Sarah Wagner

Term Paper

Old Testament History and Theology

Dr. Adams

2 December 2002

The Treatment of Animals in the Pentateuch

In the Old Testament there are numerous places where it is obvious that God values all life, including the life of animals. In contrast to the practices of other cultures in the ancient near east the Mosaic Law mandates acts of love and kindness to animals alongside a sacrificial ideology. While the value of animal life does not supercede the value of human life, the laws and practices put forth by God in the Old Testament show that God does not approve of cruelty to animals.

When God created the earth he made everything good. Animals are often characterized as having the “breath of life” in Genesis 1:30, 6:17, and 7:22. Originally, all creatures, man and beast, were vegetarian. Genesis 1:29-30 God says that for all animals every green plant is their food. However, man is only to eat seed-bearing plants and fruit that have seeds in it. The first animal death recorded is when God makes clothes for Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:21. This sacrificial system of the death of an animal was obviously continued by Abel who burned the fat as an offering to God, but the flocks only purpose may have still been to provide clothing.

The eating of animals was not specifically approved by God until the Noahic covenant in Genesis 9. In verses 2 through 5 God says that the animals will fear man and all creatures are given as food, as well as all plants. The condition of this is that meat with the blood still in it cannot be eaten. God also proclaims, in the midst of his directive against murder because man is made in the image of God, that just as he requires an accounting for the death of every human, he also demands an accounting for the death of every animal. God’s covenant that he will never again send a flood is made not only with Noah and his family but with every creature. Altogether, the Noahic covenant is hardly a justification of meat eating. The sanctioning of animals as food seems to be more like a mournful description of a world still fallen than a benefit given to humans. These pre and post-flood mandates imply that in the original world there was no predatory violence within nature. This world reappears in Isaiah 65:17-25 where the wolf and lamb lie down together and the lion will eat straw like an ox.

The command that the blood of the animal is forbidden for consumption is repeated in Lev. 7:26-27 and 17:10-13. With Genesis 9:5 these verses imply that the life of the animal is not to be taken lightly. Blood is pre-eminently the seat of life and the reason not to consume it can be explained in two ways. One, the blood was identical with the soul and the sacrifice made expiation by virtue of the blood soul that is in it. Or two, it is reprehensible that a person consume the God-given life of another and it makes us aware what a concession and compromise eating meat really is.

Ancient sacrifices basically tried to put thing right between the people and the divine. Its other uses were to offer tribute to an invisible authority figure, as a way to feed the gods, or as a way to participate in the divine because the animal sacrificed became divine and passed on its divine powers to those who ate it. The ancient Greek practiced a ritual called “omophagia” which was a Dionysiac ritual in which the worshippers would tear apart an animal with their hands and eat the raw meat, believing that in eating the blood one would achieve union with Dionysus. In contrast to this, the Mosaic Law is clear that a sacrifice achieves harmony with God not because of animal itself, but because of the genuine apology of the worshipper for his misdeeds and his desire for obedience to God.

Many ancient cultures believed that before one killed an animal for food one must perform rituals of thanks and apology. There was the sense that in taking an animal life something was desecrated and the resident deity had to be placated and compensated for this horror. In addition, the spirit of animal itself must be thanked for offering itself. Jewish thought on the other hand did not perform sacrificial ritual to placate the animal spirit because all creatures exist only under the authority of God. Instead, sacrificial ritual acknowledged and gave gratitude to the single origin of life. So animal sacrifice recognizes that all life rests in God’s, not human, hands. In practice, it is a complicated attempt to kill animals without degrading them.

The Code of Hammurabi, roughly contemporary with the Mosaic law, is very different when it comes to the treatment of animals. In laws 246-248 the punishment for maiming an ox you have hired is light. Breaking its leg, cutting the ligaments of its neck, putting out an eye, cutting its tail, or hurting its muzzle requires compensation to the owner, but there is no thought to the crime against the animal.

In the Mosaic Law God seem very concerned with the good treatment of animals. According to Leviticus 22:21-25 one could not offer anything maimed or emasculated as a burnt offering. Not only does this show that God requires the very best it also shows that God cannot be worshipped with something that has been subjected to cruelty. Also, Leviticus 22:26-28 says that one could not sacrifice an animal before it is seven days old and you must not offer both mother and baby as an offering on the same day. This law, while useless from the human point of view, is important because of the great pain the mother would experience if she saw her child killed in front of her. In Exodus 23:12 animals are allowed to rest on the Sabbath. In Deuteronomy 22:10 the harnessing of a bull with an oxen is forbidden because the weaker would suffer trying to keep up with the strong one. In Deuteronomy 25:4 an animal cannot be muzzled while it is treading corn. In Deuteronomy 22:6 a person must send a bird away from its nest before taking one of its eggs so as not to cause the bird distress. Deuteronomy 14:21 instructs that one should not cook meat in it’s mother’s milk. This might have been a pagan Canaanite ritual, but the general idea is that the life of the milk should not be mixed with the dead of its offspring. Because of these laws there developed the Talmudic phrase the crime of “tzaar baal chayim” which means “cruelty to any living creature”.

The Mosaic Law also suggests that any animal eaten must have been killed humanely. Exodus 22:31 commands that one cannot eat an animal that was torn apart and killed by a wild beast. As a result of the principles laid down in the Pentateuch the Jewish people have formulated the shechitah, which is the method whereby an animal is slaughtered to be kosher. With a sharp, even blade the arteries of the animal’s head is cut, rendering the animal unconsciousness of all pain within two seconds. This is the most painless method known and it ensures the rapid draining of the animal’s blood, called kashering. To Jews the sport of hunting is seen with utter abhorrence, for once the urge to kill is satiated compassion and love are abandoned. When fishing Jews would always use a net instead of playing the fish on a rod. In the Bible the word “hook” only appears as a metaphor for cruelty or as an instrument of foreigners.

One of the main ways Mosaic Law is different from the other laws and practices of the ancient near east is in its treatment of animals. This is bound up in the fact that animals are also seen as a special creation of God. The worth of this creation, though adulterated by the Fall, is remembered by God’s people every time they desire to atone for their sins. While animals are not created in the image of God as humans are, the delicacy with which they suffer death to atone and sustain us is a poignant reminder of our own fallen state. Because of this we learn to respect and value all life.

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