Cain, Abel, and Carnivore
I’ve never heard anyone else talk about this. Genesis 4 has a lot of lessons, but the dietary recommendations are ignored.
Different versions of the different Bibles can be debated endlessly. In this case it doesn’t really matter too much if yours is based on the Masoretic Text, the Samaritan Pentateuch, or the Septuagint. Here is the first part of Cain and Abel from the New International Version.
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1 Adam made love to his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, “With the help of the LORD I have brought forth a man.” 2 Later she gave birth to his brother Abel. Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. 3 In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD. 4 And Abel also brought an offering — fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, 5 but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.
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Cain and Abel is a great story. There are many lessons contained in just a few paragraphs. You’ll notice that these great truths are explanations about how the human mind works, how society works, and how the world works, put into concrete metaphors. Stories serve several important functions, and one of them is relating the information that we need to be able to align our understanding of the world with the world itself.
Exegesis, religious text interpretation, can be done in a number of ways. Some people like to interpret the Bible literally. In that case God is literally saying that animal offerings are valuable and plant offerings are not.
Another way we could come at it is to say that the story is showing us that you must sacrifice what is valuable for God’s favor. What did these ancient people find valuable, plants or meat? The answer is clearly meat.
Most people skip right over this. Many people focus on a blood sacrifice versus a non-blood sacrifice and relate it to Jesus, the lamb of God. That’s all fine, relating the end of a story to the beginning of a story is a good technique, but this story existed a long time before Jesus. Did it have no meaning for thousands of years? No, it had meaning the whole time or it wouldn’t have been kept.
When looking at the Hebrew “fat” can possibly be literal “fat” or “the best parts,” either way it is meat in this case. The value of meat as the primary food source is both ancient and being rediscovered. The Carnivore Diet movement is growing. It’s not growing from a bunch of advertising, it’s mostly growing because it gets some amazing results. No one really seems to be able to fully explain it. Much of the medical industry keeps saying it’s impossible, even though it obviously isn’t since it’s happening.
The results of people like Shawn Baker, Jordan Peterson, and Mikhaila Peterson are drawing more and more people. There are people that have eaten only meat for decades. You can find testimonials by the thousands. Meatheals.com is an entire site that just has testimonials from the Carnivore Diet. It’s quite incredible.
Carnivore is the only thing that relieved my digestive and autoimmune issues after I had extensive digestive damage from getting sick in Africa a few years ago. I’m not fully Carnivore now, but I still mostly eat meat. I’ve incorporated some insights from the GAPS diet and a bunch of experiments I’ve done myself in my healing process. But meat is the essential piece. (I found fiber to be the primary issue if you have major digestive issues. The more fiber you cut the better, cutting all fiber is the best. Most people that I’ve told this to seem to go into some sort of state of shock. Their eyes get big and then they deny that such a thing could possibly be possible.)
It’s odd that this type of information is forgotten. The strongest and healthiest ancient cultures ate a disproportionately large amount of meat: the Eskimos, the Masai, the Mongols, the Vikings, the Plains Indians, etc. When Weston Price traveled the world researching the diets of traditional tribes he couldn’t find a vegetarian culture. He tried to find one. He even heard a rumor about one, but they turned out to be cannibals.
And, in one of the oldest stories in the world, Cain and Abel, we have the same information. We just choose to ignore it sometimes, at our own peril.
Now, I know I’m going to get attacked for this article. Most of the attacks will just be hate mail though, they won’t contain anything of substance. There can be some legitimate criticisms though. Let’s look at a few and I’ll show why they’re wrong.
One, there isn’t any Vitamin C in meat so you’ll die. Well, then there are many people alive that are miracles.
Think about this. If you don’t get enough Vitamin C you will get scurvy and die. There is no Vitamin C in meat. Fresh meat cures scurvy. There’s a contradiction in there that pretty clearly shows that this understanding is wrong somewhere.
Scurvy is actually an inability to make collagen. One molecule of Vitamin C is needed to make one molecule of collagen. It’s part of the process, but no Vitamin C is contained in collagen. The inventor of molecular chemistry, Linus Pauling, talked about that process. But, I haven’t heard an explanation for why fresh meat cures scurvy. (I’m guessing no one is doing the research on it. The medical industry would prefer that that wasn’t true. Alas, just another thing they are wrong about.)
Two, Cain is downcast in the story for something other than the specific sacrifice. Hey, that seems reasonable at first. Maybe he had the wrong mindset or attitude and that’s why God didn’t like his sacrifice. But, that’s not what the story says. It says he didn’t like his offering. To say that God didn’t like his attitude is just putting something into the story that isn’t there. Some people will refer to the part of the story right after the part I quoted earlier. Let’s look at it because God gives us the reason.
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6 Then the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”
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There are many interesting things here. Let’s ignore the fact that God seems surprised and a bit confused. God says that if Cain did what was right it would be accepted. Since he didn’t do what was right he was in danger of sinning. What did he do that wasn’t right? What did he do that was wrong? He has only done two things in the entire story so far. One, Cain worked the soil. Two, Cain made sacrifices of the fruits of the soil. One of these two things is wrong.
Either God thinks it’s wrong to work the soil or to sacrifice fruits of the soil, or both. He’s not saying that work or sacrifice is wrong, because he likes the work and sacrifice of Abel. However you look at it, God prefers meat.
Three, that “fat” is a mistranslation. Well, you can look it up yourself. The transliterated word from the Hebrew to Latin letters is cheleb. Even if it means “the best part of” that still means the preferred piece of meat.
Ancient stories and myths contain many insights and lessons. This one just seems so blatantly in your face, and yet it’s ignored. I didn’t think about it myself until I was forced into eating Carnivore because of my failing health. Sometimes ancient truths have to be rediscovered.
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You can find more of what I’m doing at http://www.JeffreyAlexanderMartin.com
