10. References to cannibalism are prevalent in the Bible
Both the Christian New Testament and the Hebrew Bible contain numerous references to cannibalism. Some of them are promises or commands from God, as in Jeremiah 19: 9, “And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat everyone the flesh of his friend in the siege…” (KJV). In Isaiah 49: 26, God tells the prophet, “And I will feed them that oppress thee with their own flesh; and they shall be drunken with their own blood, as with sweet wine…” (KJV). In 2 Kings is a story of a woman asking another to deliver her son to be eaten, with the promise of her delivering her own son for the same purpose the following day. (2 Kings 6: 28-29, KJV)
The presence of more than 30 verses throughout the Bible leads some to argue that the Bible endorses cannibalism, others that it describes it as the suffering to be visited upon sinners, and still others to ignore them entirely. They do indicate that the practice was known in the lands of ancient Israel and the other kingdoms and dominions of the books of the Bible. The Christian belief in the conversion of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ – the transubstantiation – led the Romans and others to consider them cannibalistic in nature, though their participation in the eating of flesh and blood was purely symbolic.