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Is canibalism addressed in the Bible?

I'm just curious. Like, if you ate a dead person, is it a sin?

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  • Favorite Answer

    Yes, it is addressed. Sometimes when a city was unable to get food and was barricaded, cannibalism resulted. I will give you a cite in a moment.

    EDIT:

    Leviticus 26:29

    You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters.

    Deuteronomy 28:53-57

    Because of the suffering that your enemy will inflict on you during the siege, you will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the LORD your God has given you. Even the most gentle and sensitive man among you will have no compassion on his own brother or the wife he loves or his surviving children, and he will not give to one of them any of the flesh of his children that he is eating. It will be all he has left because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of all your cities. The most gentle and sensitive woman among you—so sensitive and gentle that she would not venture to touch the ground with the sole of her foot—will begrudge the husband she loves and her own son or daughter the afterbirth from her womb and the children she bears. For she intends to eat them secretly during the siege and in the distress that your enemy will inflict on you in your cities.

    2 Kings 6:28-29

    Then he asked her, "What's the matter?" She answered, "This woman said to me, 'Give up your son so we may eat him today, and tomorrow we'll eat my son.' So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, 'Give up your son so we may eat him,' but she had hidden him."

    THAT IS DISGUSTING AND THE WORST THING EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    I would gladly starve rather than do that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • 1 decade ago

    I dont know why you are asking this question. I am not a bible scholar, and I don't know any biblical passages that address this issue, but I think it would almost certainly be a grave sin. The proper disposal of a human body after death is to bury the remains in the ground. This is what Christians have been doing for thousands of years. Eating the flesh of a deceased person would amount to desecration of the body, and this almost certainly would have repurcussions to you on the day of atonement. There might possibly be an exception in situations where eating human flesh is necessary to avoid starvation, as happened to the Argentine soccer team when they were trapped in the Andes mountains after a plane crash. All the surviving soccer players were Christian and engaged in cannabalism, but their behavior may be considered justified and forgivable since it was their only chance for survival. Probably they will still get into heaven if they have otherwise lived a good life. Barring these kinds of extreme circumstances, cannabalism has to be a sin.

  • Cee T
    Lv 6
    1 decade ago

    Deuteronomy 28:53

  • 1 decade ago

    I don't think there's a reference, but there might be something in some Old Testament siege. I think the assumption is that fellow humans are not for food as a rule, but no one would blame someone for eating a dead person for survival. I know I would. I would feel pretty bad about it, but I would.

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  • 1 decade ago

    Cannibalism, the eating of human flesh, naturally repugnant to the human mind, was abhorred by God and his ancient covenant people Israel. Neither could they eat the flesh of an animal torn by a wild beast, or one that died of itself. These would be detestable, besides not being properly drained of blood.

    God commanded that, before eating the flesh of an animal, his people were to pour out its blood on the ground and cover it with dust, being careful not to eat the blood, on pain of death. The governing body of the early Christian congregation restated this prohibition, forbidding the eating of animals strangled or not drained of blood. They additionally forbade eating meat as part of a communion offering to idols, a common practice among pagans in those days. (Ac 15:19, 20, 28, 29) The eating of flesh by Christians is proper, but the apostle Paul pointed out that flesh is not absolutely essential to man as food when he said that if his eating of meat was a source of stumbling to other Christians, he would “never again eat flesh at all.”

    Source(s): The Truth.
  • 1 decade ago

    Yes, in the old testament when the prophets were condemning the nations around Israel this was listed among the practises that the Lord detested. One of the kings of Israel, maybe Ahab, took part in this and the Lord was none too pleased. Its all throughout the books of Ist and 2nd Kings.

  • 1 decade ago

    It is mentioned.

    One of the punishments was famine and it was so bad that parents would eat their children.

    I think this is found in Lamentations.

    Most will read that and say oh how horrible for God to cause this! Yet they willing leave out the fact God warned them it would happen if they didnt repent. (But well we won't mention that part.)

    So yes it is mentioned at least.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    Gen 9:2 And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.

    Gen 9:3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.

    Gen 9:4 But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.

    Gen 9:5 And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man.

    Gen 9:6 Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.

    Source(s): The Holy Bible - KJV
  • 1 decade ago

    The Hebrews were not to touch a dead body, I think.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    Genesis9:3,4,5

    Source(s): KJV Bible
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