Who knew?
What does the Bible say about cannibalism? Is there cannibalism in the Bible?
Now, how the hell did I miss that back when I was reading the Bible? They sure as hell didn't cover this in Thursday school (well, they left out a lot of other strange stuff, too, par for the course). Maybe I forgot all about it because it was so horrific.
It isn't that far-fetched to believe that somebody said that back then, though. Civilization in the Middle East is very old -- and so is siege warfare. Cannibalism was often the final chapter of a doomed, or seemingly doomed, defense by city-dwellers against besiegers -- the besiegers could range out through the surrounding countryside at any time to find food and water, but when the food ran out in the city, well, there was still some of it in there, wandering around on two legs. So it must have been a horror repeated many times in that region. A sign of it is that even though the meat of pigs is classified in a general sense as non-kosher because while pigs split the hoof, they do not chew their cud, pork is banned by name as well. Why? Because -- well, consider where the term "long pork" came from. The thing is, if you don't eat any pork or ham before you go through puberty, after that, if you try it, it will have a revolting taste for you. So banning it as food is a good idea if you want to prevent cannibalism among your people. China also had a law banning the eating of the flesh of pigs during its long-ago consolidation era, but revoked the ban after that, for very similar reasons -- the consolidation era was one of frequent siege warfare, but after that siege warfare within China dropped to zero, save for the occasional invasion attempt by outside armies.
So why not just come out and say "Don't eat the flesh of your neighbor, or, for that matter, anybody else?" Because, being the innately ornery beings we are, people frequently react to "Thou shalt nots" by deciding to "shall," anyway, and so so. Cannibalism is so horrible that you just don't want to tempt anyone. So . . .
Now, how the hell did I miss that back when I was reading the Bible? They sure as hell didn't cover this in Thursday school (well, they left out a lot of other strange stuff, too, par for the course). Maybe I forgot all about it because it was so horrific.
It isn't that far-fetched to believe that somebody said that back then, though. Civilization in the Middle East is very old -- and so is siege warfare. Cannibalism was often the final chapter of a doomed, or seemingly doomed, defense by city-dwellers against besiegers -- the besiegers could range out through the surrounding countryside at any time to find food and water, but when the food ran out in the city, well, there was still some of it in there, wandering around on two legs. So it must have been a horror repeated many times in that region. A sign of it is that even though the meat of pigs is classified in a general sense as non-kosher because while pigs split the hoof, they do not chew their cud, pork is banned by name as well. Why? Because -- well, consider where the term "long pork" came from. The thing is, if you don't eat any pork or ham before you go through puberty, after that, if you try it, it will have a revolting taste for you. So banning it as food is a good idea if you want to prevent cannibalism among your people. China also had a law banning the eating of the flesh of pigs during its long-ago consolidation era, but revoked the ban after that, for very similar reasons -- the consolidation era was one of frequent siege warfare, but after that siege warfare within China dropped to zero, save for the occasional invasion attempt by outside armies.
So why not just come out and say "Don't eat the flesh of your neighbor, or, for that matter, anybody else?" Because, being the innately ornery beings we are, people frequently react to "Thou shalt nots" by deciding to "shall," anyway, and so so. Cannibalism is so horrible that you just don't want to tempt anyone. So . . .