“I Will Abolish the Bow,” by Matthew A. King (vegan), Part 1 of 2

Matthew A. King (vegan) is an American author and registered nurse in the state of Pennsylvania. He also serves as the President and Co-Founder of the Christian Animal Rights Association. In 2021, he published his book “I Will Abolish the Bow: Christianity, Personhood, and the End of Animal Exploitation.” His other works include “Meat: The New Cigarette: Patient Advocacy and the Plant-Based Diet,” released in 2022, and “Pride Goes Before Destruction: Human Vanity, Animal Agriculture, and the New Covenant Solution,” published in 2023.

“And I noticed there was a lot of vegan messages within the Bible that I had never heard growing up, or when I was involved with youth group, or anything like that.” In the Bible, nephesh is used to describe both humans and animal-people, signifying their status as living, sentient beings. “The animals are, through Genesis 1:20, through 1:31, and then in 2:19 and 2:20, it says that animals are persons again. And then it applies it to Adam in Genesis 2:7. So there’s this awareness that ‘nephesh chayyah’ is between both humans and animals.” “The Bible, the way it’s been interpreted is animals exist to satisfy humans’ trivial desires, and we can sort of discard them as we see fit. And the Bible never really says that. And there’s always this notion that animals are very important to God, and that’s made clear with the word choices He uses. There’s this awareness that God always cared about the animals as well. Why wouldn’t He? He blessed them with the senses to feel and experience life just like we would, and so why would He want them just to be exploited and tortured?”