The Bible has long been known as a collection of books that, to some, is distasteful in its depictions of war, rape, mass murder, mutilations and animal sacrifice and cruelty.
PETA aims to change some of that with the world’s first AI-assisted vegan interpretation of the Bible. This new vegan-friendly edition of the Bible has ruffled the feathers of some faith leaders, who say that God’s word should not be tampered with.
“You can’t rewrite the Bible by this kind of revisionism and then claim it is a biblical sanction,” argues Darrell L. Bock, a senior research professor at Dallas Theological Seminary. “It produces a fraudulent claim of divine sanction, making God in our image,” he says.
“The Bible has long been used to justify all forms of oppression, so we’ve used ChatGPT to make it clear that a loving God would never endorse exploitation of or cruelty to animals,” explained PETA President Ingrid Newkirk.
She says this new Bible will actually refocus the text on God’s love and grace, rather than His thirst for sacrifice and bloodshed. Produced as a digital download with a virtual “vegan leather” cover, The Book: PETA’s Version of the Creation Story is billed as a “first-of-its-kind AI-generated vegan interpretation of the book of Genesis.”
In the PETA version, animals are no longer referred to as “beasts,” but rather “beings”. Animal skins and leather worn by biblical figures are instead made of hemp. Some stories involving animal sacrifice have been changed also, such as Abraham’s slaughter of a ram to demonstrate his faith – now he instead befriends a gentle lamb to show his faith.
The PETA version also adds to the stories and tales in the Bible. In PETA's Genesis 21, Abraham and Sarah “add to their growing family by adopting a dog named Herbie.”
“As they walked with Herbie,” the passage reads, “Sarah and Abraham thought of the importance of adopting dogs from shelters and rescue organizations rather than purchasing them from breeders.”
According to PETA, the purpose of selling a Bible rewrite is “to start important conversations about dominion as a benevolent way of life rather than an exploitative one and to encourage Christians to reconcile their faith with their actions by choosing to live vegan.”
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