Did the Torah want us to live without meat? What has changed since the Garden of Eden to Noah?

What does the vegan model of Genesis 1:29-30 teach about the ideal of human-animal relations?

1. Dominion without predation. Humans are given dominion and “subdue” but their food comes from plants. Animals are also allocated plants. Idea: the opening ideal is partnership in one living space without bloodshed. See Genesis 1:29-30.

2. The sanctity of life as a basic principle. Animals are called a living soul, and humans are not invited to eat them. This sets an ethical benchmark of non-violence as the starting point. See Genesis 1:29-30.

3. Boundaries as a moral order. The diet itself is a boundary. It teaches that the cosmos is repaired when human power is channeled, not when it crosses every boundary. See the entire structure of Genesis 1.

What happens to the model in the rest of biblical history?

1. After the Flood comes a move of adaptation to a harsher human reality. A permission to eat meat is given, alongside a prohibition of blood signaling that the sanctity of life is not revoked. Idea: the permission is a conditional expansion and not an annulment of the principle. See Genesis 9:3-4.

2. Sacrifices appear even before meat is permitted. Abel brings from the firstborn of his flock and Noah offers from animals, but there is no evidence of eating meat until the permission to Noah. This emphasizes that meat was initially connected to holiness, not to desire. See Genesis 4:4; 8:20.

3. The people of Israel receive a new system of boundaries: kashrut, ritual slaughter, the pouring out of blood, and meat of desire only within a permitted framework. Eating meat thus becomes a regulated act that carries a memory of the sanctity of life. See Leviticus 11; Deuteronomy 12:20-25.

4. On the prophetic horizon, a return to a non-predatory world is drawn as a symbol of the world’s repair. The peace between predator and prey depicts the goal of the trajectory more than the present state. See Isaiah 11:6-9; 65:25.

How should we understand the overall line?

1. Ideal and reality. The original ideal sets a non-violent partnership between humans and animals. Biblical history recognises human complexity and grants permission, but keeps anchors that remind the value: prohibition of blood, kosher frameworks, and a strong link between meat and holiness.

2. Humans as guardians-managers. The biblical image portrays a human entrusted with life, not just consumption. Even when permission is given, it is wrapped in laws that minimise cruelty and return to consciousness the sanctity of life.

3. A moral goal. The prophetic vision sets a horizon where the world returns to a structure of harmonious life. This is not an obligation of the present but a moral-theological goal that sheds light backwards on the original diet as a standard of repair.

Summary In Genesis 1:29-30 a starting point of partnership and peace between humans and animals is presented. After the Flood, permission to eat meat comes with the prohibition of blood and a set of commandments that remind that blood is the carrier of life. Throughout the Torah and the prophets, a bridge is built between the ideal of non-violence and human reality, to educate desire and transform eating into an ethical and mindful act.