In the oldest stories, the first world was plant-based

Many of the oldest religions start with not killing animals

In Genesis, God gives humans and animals only plants to eat, and Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism all put not harming living beings first. Zoroastrian and Cherokee stories also begin without killing, and killing animals only comes later, as a fall from how things began.

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In Genesis 1:29–30, God gives humans and animals only plants to eat

God creates Adam and Eve in his image (Genesis 1:26–27), then gives them and every animal every seed-bearing plant and fruit tree for food. Meat isn’t allowed as food until after the flood (Genesis 9:3), and then only as a concession. So the humans closest to God, made directly in his image, eat plants.

Jewish scholars read Genesis 1 as a vegetarian creation

A Jewish scholarly article on TheTorah.com reads Genesis 1 as describing a creation where everyone eats plants, with meat allowed only after the flood. Talmudic and modern interpreters treat vegetarianism as God’s original plan.

Isaiah 11:6–9 describes a world where nothing is killed

Isaiah describes the restored world as a peaceable kingdom where the wolf lives with the lamb, the lion eats straw, and a child plays by a snake’s den. Nothing is killed on God’s holy mountain, just as in the plant-based world of Genesis.

Later Hindu texts put non-violence above animal sacrifice

Post-Vedic Hindu texts value ahimsa (non-violence toward all beings) and vegetarian offerings above animal sacrifice, and Hindu ethical teaching shifted toward vegetarian practice.

Jainism makes not harming any living being its core practice

Jainism, a śramaṇa tradition of ancient India that grew up alongside early Buddhism, makes non-violence toward all living creatures its core practice. Its vegetarian diet follows from that religious rule.

Buddhism’s first precept is not to take life

Buddhism’s first precept is to refrain from taking life. Mahayana texts such as the Laṅkāvatāra and Mahāparinirvāṇa sutras condemn eating meat because it destroys compassion, and monastic Buddhism in East Asia built vegetarian kitchens. Theravada practice varies, but its ethic still centers on not taking life.

In Zoroastrian cosmology, the world begins and ends without meat

In Zoroastrian cosmology, the first human couple lived on water, then plants, then milk, and only then meat. At the end of time the order reverses and meat is the first to go, so the world is plant-based at its beginning and at its end.

Pliny says Zoroaster lived in the wilderness on cheese

Pliny the Elder reports that Zoroaster lived for years in the wilderness on cheese, prepared so that he didn’t feel the effects of old age. The founder of Zoroastrianism is remembered as living on a simple, meatless diet.

The Magi ate vegetables, cheese, and coarse bread

Diogenes Laertius writes that the Magi dress in white, sleep on the ground, and live on vegetables, cheese, and coarse bread. Porphyry, citing Eubulus, adds that the first and most learned class of Magi neither kill nor eat anything living. In Greek writings, the Magi are Zoroaster’s priestly followers.

Colin Spencer writes that Zoroaster was vegetarian and rejected animal sacrifice

In The Heretic’s Feast, Colin Spencer writes that Zoroaster was a vegetarian and also rejected animal sacrifice. Hinduism Today repeats this in its survey of eight religions.

Denkard Book VI tells people to be plant-eaters

In Denkard Book VI, High Priest Ādurpād ī Ēmēdān, who lived in the ninth or tenth century, tells people to be plant-eaters so that they may live long and to keep away from the bodies of farm animals, and says Ohrmazd created plants in great number to help animals and people. Mazdakism, a Zoroastrian sect, later made vegetarianism an explicit rule.

James the Just, brother of Jesus, “ate no flesh”

Hegesippus, quoted by Eusebius in his Church History (2.23), says James, the brother of Jesus and leader of the Jerusalem church, was holy from the womb, drank no wine, and ate no flesh.

James Tabor argues Jesus didn’t eat meat or fish

James Tabor, a historian of Christian origins, follows Keith Akers in arguing that Jesus didn’t eat meat or fish. John the Baptist and James the Just are remembered as eating no meat, and in this reading the few gospel stories about fish fail tests of authenticity. It’s a minority view among scholars, though not one without support.

Keith Akers argues the Jewish-Christian Jesus movement was vegetarian

In The Lost Religion of Jesus, Keith Akers describes the Jewish-Christian (Ebionite) Jesus movement as vegetarian, nonviolent, and against animal sacrifice at the temple. In his reading, the cleansing of the temple was an act against the meat market at the center of temple worship.

In a Cherokee story, disease began when people started eating animals

In the Cherokee story recorded by James Mooney, humans, plants, and animals lived as equals at the beginning, and nobody killed. When humans turned aggressive and ate animals, the animals invented diseases, while the plants stayed friendly and offered themselves as medicine. In this story, hunting is the fall from that original peace.

Hinduism and Buddhism have recommended vegetarian living from the start

A 2014 review in the Proceedings of the Nutrition Society says early human food cultures were plant-based, and that Hinduism and Buddhism have recommended a vegetarian way of life since they began.