What kind of animals may we eat

In Wat kind of animals may we eat the author of the SAB picks verses throughout the Bible and without looking at the context. That way he arrives at the desired conclusion that there is a contradiction. But we should always look at the context. To do otherwise is blatantly unfair. You can let a person say anything if you just pick the appropriate sentences. In this case the context is the time when the text was written and for what purpose. There are five Biblical times that are relevant when looking at the question what animals we may eat:
  1. When man lived in the Garden of Eden.
  2. Before the Flood.
  3. After the Flood.
  4. In Old Testament times in Israel.
  5. In New Testament times.
Each of them is discussed in some more detail in the next paragraphs.

Garden of Eden

In the Garden of Eden there was no death. Animals didn't eat animals and man didn't eat animals either. It is a situation that once will return, see Is. 65:25.

Before the Flood

It seems after the Fall man either didn't eat animals, or did eat so in another defiance of God's commands. We never read of the eating of animals, but after the Flood God gave permissions to do so (Gen. 9:3):

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

After the Flood

After the Flood God gave permissions to eat animals (Gen. 9:3), either because man already did so before the Flood and he was so hardened he wouldn't change his ways, but probably also because of the changed conditions. The earth was still barren and the eating of animal flesh might have been necessary to enhance the scarce and incomplete vegetables at that time. And of course the Ice Age would be coming up, and there would be many years in which the growing of vegetables was impossible on almost a third of the earth's surface.

Old Testament Israel

God gave special laws to Israel. They were specific for the Jews and for their country and for the time up to the New Testament. These laws were not generally applicable. It was no sin for the heathen not to obey them, because they didn't apply to them. For example only certain kinds of animals could be eaten, see Deut. 14:3-20 among others.

New Testament times

In the New Testament the laws of the Old Covenant were explicitly abolished. They had fulfilled their purpose. We see this in the renting of the veil of the Tabernacle (Luke 23:45), the vision Peter had (Acts 10:15) and finally the decision at the Apostle Convent (Acts 15:19):

Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God:

So there are no specific laws now of what animals can be eaten and what animals cannot be eaten. Each person is free in his own conscience to do or not to do so.