The Bible Diet and Health
What does the Bible say about food.
Remember we are to do what the Bible says.
Eat Not ? But how many of us follow God's word.
GENESIS 1:29
"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."
Here are the foods as we know them today:
EVERY HERB BEARING SEED...
(a seed plant which does not develop into a woody long existing plant)
GRAINS - barley, corn, millet, oats, rice, rye, wheat, etc.
SEEDS - sunflower, sesame, flax, pumpkin seeds, etc.
LEGUMES - soybeans, lentils, peas, peanuts, other beans, etc.
SUCCULENT FOODS CONTAINING SEED - bell peppers, cucumbers, eggplant, green beans, melons, okra, pumpkins, squash, , tomatoes, etc.
... and EVERY TREE, in the which is THE FRUIT OF A TREE YIELDING SEED .....
(a woody plant present at in all seasons of the year , shrub, or bush).
FRUITS - citrus fruits, palm fruits, sweet fruits, etc.
NUTS - almonds, brazil, cashews, pecans, walnuts, etc.
The Garden of Eden :
After man sinned, he was driven out of the Garden of Eden, and he no longer had access to the tree of life. Man would have to work by tilling the earth, and the "herb of the field"
(originally food for the animals) was added to his diet.
GENESIS 3:23
Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
GENESIS 1:30
....."And to every beast of the earth and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepth upon the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for meat; and it was so."
GENESIS 3:17-19
"And unto Adam He said, Because thou hast harkened unto the voice of thy wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat of it':
Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it All the days of your life.
Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, And you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread Till you return to the ground,...... "
HERBS (vegetables):
Leaf: beet greens, brussels sprouts, cabbage, collard, etc.
Flower: globe artichoke, broccoli, cauliflower.
Root: carrots, beets, potatoes, turnips, etc.
Although vegetables (green herbs) were not part of the Original Diet given to man, they were added to man's diet after he sinned and are part of his diet today.
MEAT - MAN'S FOOD ?
After the flood the earth's soil and climate was dramatically changed . In many places on earth it would not be possible to obtain enough food from plant sources during all times of the year.
It was at this time that God gave man permission to each animal flesh. Yet even in this God gave instruction that the blood must be drained from the carcass before eating it.
GENESIS 9:3
Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.
GENESIS 9:4
But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.
Question : God told Noah to gather how many animals of each ?
Did you say 2 of each animal ?
Are you sure ? You better go read your Bible .
GENESIS 7:2-3
Gen. 7:2 :
Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.
Gen. 7:3 :
Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.
Noah was told by God to take "seven each of every clean animal, a male and his female; two each of animals that are unclean, a male and his female" . Later God gave instruction to Moses and Aaron giving permission to eat the flesh of clean animals, but not that of unclean. And once again, the eating of blood was prohibited.
LEVITICUS 11:1-30 Speaks of these aniamls .
LEV. 11: 1
"And the LORD spake unto Moses and to Aaron, saying unto them, 2 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, These are the beasts which ye shall eat among all the beasts that are on the earth.
Although the dietary laws that God specified to the Hebrew people can be found in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, we know they actually existed when Noah was preparing the ark, God instructed him regarding clean and unclean creatures:
Animals That Are Clean and Ok To Eat :
Animals that part the hoof, cloven footed and chews cud:
Cow - Deer - Lamb - Caribou - Buffalo - Elk - Goat - Moose
Fish that have fins and scales:
Bass - Bluefish - Crappie - Perch - Pike - Salmon - Sunfish - Trout
Birds that are clean:
Chicken - Turkey - Pheasant - Grouse - Quail
Clean creeping animals:
Locusts - Cricket - Grasshopper
Animals That Are Not Clean To Eat :
No - Animals that do not do all of these:
Part the hoof, cloven footed and chews cud:
Pig (pork) - Rabbit - Raccoon - Squirrel - Monkey - Dog - Coyote - Fox - Wolf - Lion - Tiger - Horse - Mule - Zebra - Bear - Camel - Elephant - Llama - Hippo - Kangaroo
No - Water animals that do not have fins and scales:
Catfish - Eel - Marlin - Shark - Abalone - Clam - Crab - Crayfish - Lobster - Oyster - Shrimp - Jellyfish - Squid - Dolphin - Seal - Whale
No - Unclean Birds:
Bat - Eagle - Osprey - Raven - Duck - Swan -Vulture
No - Unclean creeping animals:
Frog - Toad - Crocodile - Lizard - Snake - Turtle - Salamander - Newt - Snail
Now it would appear that :
"Clean" birds, animals and insects seemed to be those that were plant-eaters, while those "unclean" were meat or carrion eaters e.g. chickens, cattle and grasshoppers were clean, while vultures, weasels and flies were unclean. There were some exceptions that may have been due to their being common carriers of very serious bacterial, viral or parasitical infections e.g. rats, bats, and pigs .
Clean sea creatures were apparently those that were found in fresh-flowing water (e.g. bass, trout), while those unclean tended to be bottom-dwellers (e.g shellfish, catfish) where natural contaminants collected - a factor even more relevant in our modern world where vast quantities of chemical wastes accumulate in the mud of rivers, lakes and oceans .
While there is yet controversy as to whether the Levitical dietary laws apply to Christians today (a subject for another Bible Study), for most of us it really isn't a problem - snakes, vultures, rats and the other items on the "unclean menu" don't seem all that appealing anyway .
EAT NO ANIMAL FAT
LEVITICUS 7:23-24
"Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, Ye shall eat no manner of fat, of ox, or of sheep, or of goat. And the fat of the beast that dieth of itself, and the fat of that which is torn with beasts, may be used in any other use: but ye shall in no wise eat of it.
EAT NO BLOOD
GENESIS 9:3
Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.
GENESIS 9:4
But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.
LEVITICUS 7:26-27
Moreover ye shall eat no manner of blood, whether it be of fowl or of beast, in any of your dwellings. Whatsoever soul it be that eateth any manner of blood, even that soul shall be cut off from his people.
I would thank , that most people do believe in giving blood transfusions to someone who is going to die or be severely anemic without this life-saving measure. The command forbids the eating of meat with the blood, not saving lives with it. There are too many people who would forbid a blood transfusion, but think nothing of eating a juicy steak.
DANIEL AND HIS COMPANIONS
REFUSED THE KINGS MEAT
DANIEL 1:8
(When Daniel and his three companions were carried to Babylon as captives)
But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's meat, nor with the wine which he drank: therefore he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself .
The "kings meat" would have included unclean meats, flesh with the blood and fat, and also foods first offered to idols.
DANIEL 1:12
(They requested that they be allowed to eat vegetables and water for ten days.)
Prove thy servants, I beseech thee, ten days; and let them give us pulse to eat, and water to drink .
DANIEL 1:15
And at the end of ten days their countenances appeared fairer and fatter in flesh than all the children which did eat the portion of the king's meat .
DANIEL 1:18-20
(At the end of the three year period during which they were to learn the Caldean language)
Now at the end of the days that the king had said he should bring them in, then the prince of the eunuchs brought them in before Nebuchadnezzar. And the king communed with them; and among them all was found none like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah: therefore stood they before the king. And in all matters of wisdom and understanding, that the king enquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers that were in all his realm.
"YOU ARE THE TEMPLE OF GOD"
1 CORINTHIANS 10:31
Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.
1 CORINTHIANS 3:16, 17
Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are .
1 CORINTHIANS 6:19, 20
What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's .
ALCOHOL
There are two kinds of wine spoken of in the Bible. One of these was the juice of the grape, and was pressed from the fruit into the cup as it was needed to drink .
Genesis 40:11
And Pharaoh's cup was in my hand: and I took the grapes, and pressed them into Pharaoh's cup, and I gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand .
Judges 9:13
And the vine said unto them, Should I leave my wine, which cheereth God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?
Joel 1:10-12
The field is wasted, the land mourneth; for the corn is wasted: the new wine is dried up, the oil languisheth .
The other kind was that which had stood until it fermented, and alcohol had formed from the decaying substance.
Did not Paul recommend the use of wine under certain conditions?
1 TIM 5:23
Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities .
How is the first kind of wine spoken of?
DEUT. 32:14
Butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat; and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape.
How is the second kind of wine represented?
PROV. 23:31
Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright .
NOTE: That is, when it moves upright; as in the process of fermentation, it may be seen moving from the bottom upward. The original word here used aright- means something "upright." It was Christ who, in the Old Testament, gave the warning to Israel .
Proverbs 20:1
Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise .
We should not believe that Christ provided such a beverage.
Fermentation is a symbol of decay, and of sin. How could something which is decaying represent the blood of the spotless Son of God?
Satan tempts men to indulgence that will cloud reason and numb spiritual perception, but Christ teaches us to bring the lower nature into subjection. His whole life was an example of self-denial. It was Christ who directed that John the Baptist drink neither wine nor strong drink
LUKE 1:15
For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb .
PROVERBS. 23:29-32
The Bible Speaks of Sinful Wickedness
Is this not the effects of alcohol ?
Who hath woe?
who hath sorrow?
who hath contentions?
who hath babbling?
who hath wounds without cause?
who hath redness of eyes?
They that tarry long at the wine;
they that go to seek mixed wine.
Look not thou upon the wine when it is red,
when it giveth his colour in the cup,
when it moveth itself aright.
At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.
Where can we find a more vivid picture of the debasement and the slavery of the victim of alcohol.
Proverbs 23:35
They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I felt it not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again.
ISAIAH 5:22
Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink:
ISAIAH 28:1,2
1 Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower, which are on the head of the fat valleys of them that are overcome with wine!
2 Behold, the Lord hath a mighty and strong one, which as a tempest of hail and a destroying storm, as a flood of mighty waters overflowing, shall cast down to the earth with the hand.
JUDGES 13:4
Now therefore beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing:
JUDGES 13:7
But he said unto me, Behold, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and now drink no wine nor strong drink, neither eat any unclean thing: for the child shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb to the day of his death.
ISAIAH 24:9
"They shall not drink wine with a song; Strong drink is bitter to those who drink it."
ISAIAH 28:7
But they also have erred through wine, and through strong drink are out of the way; the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment.
HABAKKUK 2:15,16
Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness! 16 Thou art filled with shame for glory: drink thou also, and let thy foreskin be uncovered: the cup of the LORD's right hand shall be turned unto thee, and shameful spewing shall be on thy glory.
Can a drunkard enter the kingdom of God?
1 Corinthians 6:10
Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
How, then, should a Christian regard one who persists in drunkenness?
I CORINTHIANS 5:11
But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolator, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.
DISEASES
3 John 1:2
Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth .
EXODUS 15:26
And said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the LORD that healeth thee.
This promise was given to the Israelites when Moses led them out of Egypt. God proceeded to give Moses a number of commandments, which form part of our Bible today. Because these divinely given medical directions were altogether different from those in the Papyrus Ebers (Egyptian royal court remedies). From the record we discover that Moses had so much faith in God's regulations that he did not incorporate a single current medical misconception into the inspired instructions.
Some rules of Sanitation found in the Bible:
LEVITICUS 13:46
All the days wherein the plague shall be in him he shall be defiled; he is unclean: he shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be.
Early in the Middle Ages the dreaded disease leprosy had killed countless millions of people; and later the Black Death took another sixty million. Not until the physicians of the day gave up leadership to the church was the plague brought under control. The church took as its guiding principle the concept of contagion as embodied in the Old Testament, Leviticus.
DEUTERONOMY 23:12,13
"Thou shalt have a place also without the camp, whither thou shalt go forth abroad: 13 And thou shalt have a paddle upon thy weapon; and it shall be, when thou wilt ease thyself abroad, thou shalt dig therewith, and shalt turn back and cover that which cometh from thee:
Up to the close of the eighteenth century, hygienic provisions, even in the great capitals, were quite primitive. It was the rule for excrement to be dumped into the streets which were unpaved and filthy. Powerful stenches gripped villages and cities. It was a heyday for flies as they bred in the filth and spread intestinal diseases that killed millions.
Diseases such as cholera, dysentery, and typhoid fever could have easily been controlled by following God's provision in Deuteronomy. A medical historian writes that this directive is "certainly a primitive measure, but an effective one, which indicates advanced ideas of sanitation."
NUMBERS 19:11-22
11 - He that toucheth the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days.
12 - He shall purify himself with it on the third day, and on the seventh day he shall be clean: but if he purify not himself the third day, then the seventh day he shall not be clean.
13 - Whosoever toucheth the dead body of any man that is dead, and purifieth not himself, defileth the tabernacle of the LORD; and that soul shall be cut off from Israel: because the water of separation was not sprinkled upon him, he shall be unclean; his uncleanness is yet upon him.
14 - This is the law, when a man dieth in a tent: all that come into the tent, and all that is in the tent, shall be unclean seven days.
15 - And every open vessel, which hath no covering bound upon it, is unclean.
16 - And whosoever toucheth one that is slain with a sword in the open fields, or a dead body, or a bone of a man, or a grave, shall be unclean seven days.
17 - And for an unclean person they shall take of the ashes of the burnt heifer of purification for sin, and running water shall be put thereto in a vessel:
18 - And a clean person shall take hyssop, and dip it in the water, and sprinkle it upon the tent, and upon all the vessels, and upon the persons that were there, and upon him that touched a bone, or one slain, or one dead, or a grave:
19 - And the clean person shall sprinkle upon the unclean on the third day, and on the seventh day: and on the seventh day he shall purify himself, and wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and shall be clean at even.
20 - But the man that shall be unclean, and shall not purify himself, that soul shall be cut off from among the congregation, because he hath defiled the sanctuary of the LORD: the water of separation hath not been sprinkled upon him; he is unclean.
21 - And it shall be a perpetual statute unto them, that he that sprinkleth the water of separation shall wash his clothes; and he that toucheth the water of separation shall be unclean until even.
22 - And whatsoever the unclean person toucheth shall be unclean; and the soul that toucheth it shall be unclean until even.
InShort :
NUMBERS 19:11-22 says, "He who touches the dead body of anyone shall be unclean seven days. ... Whoever touches the body of anyone who has died, and does not purify himself, defiles the tabernacle of the Lord. That person shall be cut off from Israel. He shall be unclean, because the water of purification was not sprinkled on him; his uncleanness is still on him. ... The clean person shall sprinkle the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day he shall purify himself, wash his clothes, and bathe in water; and at evening he shall be clean..."
If physicians would have only followed the above instructions early in history many lives would have been saved. It was not until 1847, when Dr. Semmelweis wrote a book about handwashing and changing clothes after doing autopsies and surgeries before going to the next patient. When his rules were followed mortality dropped by 80 percent.
Many centuries before Semmelweis, however, God gave to Moses detailed instructions on the safest method for cleansing the hands after handling the infected living. Proper modern method for washing hands is "The hands should be vigorously lathered and rubbed together for at least 15 seconds under a moderate-sized stream of water..
The scriptural method specified not merely washing in a basin, but repeated washing in running water with time intervals allowed for drying and exposure to sun to kill bacteria not washed off. The soap used is even more remarkable. It was made by burning together in a fire the following: a young cow, cedar wood, hyssop branches, and scarlet wool. The
washing solution contained an irritant, cedar-wood oil, that would encourage scrubbing; an antiseptic, hyssop oil, that would kill bacteria and fungi; and a scrubbing element, wool fibers, that would dislodge the bacteria.
Even today, hospitals often use a similar granular soap because it is difficult to remove granular soap from the hands in less than 15 seconds.
"Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Proverbs 3:5-6
Follow God's direction for good health, long life, and happiness.
