cause in the sight of God, He would require our blood in return. As the verse says, “Because that person is your relative.” You are family.
Genesis 9:3-6 “You may eat any moving thing that lives. As I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything. (4) But you must not eat meat with its life (that is, its blood) in it. (5) For your lifeblood I will surely exact punishment, from every living creature I will exact punishment. From each person I will exact punishment for the life of the individual since the man was his relative. (6) “Whoever sheds human blood, by other humans must his blood be shed; for in God’s image God has made humankind.”
On The Contrary, the shedding of innocent blood is completely contrary the goal as stated by God right after that warning. Fill the earth with people.
Genesis 9:7 “But as for you, be fruitful and multiply; increase abundantly on the earth and multiply on it.”
- Here we can see, in the sight of God, the value and difference between man and beast.
Leviticus 24:17-22 “‘If a man beats any person to death, he must be put to death. (18) One who beats an animal to death must make restitution for it, life for life. (19) If a man inflicts an injury on his fellow citizen, just as he has done it must be done to him – (20) fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth – just as he inflicts an injury on another person that same injury must be inflicted on him. (21) One who beats an animal to death must make restitution for it, but one who beats a person to death must be put to death. (22) There will be one regulation for you, whether a resident foreigner or a native citizen, for I am the LORD your God.’”
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Jesus Takes This A Step Further.
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The value of a man is so great that no murder is needed to put the offender in the dangers of hellfire. That to be in unjust anger against a person is spiritual murder.
Matthew 5:21-22 “You have heard that it was said to the ancients, “You shall not kill” —and, “Whoever shall kill shall be liable to the judgment.” (22) But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be liable to the judgment. And whoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be liable to the sanhedrin; but whoever shall say, Fool! shall be liable to be thrown into the fire of hell.”
Jesus also tells that we are to love each other. How can we fulfill this command of love if we turn into cannibals and start eating each other?
John 15:12-13 “My commandment is this – to love one another just as I have loved you. (13) No one has greater love than this – that one lays down his life for his friends.”
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So, as we can clearly see and define, humanity is to be valued and love. In the sight of God, humanity and beast are two different types of flesh. While there is a time to kill, defend, and protect the state through war. There is never permitted a time in scripture to turn your brothers and sisters made in the image of God into food. Even if through justifiable acts of death, a person has been killed.
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Cannibalism Can Be Punishment From God.
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- Now Back To The Warning Of Jesus That We Read At The Beginning.
Luke 21:20-24 “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near. (21) Then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains. Those who are inside the city must depart. Those who are out in the country must not enter it, (22) because these are days of vengeance, to fulfill all that is written. (23) Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing their babies in those days! For there will be great distress on the earth and wrath against this people. (24) They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led away as captives among all nations. Jerusalem will be trampled down by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.”
- The Following Is What I Believe To Be One Of The Prophecies Of The Destruction Of Israel And The City Of Jerusalem.
Lamentations 2:1-22 “How the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in His anger! He cast down the beauty of Israel from the heavens to the earth and remembered not His footstool in the day of His anger. (2) The Lord swallowed up all the dwelling-places of Jacob and has not pitied. In His wrath He has thrown down the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; He has brought them down to the ground. He has defiled the kingdom and its rulers. (3) He has cut off all the horn of Israel in His fierce anger; He has drawn back His right hand from before the enemy, and He burned against Jacob like flaming fire which devours all around. (4) He has bent His bow like an enemy; He stood with His right hand like an adversary, and killed all who were desirable to the eye in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion. He poured out His fury like fire. (5) Jehovah was like an enemy; He swallowed up Israel; He has swallowed up all her palaces, and destroyed His strongholds. And He has increased mourning and weeping in the daughter of Judah. (6) And He violated His booth like a garden, and destroyed His meeting places. Jehovah caused the meeting places and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and He despised the king and the priest in the fury of His anger. (7) Jehovah has cast off His altar; He rejected His sanctuary; He has given up the walls of her palaces into the hater’s hand. They gave a noise in the house of Jehovah, as a day of meeting. (8) Jehovah purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion; He has stretched out a line; He has not withdrawn His hand from swallowing, and He made rampart and wall lament; they languish together. (9) Her gates have sunk in the ground; He has destroyed and broken her bars. Her kings and her rulers are among the nations. The Law is no more; also her prophets also find no vision from Jehovah. (10) The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground and are silent; they send up dust on their heads; they gird on sackcloth. The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground. (11) My eyes fail with tears; my inward parts ferment; my liver is poured on the ground for the ruin of the daughter of my people, in that the children and the babies faint in the streets of the city. (12) They say to their mothers, Where are grain and wine? In their fainting they are like the wounded in the streets of the city, in their pouring out their lives to their mothers’ bosom. (13) What can I testify for you? What thing shall I compare to you, O daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I equal to you, so that I may comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion? For your break is great like the sea! Who can heal you? (14) Your prophets have seen false and foolish things for you, and they have not uncovered your iniquity, to turn away your captivity; but they have seen false oracles and seductions for you. (15) All who pass by clap their hands at you; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city which they called the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth? (16) All your enemies have opened their mouth against you; they hiss and gnash the teeth; they say, We have swallowed her up. Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen. (17) Jehovah has done what He has purposed; He has fulfilled His Word which He commanded from the days of old. He has thrown down and not pitied. And He caused your hater to rejoice over you; He has set up the horn of your foes. (18) Their heart cried to Jehovah. O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a torrent day and night; give yourself no rest. Let not the daughter of your eye cease. (19) Arise, cry out in the night. At the beginning of the watches, pour out your heart like water before the face of Jehovah. Lift up your hands toward Him for the life of your children who are faint for hunger in the head of every street. (20) Behold, O Jehovah, and consider to whom You have done this. Shall the women eat their fruit, children of tender care? Shall the priest and the prophet be killed in the holy place of the Lord? (21) Young and old lie on the ground in the streets; my virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword. You have killed them in the day of Your anger; You have killed and not pitied. (22) You have called as in a solemn day my terrors all around, and there was not an escaped one or a survivor in the day of Jehovah’s anger. Those whom I have nursed and multiplied, my enemy has consumed.”
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Again, Jesus Said:
Luke 21:23 “Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing their babies in those days! For there will be great distress on the earth and wrath against this people. “
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Albert Barnes Commentary on Matthew 25:
“A horrible instance of the distress of Jerusalem is related by Josephus. The famine during the siege became so great that they ate what the most sordid animals refused to touch. A woman of distinguished rank, having been plundered by the soldiers, in hunger, rage, and despair, killed and roasted her own babe, and had eaten one half of it before the deed was discovered. – Jewish Wars, b. 6 chapter 3, section 3, 4. This cruel and dreadful act was also in fulfillment of prophecy: Deu._28:53, Deu. 28:56-57.”
Deuteronomy 28:52-57 “They will besiege all of your villages until all of your high and fortified walls collapse – those in which you put your confidence throughout the land. They will besiege all your villages throughout the land the LORD your God has given you. (53) You will then eat your own offspring, the flesh of the sons and daughters the LORD your God has given you, because of the severity of the siege by which your enemies will constrict you. (54) The man among you who is by nature tender and sensitive will turn against his brother, his beloved wife, and his remaining children. (55) He will withhold from all of them his children’s flesh that he is eating (since there is nothing else left), because of the severity of the siege by which your enemy will constrict you in your villages. (56) Likewise, the most tender and delicate of your women, who would never think of putting even the sole of her foot on the ground because of her daintiness, will turn against her beloved husband, her sons and daughters, (57) and will secretly eat her afterbirth and her newborn children (since she has nothing else), because of the severity of the siege by which your enemy will constrict you in your villages.”
Leviticus 26:24-31 “I myself will also walk in hostility against you and strike you seven times on account of your sins. (25) I will bring on you an avenging sword, a covenant vengeance. Although you will gather together into your cities, I will send pestilence among you and you will be given into enemy hands. (26) When I break off your supply of bread, ten women will bake your bread in one oven; they will ration your bread by weight, and you will eat and not be satisfied. (27) “‘If in spite of this you do not obey me but walk in hostility against me, (28) I will walk in hostile rage against you and I myself will also discipline you seven times on account of your sins. (29) You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters. (30) I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars, and I will stack your dead bodies on top of the lifeless bodies of your idols. I will abhor you. (31) I will lay your cities waste and make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will refuse to smell your soothing aromas.”
Lamentations 4:9-11 “Those who died by the sword are better off than those who die of hunger, those who waste away, struck down from lack of food. (10) The hands of tenderhearted women cooked their own children, who became their food, when my people were destroyed. (11) The LORD fully vented his wrath; he poured out his fierce anger. He started a fire in Zion; it consumed her foundations.”
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It is God’s Punishment To Drive Them To Madness.
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Jeremiah 19:6-10 “So I, the LORD, say: “The time will soon come that people will no longer call this place Topheth or the Hinnom Valley. But they will call this valley the Valley of Slaughter! (7) In this place I will thwart the plans of the people of Judah and Jerusalem. I will deliver them over to the power of their enemies who are seeking to kill them. They will die by the sword at the hands of their enemies. I will make their dead bodies food for the birds and wild beasts to eat. (8) I will make this city an object of horror, a thing to be hissed at. All who pass by it will be filled with horror and will hiss out their scorn because of all the disasters that have happened to it. (9) I will reduce the people of this city to desperate straits during the siege imposed on it by their enemies who are seeking to kill them. I will make them so desperate that they will eat the flesh of their own sons and daughters and the flesh of one another.”’” (10) The LORD continued, “Now break the jar in front of those who have come here with you.”
Ezekiel 5:7-11 “Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: Because you are more arrogant than the nations around you, you have not followed my statutes and have not carried out my regulations. You have not even carried out the regulations of the nations around you! (8) “Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I – even I – am against you, and I will execute judgment among you while the nations watch. (9) I will do to you what I have never done before and will never do again because of all your abominable practices. (10) Therefore fathers will eat their sons within you, Jerusalem, and sons will eat their fathers. I will execute judgments on you, and I will scatter any survivors to the winds. (11) “Therefore, as surely as I live, says the Sovereign LORD, because you defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable idols and with all your abominable practices, I will withdraw; my eye will not pity you, nor will I spare you.”
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- This Is Much The Same In The Following Acts By God.
2 Chronicles 18:19-22 “Yahweh said, ‘Who will entice Ahab king of Israel, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth Gilead?’ One spoke saying in this way, and another saying in that way. (20) A spirit came out, stood before Yahweh, and said, ‘I will entice him.’ “Yahweh said to him, ‘How?’ (21) “He said, ‘I will go, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ “He said, ‘You will entice him, and will prevail also. Go and do so.’ (22) “Now therefore, behold, Yahweh has put a lying spirit in the mouth of these your prophets; and Yahweh has spoken evil concerning you.”
2 Thessalonians 2:11-12 “And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie, (12) so that all those who do not believe the truth, but delight in unrighteousness, might be condemned.”
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Albert Barnes Above Quoted Josephus. Let Us Look Into The Account:
“War Of The Jews” Flavius Josephus- Book 6, Chapter 3, Section 4.
“And it was now become impossible for her any way to find any more food, while the famine pierced through her very bowels and marrow, when also her passion was fired to a degree beyond the famine itself; nor did she consult with anything but with her passion and the necessity she was in. She then attempted a most unnatural thing; and snatching up her son, who was a child sucking at her breast, she said, “O thou miserable infant! for whom shall I preserve thee in this war, this famine, and this sedition? As to the war with the Romans, if they preserve our lives, we must be slaves. This famine also will destroy us, even before that slavery comes upon us. Yet are these seditious rogues more terrible than both the other. Come on; be thou my food, and be thou a fury to these seditious varlets, and a by-word to the world, which is all that is now wanting to complete the calamities of us Jews.” As soon as she had said this, she slew her son, and then roasted him, and eat the one half of him, and kept the other half by her concealed. Upon this the seditious came in presently, and smelling the horrid scent of this food, they threatened her that they would cut her throat immediately if she did not show them what food she had gotten ready. She replied that she had saved a very fine portion of it for them, and withal uncovered what was left of her son. Hereupon they were seized with a horror and amazement of mind, and stood astonished at the sight, when she said to them, “This is mine own son, and what hath been done was mine own doing! Come, eat of this food; for I have eaten of it myself! Do not you pretend to be either more tender than a woman, or more compassionate than a mother; but if you be so scrupulous, and do abominate this my sacrifice, as I have eaten the one half, let the rest be reserved for me also.” After which those men went out trembling, being never so much aftrighted at anything as they were at this, and with some difficulty they left the rest of that meat to the mother.”
- The End Note (15) at the bottom of the Chapter 3 reads as such:
“The Romans were not only willing, but very desirous, to grant those Jews in Jerusalem both their lives and their liberties, and to save both their city and their temple. But the zealots, the rubbers, and the seditious would hearken to no terms of submission. They voluntarily chose to reduce the citizens to that extremity, as to force mothers to this unnatural barbarity, which, in all its circumstances, has not, I still suppose, been hitherto paralleled among the rest of mankind.”
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Drove to madness and murder just as God set it up to happen for their rebellion against Him. May we all fear the name of God and obey Him at every turn.
So, as we can clearly see, God is not in favor nor permits cannibalism for His children. Humanity was never supposed to eat each other, devouring brothers and sisters. We have a unique flesh and unique role upon the earth. Cannibalism is a horrid abomination before God and should never be tolerated. Let no scheme of man through neither prudence nor necessity ever call upon the dreadful act for survival, or profit. It is murder and will put you in danger of Hell Fire. People- they are not for dinner! So in short, Cannibalism is wrong, VERY wrong, and to be a cannibal is a sure sentence to hell.
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Next Time We Will Talk About Food Sacrificed To Idols.
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