Uniting Earthweb

In recent years increasing attention has been paid in many quarters of our society to the variety and quality of the food that we eat.  Perhaps the most obvious example of this increased interest in food has been the proliferation of food programs on the television screen.  Chefs from a variety of countries and backgrounds have attained a new celebrity as they seek to titillate the taste buds and palates of their viewers.  National cuisines from Europe to the Middle East and from Asia to the Americas are presented for our appreciation, as well as particular recipes dreamed up by individual chefs.  In the television world of gastronomy the exotic is very much à la mode.

There aref a number of reasons for this new found gastronomic enthusiasm.  On the one hand it may be viewed as an aspect of the pervasive phenomenon of globalisation that has been a feature of the Western world over the past several decades.  Along with economic and financial globalisation, the movement of peoples from one country to another has been accompanied by an export of cultures, including the culture of food.  Many migrants and refugees have made a promising start in their new home country by opening a restaurant specialising in the cuisine of their country of origin.  A second reason for gastronomic enthusiasm may be found in the (until recently) increasing wealth and sophistication of the middle classes in the West.   The growth in disposable income has partly been spent on food, and restaurants have sprung up to tap into this potential new source of livelihood for the enterprising.  Affluence has also greatly stimulated tourism and this has led to increased contact with foreign food as greater numbers of people travel abroad.

There is some irony in the fact that these culinary developments have been taking place in a world where many people do not have enough to eat.  While many in the West have an embarrassment of choice as far as food is concerned, countless millions in the Third World teeter constantly on the brink of starvation.  While the privileged of this world battle the problems of an affluence that increasingly manifests itself in obesity, so many of the world’s poor eke out a hand to mouth existence.  The availability of food that we take for granted thus takes on a moral dimension as the inequities of food distribution and consumption emerge and invite our attention.

An interesting insight into attitudes to food in a relatively affluent society was recently provided by a survey conducted by the Urban Research Centre at the University of Western Sydney.  One of the findings of the Centre was that Sydney households throw out more than $600 million worth of fresh produce every year.  Moreover, this figure does not include leftovers, which account for a further $182 million.  The director of the Centre was quoted as saying “Sydney is such a rich consumer society that it happily throws away in value as much as Sydney farmers receive in income” (Sydney Morning Herald October 9, 2009, p.1).  How can this waste be tolerated when there are currently so many people starving in the world?

Gratitude for food has been encouraged in Christian households throughout the ages, most commonly through the saying of “grace” before the meal.  However, this practice has largely fallen into disuse as urban society has distanced itself from the sources of the food that it has available in such abundance.  Everything now presents itself wrapped in plastic on the shelves of supermarkets, typically a long way from where the food is actually produced.  Food is no longer perceived as coming from the farm; everything needful comes from the supermarket shelf.  Food is primarily a readily available purchasable commodity, rather than a gift from God for which we should give thanks.

These are some elements of the changed social context in which many Christians nowadays feel called to adopt a responsible attitude to the food that they consume.  For them eating is not just a pleasurable means of maintaining the body, as our society encourages us to believe.  Eating is rather an activity that also has ethical and spiritual ramifications that need to be rediscovered.  This essay takes a step along the path to a Christian reconsideration of our attitudes to food.  Specifically it examines attitudes to food as these appear in the first book of the Bible and seeks to gain from them some potentially useful perspectives on current issues related to food.

Food in the Bible

Even a cursory examination of the importance of food in the Bible indicates that references to it are ubiquitous.  In the very first chapter of Genesis food receives specific mention as an aspect of creation, while at the very end of the Bible, in the last chapter of Revelation, the tree of life is depicted as producing “twelve kinds of fruit” (v.2), one every month, presumably for consumption.  Between these first and last chapters of the Bible there are references to food in every biblical book, as one might reasonably expect of societies that were so dependent on climatic conditions for their well-being.  In the pages that follow we shall identify some of the most significant of these references and seek to draw out the implications they may have for our time.  In order to limit our analysis to manageable proportions, we shall confine ourselves to an examination of the first book of the Hebrew Bible. 

The Creation Stories in Genesis

Food is a significant feature in the creation stories of the first two chapters of Genesis.  In the first account of creation, as early as the third day “fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it” (1:12) emerge from the earth at God’s command.  Later in the chapter the practical purpose of these trees is stated: “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food” (1:29).  The point clearly being emphasised in these early verses of Genesis is that food is essentially a gift from God rather than a chance phenomenon or a right.  Specifically created for the sustenance and well-being of man and woman, it needs to be treated above all as a divine gift.

It is, however, significant that the needs of other created beings are not forgotten: “And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food” (1:30).  Food is provided by God not just for humankind but also for the whole created order.   Such a statement of “ecological” responsibility may be seen to have particular point for our society and our time.  The habitat and the food of so many creatures have been rapidly disappearing as civilisation expands into wilderness areas, depriving wild creatures of their inheritance of God-given food.  By what right do we threaten the food and hence the livelihood of these creatures?  This is a challenging question for our age posed by the words of Genesis 1:30.

It is worth noting that in the first chapter of Genesis both humankind and the whole animal world are presumed not to be carnivorous: humankind lives on a diet of fruit and specific plants, while other created beings eat “every green plant”.  The dominion which humankind exercises over fish, birds and creatures of the earth (1:28) does not extend to using them as food.  Sanction for doing this must wait till later in Genesis.  At the very least this vegetarian diet proposed early in Genesis raises the question of what is appropriate for humans to eat, and may well be considered by some as an appropriate ideal toward which to aspire.

The second creation story, found in the second chapter of Genesis, introduces the myth of the Garden of Eden.  Planted by God in the east, Eden contains “every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food” (2:9).  To this extent it reiterates the perspective of the first creation story with its depiction of food as a gift from God.  Verse 15, however, suggests that humans have some responsibility for producing their food:  here man is seen as being put in Eden “to till it and keep it” (2:15).  The production of food thus is presented as a collaborative venture between humans and God.  The initial gift of the Garden may well be from God, but, to maintain its productivity, man needs to contribute his labour and tend it with care.  In stressing the importance of human collaboration through labour and care, this verse acts as a counterweight to the much quoted verse 28 of chapter 1 with its stress on human dominion over the natural order.  Man may be in a position of dominance in nature, but this brings with it responsibilities in the areas of work and maintenance.  From such a perspective care for the environment in the production of food is seen to be not just a question of sensible self-interest. It is also part of the divine plan as presented in these early chapters of Genesis.

Genesis 2 also introduces the notions of disobedience, guilt and death through the consumption of food.  The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is forbidden territory, and failure to respect this prohibition on eating will bring dire consequences: “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (2:17).  The story of the fall from grace of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is so well known in our society that the agency of food in revealing their disobedience and their subsequent feelings of guilt is commonly overlooked.  Why should there be an association between sin and eating in this biblical myth that is so central to Jewish and Christian culture? 

In Western culture sin tends typically to be inordinately associated with sexuality.  However, in this Genesis story consciousness of sexuality follows the act of sinning (3:7) rather than prompting it. Rather is sin linked with the act of eating and the disobedience that it entails.   The reason for this linking probably lies in the spiritual and moral significance that eating and drinking generally assume in Hebrew culture. Evidence for this can be found throughout the Bible, not least in the celebration of numerous festivals associated with the harvest and various aspects of national history.  In the belief that all they had was a gift from God, obedience in matters related to food took on considerable importance for the Hebrews.  The book of Leviticus with its elaborate list of prohibited foods illustrates this clearly enough.

The third chapter of Genesis illustrates the outworking of the grim warning of Genesis 2:17.  The crafty serpent suggests to the woman that eating the forbidden fruit will not bring death but rather moral illumination: “your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (3:5).  Eve, then Adam, eat the fruit, which is “good for food, and [...] a delight to the eyes”(3:6), they become conscious of their nakedness and suffer a series of misfortunes when they are expelled from Eden.  It is perhaps significant that the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil is presented as so attractive and desirable.  Evil appears as an attractive potential reality which can manifest itself even through the food that is part of God’s good creation.   We have here a warning that even God’s creation, in the form of food, has the capacity to lead astray.

In chapter 3 of Genesis, following Eve’s identification of the serpent as the one who has led her astray, the serpent is punished by God.  Among the punishments listed is the following: “dust you shall eat all the days of your life” (3:14).  Sin is once again associated with eating.  There is, moreover, a further, somewhat parallel reference to eating in God’s punishment of Adam.  Adam is told: “cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life” (3:17).  The possibility of eating the produce of the fertile earth comes at the cost of back-breaking toil.

Towards the end of chapter 3 there is a rather surprising reference to the tree of life, which is deemed to have in its fruit the possibility of eternal life.  God is anxious not to let humanity have access to this possibility and states with considerable concern: “[the man] might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” (3:22).  This is a prospect that God is not prepared to entertain and constitutes perhaps the major reason for the exclusion of Adam and Eve from Eden.

The association in Genesis 3 of eating with disobedience, sin, guilt and hard labour indicates a certain ambivalence in the attitude of the writer to creation.  While on the one hand the goodness of God’s creation is not questioned but, on the contrary, strongly affirmed, eating is seen as an activity fraught with temptation and danger.  In this respect the myth has a modern ring, since ours is an age in which food is abused in many ways.  Affluent countries wallow in plenty and in much of the population face serious health problems occasioned by obesity.  While the affluent confront problems of this order, those in poorer countries eke out a living with meagre resources and insufficient food.  In this way eating, as in the creation story, takes on a decidedly moral and spiritual dimension.

Noah

There are a number of significant references to food in the story of Noah, recounted in chapters 6 to 9 of Genesis.  At the outset Noah is instructed by God in 6:21 to take into the ark sufficient food for all the animals that he has gathered.  Following the survival of the inhabitants of the ark, Noah makes a thanksgiving sacrifice, an act which is traditionally regarded in the Middle East and elsewhere as food offered to a divinity (see in particular Leviticus 21).  Noah’s sacrifice proves so pleasing to God that God determines to “never again curse the ground because of humankind” (8:21).  Moreover, God adds: “nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done” (8:21).  This determination is accompanied by a divine guarantee that God will continue to provide food for his creatures: “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” (8:22)

This undertaking (or covenant) made by God with Noah introduces a significant new element into relations between God and humankind as they are presented in Genesis.  The creation stories had concluded with the exclusion of Adam and Eve from Eden and their condemnation to hard labour in order to produce sufficient food to sustain themselves. God now guarantees continuation of the natural order and no repetition of the severe punishment of the flood that Noah and his animals have recently survived.

One is tempted to question the relevance of this divine assurance in an age when the natural conditions that prevail on the planet are under serious attack.  Thanks largely to human abuse of the environment, global warming, we are told, will produce a rise in the level of the earth’s oceans and consequently produce disastrous flooding in such low-lying countries as Tuvalu, Kiribati and Bangladesh.  In such places “seedtime and harvest” may well become a distant memory as their inhabitants starve.  Once again the provision and consumption of food assume moral and spiritual value. 

The ecological problems that now threaten the food supply and even the very existence of humanity in some parts of the world prompt the thought that the sins presented as provoking the flood experienced by Noah might well have been similarly ecological in nature.  In our day writers such as Jarryd Diamond have suggested the crucial importance of ecological irresponsibility in explaining the collapse of many past societies (see in particular his fascinating essay entitled Collapse).  Certainly it is clear that there is plenty of evidence in Middle East countries of the disastrous aspects of rampant deforestation and consequent severe erosion and flooding in biblical and pre-biblical times.  The story of Noah and his ark may well speak to us of ecological realities of unsuspected depth.

In the story of Noah the first verses of Genesis 9 introduce a significant change in the divinely ordained human diet.  Whereas Genesis 1 limits humans to a vegetarian diet, Genesis 9:3 gives humans fcarte blanche to consume as food any aspect of creation: “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and just as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.”  We have here allegedly divine sanction for humans to be carnivorous, with, however, a restriction related to the consumption of blood: “Only, you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.” (9:4).  This is a restriction that echoes through the pages of the Pentateuch and for some commentators is seen as an attempt to limit violence.  The general sanction of carnivorousness, on the other hand, is often interpreted as a concession to human taste.  At a time when meat-eating is a luxury for the majority of the world’s population and is in any case being recognised as a wasteful indulgence of the few, such a concession to human weakness may have to be reconsidered.

The Patriarchs

With the account of the life of Abraham, Genesis leaves the realm of myth to delve into the area of the purported history of the Hebrew patriarchs.  The story of Abraham is followed by that of Jacob and his surprisingly successful son Joseph, prior to the account of Moses beginning in Exodus.  The tales woven around Abraham and Jacob are not just presented as conventional historical material.  They are also redolent with the geographical and gastronomic realities of the lands in which they come to dwell.  Moreover, food is not merely a background presence; it plays a significant role in many aspects of the unfolding of the patriarchs’ story.

In the story of Abraham’s journeying from Ur and Haran there is no suggestion that lack of food played any role in the decision to travel towards Canaan.  However, given the environmental degradation that was a feature of that time, one can speculate that it may have been of some importance.  Certainly, it was a famine that later induced Abraham to leave Canaan to make for Egypt: “So Abram went down to Egypt to reside there as an alien, for the famine was severe in the land.” (12:10)

In the Bible food is consistently associated with hospitality and this was a feature of life in patriarchal times.  One example of this is found in Genesis chapter 18, where Abraham offers hospitality to three men he encounters by the oaks of Mamre: “Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree while they ate.” (18:8)  In similar fashion Lot offers generous hospitality to two angels whom he meets at Sodom.  “[...] and he made them a feast, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.” (19:3).  Food is also offered to Abraham’s servant when he is on a mission to seek a wife for Isaac and encounters Rebekah’s kinsfolk.

In the tortured relationships between the sons of Isaac, Esau and Jacob, food plays a significant role.  Esau is a hunter and likes life in the outdoors, while his brother, the favourite of their mother, is happier in the home.  On one particular occasion Esau returns home famished and craves some of the stew that Jacob has prepared.  Jacob obliges, but only on the condition that Esau surrender to him his birthright as the elder child.  Esau does so, but, given subsequent events, the significance of his act remains uncertain.  On his death bed Isaac requests Esau to go out hunting and prepare him the stew that he likes, prior to receiving the father’s blessing.  During his absence, Rebekah hatches a plot designed to have Isaac bless Jacob instead of his brother.  Isaac is virtually blind and, with the aid of a kid’s skin and the smell of Esau’s borrowed clothing, is tricked into believing that it is his elder son that is beside him, and that his favourite stew has been prepared by Esau, rather than by Rebekah.  After the blessing has been given, Esau appears, but too late: the blessing cannot be retracted and it is Jacob rather than Esau that benefits (27:37).  It is interesting to note that the first two elements of Isaac’s blessing relate to food and water: “May God give you of the dew of heaven, and of the fatness of the earth, and plenty of grain and wine” (27:28).

Joseph

The fascinating story of Joseph towards the end of Genesis contains many significant references to food.  Food may in fact be seen to drive almost every aspect of the narrative.  The two servants of Pharaoh that Joseph encounters in prison are Pharaoh’s cup bearer and his baker, responsible for their master’s eating and drinking needs.  Thanks to the cup bearer, Joseph’s powers of dream interpretation are brought to the attention of Pharaoh, who enlists the imprisoned Hebrew to interpret his enigmatic dreams related to cows and grain.  Joseph’s interpretation, which is credible enough to excite the confidence of Pharaoh, is in terms of years of plenty and years of famine in Egypt.  He is given authority to store the excess grain of the years of plentiful food, with the result that food remains abundant during the famine years.  Moreover, it is food – or rather lack of it – that drives Jacob to send Joseph’s brothers to Egypt.  Famine having now spread “throughout the world” (41:57), Egypt alone has adequate supplies and thus becomes the only hope for Jacob and his starving family.  This hope is eventually realised and Jacob’s family settle in Egypt.

There is, however, one aspect of the story of Joseph and his manipulation of the food supply that tends to be overlooked.  Joseph takes advantage of the situation to exploit those in need and to acquire land, livestock and slaves for Pharaoh:

So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh.  All the Egyptians sold their fields, because the famine was severe upon them; and the land became Pharaoh’s.  As for the people, he made slaves of them from one end of Egypt to the other. (47:20-21)

In this way the story of Joseph’s success in Egypt raises the question of the morality of using food as a means of social control.  Presumably along with many native born Egyptians, the Israelites of later generations were, ironically, to find themselves landless, enslaved and oppressed.  In his time Joseph had brought salvation to his near relations.  However, his policies also sowed the seeds of later misery, which was alleviated only by flight and then return to Canaan at the end of a long period of forty years.

PERSPECTIVES ON FOOD IN GENESIS

In its mixture of myth and purported history, Genesis raises numerous questions related to food, many of which have relevance to our contemporary situation.  The two creation stories identify food as a deliberate and significant gift from God, so that its eating and distribution by humans have distinctively religious and moral connotations.  However, food is presented as being provided by God also for other members of the created order.  Specific provision for food is made for the non-human creation in both creation stories, while the presence of so much biodiversity in Noah’s ark suggests practical concern for animals and their welfare.  A desirable modern expression of this concern may well be in the preservation of habitat and food for those wild animals that we have not yet eliminated from our planet.  A further expression may well be in a return by humans to a vegetarian diet.

Human responsibility for the environment is specifically raised through the injunction in Genesis 2:15 to “till and keep” Eden.  Such activity may be seen as preserving God’s gift of creation and collaborating with God in a practical way.  As such it is a responsible implementation of the “dominion” invoked in Genesis 1:28.  The spiritual and moral significance of the environment - and specifically of food - is further stressed in the link created in Genesis between food and sin.  The forbidden fruit is not only “a delight to the eyes” but also “good for food” and so constitutes a potent temptation to disobey God’s command.  As not just Adam and Eve but also the serpent discover, eating is an activity fraught with danger, since it involves God and his will for creation.

Awareness of global warming, deforestation and rising sea levels gives contemporary relevance to the story of Noah and the Great Flood.  In our day humankind may well be largely responsible for the coming of a new flood to certain low-lying parts of the earth, with the consequent destruction of food and shelter.  Indeed, such a scenario prompts the thought that the unspecified communal sins of Noah’s day may possibly have been principally ecological in nature, and that we may be in a sense reliving history.

We have seen that food is an important element in the lives of the Hebrew patriarchs.  It is regarded as a customary expression of hospitality, an indication of the belief that food is to be shared with others as the opportunity arises.  Lack of food is at least partially responsible for the travels of Abraham, bringing him to Egypt and thus inaugurating a significant stage in the formation of the Israelite nation.  The relationships among Isaac, Esau and Jacob are expressed principally through the agency of food, which assumes a significant moral role in the expression of interpersonal relations.  Jacob shows himself to be a past master in the manipulation of food to further his own ends, thus highlighting the question of food as a weapon in the struggle for power and position.  Seen in this light the story takes on potential contemporary relevance: in an age when a large proportion of the world’s population goes to bed hungry, there is a great temptation for rich nations to use food as a psychological and political weapon.  Food and its lack likewise drive the story of Joseph as we trace his advancement from obscurity to a situation of significant power in Egypt.  In his exploitation of the political power of food in the service of the Pharaoh, Joseph brings further interesting perspectives on the use of food for political and financial aggrandisement.