Death before the Fall?

[Bizzlebin Imperatoris]

Just a thought. But do you think Llons started out as vegetarian creature that started eating meat, turning into a carnivore?

I have not formulated a proper opinion on this yet, but from what I have seen so far, I think they did start out peaceful. Evil corrupted them.

 

[Asar'el]

**** News just in ****


There were never vegetarian lions. What a ridiculous concept with absolutely no evidence for and plenty against.

**** End of news flash ****

And we all believe the news, right? Especially when it comes from such an undeniable source as man ...

How easy to say, Ridiculous concept... absolutely no evidence for... plenty against... and leave it at that.

You will forgive me, I hope, for looking at another source that says, for example,

And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

It was only after the flood that man was told

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

I believe it was at that time animals were also given to eat meat.

You may wish to look a little closer at the 'evidence', for I have seen a program wherein scientists agree that entirely vegetarian fauna was not only possible, but probable. A short search found this

http://njnj.essortment.com/vegetariansdogs_rlyd.htm

Wow, speaks of a vegeterian lion there...

 

[Asar'el]

Just a thought. But do you think Llons started out as vegetarian creature that started eating meat, turning into a carnivore?

In a sense, exactly that! And not only the Lion, but all creatures were vegetarian.

That being said, I must point out that being a creationist does not mean I disagree with everything that is normally associated with evolution; the concept of the survival of the fittest is well proven - but it does not change one species into another, merely separates specialized versions of one creaure ...

So, I do not know what kind of creature God created on the sixth day that might later have specialized into the lion, and the other cats; or when that specialization occured...

But I believe that from the first one, until after the flood, all were vegetarian. After that, at some point, some began eating meat.

 

[Chi_Cygni]

Just a thought. But do you think Llons started out as vegetarian creature that started eating meat, turning into a carnivore?

Lions are, and always were carnivores. Quit trying to fit useless Jewish mythology into the real world.

This is the kind of stuff that gets Christians ridiculed - and deservedly so.

The Bible is a spiritual guide but to try to fit a scientific/historical worldview into it is a joke. It is an exercise in futility that demeans the faith.

 

[Chi_Cygni]

In a sense, exactly that! And not only the Lion, but all creatures were vegetarian.

That being said, I must point out that being a creationist does not mean I disagree with everything that is normally associated with evolution; the concept of the survival of the fittest is well proven - but it does not change one species into another, merely separates specialized versions of one creaure ...

So, I do not know what kind of creature God created on the sixth day that might later have specialized into the lion, and the other cats; or when that specialization occured...

But I believe that from the first one, until after the flood, all were vegetarian. After that, at some point, some began eating meat.

Vegetarian creatures do not have the dentition of lions. When someone digs up a lion skeleton with a mouth full of horse teeth I'll give it some credence until then it's just a joke.

 

[Asar'el]

Vegetarian creatures do not have the dentition of lions. When someone digs up a lion skeleton with a mouth full of horse teeth I'll give it some credence until then it's a pathetic joke for the ignorant to swallow.

Your confidence in your opinion is admirable; but try not to diminish the opinions of other by calling them pathetic and ignorant ...

Did you check the link about the (apparently famous!) vegetarion lion? A little search will show the issue is not as clear-cut as you would have it be.

 

[Sinai]

I guess all those dinosaurs died after the fall - LOL

I see your point. But is there any way to not be in conflict with the Bible when one says there is death before the fall? That's what I'm looking for.

Which scripture are you referring to that says that there was physical death before the fall? Thank you.

 

[Marshall Janzen]

Psalm 104 is a creation psalm. It tells of God's work in creating and sustaining the world. It's best to read the whole thing to get the full context, but I'm going to deal with one section of it:

14 He makes grass grow for the cattle,
and plants for man to cultivate --
bringing forth food from the earth:
15 wine that gladdens the heart of man,
oil to make his face shine,
and bread that sustains his heart.
16 The trees of the LORD are well watered,
the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.
17 There the birds make their nests;
the stork has its home in the pine trees.
18 The high mountains belong to the wild goats;
the crags are a refuge for the coneys.

19 The moon marks off the seasons,
and the sun knows when to go down.
20 You bring darkness, it becomes night,
and all the beasts of the forest prowl.
21 The lions roar for their prey
and seek their food from God.
22 The sun rises, and they steal away;
they return and lie down in their dens.
23 Then man goes out to his work,
to his labor until evening.

24 How many are your works, O LORD!
In wisdom you made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.
25 There is the sea, vast and spacious,
teeming with creatures beyond number-
living things both large and small.
26 There the ships go to and fro,
and the leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.

27 These all look to you
to give them their food at the proper time.
28 When you give it to them,
they gather it up;
when you open your hand,
they are satisfied with good things.

This passage shows that God is responsible for carnivorous activity (v.21); that God made all things, including these lions, in his wisdom (v.24); that animals, whether carnivorous or otherwise, ultimately get their food and sustenance from God (v.27); and that this system, including lions who roar for their prey, is a "good thing" from God (v.28).

To claim that God couldn't look over a creation where animals kill each other and declare it "very good" simply shows that one sees things differently than God.

 

[Bushido216]

If evolution is correct than there was death before the fall, right? So how would somebody who believes in theistic evolution make sense of that?

It could be considered that the Adam & Eve story illustrate a spiritual fall, i.e. falling from the Grace of God and therefore needing to be redeemed.

Then step-in Jesus, a well timed Death on the Cross, a really spectacular Resurrection, and bingo, the fall is an jump and everyone's happy again.

 

[boughtwithaprice]

The whole premise of this thread is in error with regard to evolution. Evolution is a scientific principle based on reproduction, not death. The more the species reproduce, the more mutations occur, and the population becomes more diverse.

The appearance of a new species does not require the extinction of the former. It is an error to believe that evolution is powered by natural selection; it is powered by mutation and adaptation. This is life itself. If extinction were required to power evolution, then we would have only one species on the earth. As it is, we have millions.


Does this answer your OP, Andreas?

 

[Chi_Cygni]

Your confidence in your opinion is admirable; but try not to diminish the opinions of other by calling them pathetic and ignorant ...

Did you check the link about the (apparently famous!) vegetarion lion? A little search will show the issue is not as clear-cut as you would have it be.

Training an animal to change it's diet is meaningless. I believe PETA advocates this for house cats but ask any biologist or vet and they will tell you it's foolishness that harms the animal. It's not just their dentition but their biochemistry that makes this stupid.

Of course you can get around this somewhat with vitamin and mineral supplements but that is going against the natural scheme of things..

And it's not an opinion - it's a fact that lions etc. are carnivores, have always been carnivores and always will be carnivores except for a circus stunt. To pretend otherwise is to throw out biology, zoology and perhaps more importantly biochemistry.

It is a clear cut issue, stunts notwithstanding.

 

[mhess13]

If evolution is correct than there was death before the fall, right? So how would somebody who believes in theistic evolution make sense of that?

If you BELIEVE the Bible then it is clear that there was no death before the fall. That is ridiculous.
If you want to learn more on this topic read
"Refuting Compromise" by Jonathan Sarfati

 

[Marshall Janzen]

I'm resurrecting this topic because it's currently being discussed in a few other threads where it's off-topic.

I don't think animal death is inherently evil. I think carnivores were around long before the Fall. And, I think the Bible is compatible with this belief. I'm going to break this up into sections to deal with passages in Genesis, Job & Psalms, Isaiah, and the New Testament.


Genesis texts

Many people interpret Genesis 1:29-30 as indicating that animals were created vegetarian. This interpretation is based on an assumption that can easily be shown to be unwarranted by looking at a pair of verses one chapter later:

Genesis 2:16-17: "And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, 'You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.' "

The question is, does "You may surely eat" mean "You may only eat"? Chances are, in this case most everyone would agree it doesn't mean that. The reason is twofold: (1) there are other passages that indicate humans could eat more than just fruit from trees, such as Genesis 1:29-30, and (2) it is obvious why only trees are mentioned in this second passage: because this statement is in the context of prohibiting eating from a certain tree. Other non-tree food sources are not the point.

Now, going back to the previous chapter:

Genesis 1:29-30: "And God said, 'Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.' And it was so."

Does "I have given every green plant for food" mean "I have only given every green plant for food"? I would suggest that it doesn't. First, there are other passages that indicate humans and animals could eat other things besides vegetation. Some passages show that animals were also created as food, as I will detail below. It is quite a stretch to claim all those passages are merely accommodation to a sinful, post-Fall environment. (And to do so implies that what God now calls "good" he would have considered evil before sin entered the world.)

Second, there is a good reason why only vegetation is mentioned in these verses. Everything mentioned in the Genesis 1 creation account is given a function. Light and the luminaries are to divide and rule over day and night, among other things; the firmament divides the waters and provides an environment for birds and, indirectly, fish; dry ground divides the seas and provides a habitat for land animals and humans; all the animals are created to fill their respective environments and be governed by humans; humans reflect God by sharing his image and ruling over the rest of creation. Everything is created for a reason that is clearly mentioned except for the vegetation... until we get to verses 29-30. These verses mention that the purpose of the vegetation is to provide food to every human, beast, bird and creeping thing.

This also explains why a food source for fish is conspicuously absent. The purpose of these verses isn't to say what every type of created creature can eat (if so, fish would also be given something to eat), but to give a function to the vegetation created on day three. Rather than saying "you may only eat plants", it is saying, "the plants were made to be eaten". The text is as silent on whether or not animals were also created to be eaten as it is on whether vegetation was also created under the sea. It does not intend to tell us such things. As shown below, Psalm 104, Isaiah 25 and 1 Timothy 4 shed more light on whether animals were also created as a food source.

Some other Genesis texts that relate:

• Before the flood, Abel sacrificed "the fat portions" of an animal to God (Genesis 4:4). What did he do with the rest of the animal, if not eat it? If eating meat was prohibited at this time, why didn't he sacrifice all of the meat to the Lord?
• Also before the flood, it appears that Noah already knew which animals were clean and which were unclean (Genesis 7:2). If Noah knew this, it is quite possible that God had already revealed to him (or to Adam) which animals he could eat.
• Based on the above, Genesis 9:3 can be read in a different light: "Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything." Just as before God gave all the vegetation for food, now God gave all animals for food, rather than just the clean animals. Note that this text does not indicate a change in what animals were permitted to eat.

Job and Psalms texts

In Job 38:41, God asks Job a question: "Who provides for the raven its prey, when its young ones cry to God for help, and wander about for lack of food?" The rhetorical answer is that God provides this. Does God provide things that are evil? If animal death and predation only came into the world as a result of sin, that would be the case.

I've already posted some details about Psalm 104 in post #28 in this thread. Psalm 104:20-30 shows that God is responsible for carnivorous activity (v.21); made all things, including carnivorous lions, in his wisdom (v.24); gives food and sustenance to his creatures, whether they're carnivorous or not (v.27); and calls the food and prey he provides them with "good things" from his hand (v.28). Carnivorous lions are not described by the psalmist as a distortion of some docile beast that was corrupted by sin.

To claim that God couldn't look over a creation where animals prey on each other and declare it "very good" simply shows that one sees things differently than God.


Isaiah texts

Various passages in Isaiah describe a time when wild animals will be tame:

Isaiah 11:6: "The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them."

Isaiah 65:25: " 'The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent's food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain,' says the LORD."

There's problems right away for a literal reading because Isaiah 65 is describing a time when "No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not fill out his days, for the young man shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed" (v.20). So, this is a time when people still die, but they don't die young. Does this mean that God will remove predation before God does away with death?

A more likely interpretation can be found by comparing other verses where biblical prophecies include lions. Perhaps most instructive is the following passage that describes when "the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion":

Isaiah 35:9-10: "No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there."

What is interesting is that this passage seems to be describing the same thing as Isaiah 11:6. In one passage, the security of this paradise is illustrated by how the calf and lion graze together. In the other passage, the security is illustrated by how lions and other ravenous beasts will be banished. Same idea. Different imagery.

Some have asked how one decides when to take something literally or figuratively. When the same thing (in this case shalom, or peace and security) is described by two illustrations that both convey the same idea in spite of being literally contradictory, that is a good sign that the imagery is not meant to be taken literally.

But, if it is literal, there's one more thing that has to be explained. In a time when God has banished death, both for humans and animals, why does God do this:

Isaiah 25:6-8: "On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken."

At a time when death is being swallowed up forever, God prepares a feast -- of meat!

This is just one more piece of evidence that the Bible describes human death being swallowed up, not animal death. Or, perhaps the details such as the lions, lambs and contents of the feasts in these prophecies are symbolic and just paint a picture of something beyond our comprehension. Perhaps both. In any case, a literalistic reading just leads to contradiction and nonsense. This is certainly not the only place in Isaiah where nature is personified. Would anyone claim that Isaiah 33:9, 35:1, 44:23 and 55:12 should be taken literally? Hopefully not, and hopefully people realize that it is possible to take a passage symbolically without thinking the passage is wrong or useless.


New Testament texts

Romans 5:12: "Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned"

Note the last three words. If we reduce our sinfulness to something we inherited from a distant ancestor, then Jesus' death and resurrection is merely God's way of belatedly correcting a glitch in our heredity rather than God saving us from our sins. And, even if one focuses on the hereditary inheritance of death, does that mean the animals are all related to either Adam or perhaps the serpent? Whether you look at the inheritance side of things or the fact that death came to those who sin, animals are ruled out.

Also, if one reads non-human death into Romans 5 (by refusing to qualify the "death" in the first half of Romans 5:12 by its definition in the later half as death that "spread to all men"), then one ends up with the idea that Jesus died to give eternal life to animals the same way Adam's sin brought death upon animals. The parallels Paul makes between Adam and Jesus seem to be quite clear that it is human death (perhaps spiritual death) and human eternal life he is referring to, not animal or plant death. The Bible makes a big distinction between humans and animals (humans are made in the image of God while animals are not), so we should not read animal death into references to human death.

If a person insists on claiming that animal death is inherently evil, then I think they are calling something evil that God has declared good:

1 Timothy 4:1-6: "Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer."

Apparently, the various foods that some were suggesting should not be eaten (including various types of animal flesh according to the record of other NT passages) were created to be received by us with thanksgiving. In the same way, marriage was created to be received with thanksgiving. To claim that animals only became food after the Fall requires this passage to be twisted just as severely as if one claimed that marriage only came about after the Fall. It distorts what this passage tells us about the God-ordained goodness of both marriage and meat.


In conclusion, it is because animal death is not a result of sin that I can in good conscience enjoy a steak today.

 

[shernren]

Amen and amen to that! Now, let me see what happens if one rigorously supports the idea that there was no animal death before the Fall.

Firstly, this would exacerbate the problem of theodicy. Why? This shows that God planned for the world to fall. You don't need to be an ecological genius to realize that if you grow a population which has reproduction without death on finite resources, you will end up with overpopulation and eventually death anyway, without a drastic reworking of the universe's natural laws. Go culture paramecia in a petri dish and you will see that eventually the population reaches a finite stable point, even if you replenish the resources daily. That's not because all the individuals have stopped reproducing: that's because the reproduction rate is equal to the death rate.

So the statement of no animal death before the Fall is tantamount to saying that God planned a world which would fall apart if humans had obeyed God and the Fall had not happened. That's a massive accusation. We can only attempt to solve the problem of theodicy if we assume that it was theoretically possible for Adam to not have fallen. But, if God created a world that would run amok with starving animals without the Fall, and would be wrenched into imperfection with the Fall, isn't that pretty unfair of God?

Secondly, one has to solve the problem of the Flood. In the first place, why can't we come to an agreement about whether the "carnivorization" happened at the Fall or at the Flood? Many creationists would say that the process happened at the Fall when nature was shaken by Adam's sin. But the passage they quote is God's promise in consequence of the Flood, not the Fall. If the carnivorization had happened at the Fall, don't you think God would have put in a note or two about "Gee, Adam, watch out because there'll be mad flesh-eaters out to get you"?

But looking at the Flood itself. Now, there are three distinct possibilities for when carnivorization occurred:
1. God created these creatures carnivorous.
2. These creatures became carnivorous at the Fall.
3. These creatures became carnivorous after the Flood.

Possibility 1 is the one that TEs embrace. You don't want that option, though.
Possibility 2, as we examined earlier, makes the problem of theodicy worse. It also makes the problem of the Ark even worse as well. Now, we assume that the animals are already carnivorous when they board the Ark, right? However, what would have stopped the two lions in the Ark from devouring the seven (or fourteen) sheep in the ark? Even if Noah could keep them apart ("This is the 'herbivores only' deck!" ), he would still have the problem of feeding the carnivores themselves, who need far more energy in food than grass can supply. The lions would have starved before the flood subsided.

So that seems to be out. Now for possibility no. 3 ("Carnivorization after the flood") ... firstly, either God did it, or it came about naturally. Now, if God did it, the obvious question is why? Surely the "let's not have animals eat animals" system had been working just fine until then, so why change it? After all, if animal death represented an imperfection in the world, God would not have introduced it without reason. So the only alternative is that naturally, due to pressures in the post-flood world, some herbivores became carnivores.

If that's so, that would be the prime example of macroevolution! Basically, you'd be saying that within 4000 years, a stock of herbivorous animals can produce without God's intervention an entire family (the Felidae) of carnivores. Now, if that's not the biggest macroevolution event in history I don't know what is. So basically, if the Bible is true (and we take possibility 3), then macroevolution is true, none of that "no new information" or "baramin - created kind" bollosh. That would be a rather Pyrrhic victory, no?

 

[Sinai]

It might be relevant to point out that the Bible speaks of "death" in three principal ways:

1. Physical death: The separation of an organism's life from its body; when the organism is a human being, it can also refer to the separation of a person's spirit from his body. This is what most people think of when "death" is mentioned, and is what the Bible means when it says someone lived X years and then died. Another example would be Hebrews 9:27: "And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment..."

2. Spiritual death: The separation of man's spirit from God while that man is still physically alive in this world. This is the natural state of man on Earth without Christ. Since the person's sins have not been covered over by the blood of Christ, that person is still unredeemed; he is dead to God (see 1 Tim. 5:6).

3. Eternal death: The separation of a person from God's presence forever (also called the second death)--an eternal state of being dead to God.

 

[Calminian]

Personally I think you should start a brand new thread, but hey to each his own.

I'm resurrecting this topic because it's currently being discussed in a few other threads where it's off-topic.

I don't think animal death is inherently evil.

Seems we're getting off on a bad foot already. You don't just have to merely believe animal death is not "evil" (an interesting choice of words). You don't even have to believe it's "good." You actually have to believe it is "very good." And not only this, but you have to believe "predation" in which animals often suffered terribly was also very good. Animal disease in which great suffering also occurred, and animal starvation from droughts were also not merely good, but "very good" according to the text.

I brought the thousand year reign of Christ on earth in the discussion to show that God will take away predation and disease during this time. This seems kind of silly if predation and disease are very good things. Of course many don't take those passages literally either for obvious reasons.

Many people interpret Genesis 1:29-30 as indicating that animals were created vegetarian. This interpretation is based on an assumption that can easily be shown to be unwarranted by looking at a pair of verses one chapter later:

Genesis 2:16-17: "And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, 'You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.' "

The question is, does "You may surely eat" mean "You may only eat"? Chances are, in this case most everyone would agree it doesn't mean that. The reason is twofold: (1) there are other passages that indicate humans could eat more than just fruit from trees, such as Genesis 1:29-30, and (2) it is obvious why only trees are mentioned in this second passage: because this statement is in the context of prohibiting eating from a certain tree. Other non-tree food sources are not the point.

Now, going back to the previous chapter:

Genesis 1:29-30: "And God said, 'Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.' And it was so."

Does "I have given every green plant for food" mean "I have only given every green plant for food"? I would suggest that it doesn't.

The implication of course is that is does, because it is the only thing mentioned. But don't you realize that it says it is for "every" animal. Today we don't see every animal eating these things. Something has changed. What?

First, there are other passages that indicate humans and animals could eat other things besides vegetation. Some passages show that animals were also created as food, as I will detail below.

Can't wait to see this.

It is quite a stretch to claim all those passages are merely accommodation to a sinful, post-Fall environment. (And to do so implies that what God now calls "good" he would have considered evil before sin entered the world.)

Second, there is a good reason why only vegetation is mentioned in these verses. Everything mentioned in the Genesis 1 creation account is given a function.

Then why isn't the function of animals as food mentioned? It would seem logical if that's the author's intent. Yet hamburgers, nor ribs nor pickled pigs feet are mentioned. Especially when you consider what a large role meat plays in the diets of some animals. It think you're trying to see something in the text because you have to.

Light and the luminaries are to divide and rule over day and night, among other things; the firmament divides the waters and provides an environment for birds and, indirectly, fish; dry ground divides the seas and provides a habitat for land animals and humans; all the animals are created to fill their respective environments and be governed by humans; humans reflect God by sharing his image and ruling over the rest of creation. Everything is created for a reason that is clearly mentioned except for the vegetation... until we get to verses 29-30. These verses mention that the purpose of the vegetation is to provide food to every human, beast, bird and creeping thing.

Yet it doesn't provide food for every creature today.

This also explains why a food source for fish is conspicuously absent. The purpose of these verses isn't to say what every type of created creature can eat (if so, fish would also be given something to eat), but to give a function to the vegetation created on day three. Rather than saying "you may only eat plants", it is saying, "the plants were made to be eaten".

No, plants are to be food for "every" animal. There's the subtle difference.

The text is as silent on whether or not animals were also created to be eaten as it is on whether vegetation was also created under the sea.

Therefore your argument is out of silence. The text was discussing food. It also mentioned nothing about using rocks for food. The context is, what do men and animals have to eat? What is their food to be?

Here's an important point. Notice when these statements text occur. After the last creature, man, is created. You would think by this time (according to OEers) when predation was supposedly wide spread God would have mentioned other food sources. For at that time there were many animals (again under the OE model) that were solely carnivores.

And this whole theory about the purpose of plants being revealed makes no sense considering when it is mentioned. Why aren't these things mentioned during the plant section of the text????????

It does not intend to tell us such things. As shown below, Psalm 104, Isaiah 25 and 1 Timothy 4 shed more light on whether animals were also created as a food source.

Some other Genesis texts that relate:

• Before the flood, Abel sacrificed "the fat portions" of an animal to God (Genesis 4:4). What did he do with the rest of the animal, if not eat it? If eating meat was prohibited at this time, why didn't he sacrifice all of the meat to the Lord?
• Also before the flood, it appears that Noah already knew which animals were clean and which were unclean (Genesis 7:2). If Noah knew this, it is quite possible that God had already revealed to him (or to Adam) which animals he could eat.
• Based on the above, Genesis 9:3 can be read in a different light: "Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything." Just as before God gave all the vegetation for food, now God gave all animals for food, rather than just the clean animals. Note that this text does not indicate a change in what animals were permitted to eat.

All these passages are post fall. I fail to see how this make your case.

Job and Psalms texts

In Job 38:41, God asks Job a question: "Who provides for the raven its prey, when its young ones cry to God for help, and wander about for lack of food?" The rhetorical answer is that God provides this. Does God provide things that are evil? If animal death and predation only came into the world as a result of sin, that would be the case.

I've already posted some details about Psalm 104 in post #28 in this thread. Psalm 104:20-30 shows that God is responsible for carnivorous activity (v.21); made all things, including carnivorous lions, in his wisdom (v.24); gives food and sustenance to his creatures, whether they're carnivorous or not (v.27); and calls the food and prey he provides them with "good things" from his hand (v.28). Carnivorous lions are not described by the psalmist as a distortion of some docile beast that was corrupted by sin.

Yes God provides things necessary in a fallen world. This doesn't mean this was His original intent for the world. God even provides animals to men for sacrifices, yet take no pleasure in offerings. God often delivers wicked men to righteous men. Yet He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.

The fallacy you’re committing here is obvious. You’re saying that if God ordains something now, it must have been ordained from the beginning. If this is all you have, you have no case. There was a fall and things changed because they had to. You can’t point to the change and then use that to prove nothing changed.

Oy! I just realized how long your post was. Looks like more of the same. Someone else is going to have to take over. I’m tired!

 

[shernren]

All these passages are post fall. I fail to see how this make your case.

The point is, I mostly see two good defenses for "vegetarian all-animalism". The first is some sentimental appeal to death being bad, sometimes guised with Biblical verses taken to refer to death for all animals (when of course, they refer to death strictly for humans). But God is not sentimental. Animals would either die of predation, or they would die of overpopulation, or God would have to repeal the laws of nature which He had created and called "very good" too.

The second defense is using the post-Flood promise of all living things being food, to assume that therefore animals were not food before the Flood. So that is why the quotes are relevant: they are talking about this defense and showing instances pre-Flood concerning animal death. I admit those references have nothing with refuting the idea that there was no animal death pre-Fall. Right, Mercury?

 

[Calminian]

The point is, I mostly see two good defenses for "vegetarian all-animalism". The first is some sentimental appeal to death being bad, sometimes guised with Biblical verses taken to refer to death for all animals (when of course, they refer to death strictly for humans). But God is not sentimental.

God condemns cruelty to animals. Do you disagree?

Animals would either die of predation, or they would die of overpopulation, or God would have to repeal the laws of nature which He had created and called "very good" too.

Why would they die of over population? God commanded the animals to fill the earth not over-fill the earth. Again it seems hard for you to believe the world was once very different.

The second defense is using the post-Flood promise of all living things being food, to assume that therefore animals were not food before the Flood. So that is why the quotes are relevant: they are talking about this defense and showing instances pre-Flood concerning animal death. I admit those references have nothing with refuting the idea that there was no animal death pre-Fall. Right, Mercury?

I also admit they have nothing to do with animal death before the fall.

Shernren, why would God mention plants for food after the final creature, man, was created? In the evolutionary model carnivorous animals were everywhere by the time man arrived. And, if men were eating meat for thousands of years (or millions), why the need to tell him he could eat meat after the flood?

 

[Marshall Janzen]

You don't just have to merely believe animal death is not "evil" (an interesting choice of words). You don't even have to believe it's "good." You actually have to believe it is "very good." And not only this, but you have to believe "predation" in which animals often suffered terribly was also very good.

I know it's not evil because God calls prey for hungry lions a "good thing" from his hand. There are places in the Bible where God makes accommodations, such as for divorce. But, God never calls divorce a "good thing". If someone really believes that animals and humans eating animals is an accommodation to a sinful world, they should be about as eager to eat meat as they are to get a divorce or fight in a war!

Also, I don't want to try and divide between what God can call "good" and what God can call "very good". To me, that seems like an exercise in futility.

I brought the thousand year reign of Christ on earth in the discussion to show that God will take away predation and disease during this time. This seems kind of silly if predation and disease are very good things. Of course many don't take those passages literally either for obvious reasons.

You're right that many don't take those passages literally for obvious reasons. Two of the obvious reasons are that the imagery is literally contradictory (in one place the lions are said to be tame and in another they are said to be absent) and Isaiah also uses other nature imagery that even ardent YECs take figuratively (trees clapping their hands, mountains singing, etc.).

If one is going to take lions eating straw literally, what's the problem with also taking trees clapping their hands literally? Do you doubt that God could literally do that? Do you assume that trees in Eden were the same as trees now? Wouldn't a tree that can clap its hands to praise God be more "very good" than a tree that does nothing but sway in the breeze? Why not claim that trees were originally more like Ents and only became dumb plants due to the Fall?

Where's the consistency?

The implication of course is that is does, because it is the only thing mentioned. But don't you realize that it says it is for "every" animal. Today we don't see every animal eating these things. Something has changed. What?

I'm wondering if you even read what I wrote. You say the implication in Genesis 1:29-30 is that only plants were for food because they are the only thing mentioned there. Does this mean that the implication in Genesis 2:16-17 is that fruit from trees was the only food because that is all that is mentioned in that passage? Did "something change" between chapter 1 and 2 to further limit the human diet from all vegetation to just fruit from trees? If you can understand how 2:16-17 isn't a prohibition against non-fruit food sources, then you should also be able to understand how 1:16-17 isn't a prohibition against non-vegetation food sources.

Then why isn't the function of animals as food mentioned? It would seem logical if that's the author's intent.

Why isn't the moon's function in controlling tides mentioned? It's easy to ask questions about things not in the text. I didn't say that every function for every created thing was mentioned, but rather that every created thing mentioned is given a function.

No, plants are to be food for "every" animal. There's the subtle difference.

Fish are conspicuously absent. Compare Genesis 1:28 with 1:30:

Genesis 1:28: "...the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

Genesis 1:30: "...every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life..."

The first has fish, birds, land animals. The second has beasts, birds, land animals. Why are fish excluded? Because the focus of 1:29-30 is to give the vegetation created on day 3 for food, and the vegetation was created on the "earth" which is defined as "dry ground" (see Genesis 1:10-11). The food source for fish isn't mentioned because the purpose of these verses isn't to establish everything that can be eaten (unless, of course, you believe that fish ate nothing before the Fall).

Here's an important point. Notice when these statements text occur. After the last creature, man, is created. You would think by this time (according to OEers) when predation was supposedly wide spread God would have mentioned other food sources. For at that time there were many animals (again under the OE model) that were solely carnivores.

You're assuming that the point is to list all the food sources. If that were the case, then a food source for fish would also be mentioned. Maybe seaweed would have been created on the second day and then it could be given as food for the fish here. But, the text doesn't do that because it isn't focusing on itemizing all food sources.

And this whole theory about the purpose of plants being revealed makes no sense considering when it is mentioned. Why aren't these things mentioned during the plant section of the text????????

Because the animals and humans hadn't been mentioned yet at that point! The text follows a natural progression. God commands the dry ground to produce vegetation. God commands the waters and the earth to bring forth fish, birds, land animals and humans. God gives the plants for food to the humans, land animals and birds.

If you try to ask questions of the text that it doesn't attempt to answer, you won't get meaningful answers. What did fish eat? Did animals only eat plants? From this text alone, we don't know.

Yes God provides things necessary in a fallen world. This doesn't mean this was His original intent for the world. God even provides animals to men for sacrifices, yet take no pleasure in offerings. God often delivers wicked men to righteous men. Yet He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.

If God can now call predation "good" there's no reason to believe he couldn't call it "good" from the beginning. The Fall did not change God or alter his morality.

And, Psalm 104 doesn't make a distinction between pre-Fall and post-Fall providence. It says that what God is doing now is good, and that includes providing prey to hungry lions. It says that these hungry lions are one of the many creatures God made in his wisdom. Did God create the lions described in this psalm (the ones who roar for their prey) before or after the Fall? What contextual evidence do you have for your answer?

The fallacy you’re committing here is obvious. You’re saying that if God ordains something now, it must have been ordained from the beginning.

What you're doing is taking every verse that speaks positively about animal predation or eating animals and claiming that it hasn't always been that way. You don't have any evidence that it hasn't always been that way (aside from clean/unclean restrictions about what to eat). You don't have any Scripture that says that some animals changed to become predators after the Fall. But, you still dismiss the entire testimony of Scripture on this issue because it doesn't line up with your own ideas.

In the New Testament church, there were debates over what kinds of meat could be eaten. Some said that unclean animals could not be eaten; others said to avoid food sacrificed to idols. 1 Timothy 4:1-6 addresses this controversy and makes it clear that God created these foods to be received with thanksgiving. It doesn't say that certain types of food became okay to eat after the Fall or after the flood. It doesn't say the animals were cursed by sin and because of that can now be eaten. No, it appeals to creation to say that these things are "good" -- and good for food.

Likewise, Psalm 104 says prey for a lion is a "good thing" from God's own hand, and lions that hunt for prey are among the creatures God made in his wisdom. Isaiah 25:6-8 says that even at a time when death is being swallowed up forever, God will provide his people with a feast of "rich food full of marrow". Would God provide a feast of meat after death is swallowed up if animal death is a result of death entering the world?

So, as you can see, the case for animal death and predation not being a result of sin is not just an argument from silence. And, of course, this doesn't even begin to address the voluminous evidence in God's creation itself.

 

[Marshall Janzen]

The second defense is using the post-Flood promise of all living things being food, to assume that therefore animals were not food before the Flood. So that is why the quotes are relevant: they are talking about this defense and showing instances pre-Flood concerning animal death. I admit those references have nothing with refuting the idea that there was no animal death pre-Fall. Right, Mercury?

Right.

And, if men were eating meat for thousands of years (or millions), why the need to tell him he could eat meat after the flood?

Are you now claiming that humans were only permitted to eat meat starting with the flood? If so, you need to deal with how Abel only sacrificed the fat portions of the animal (what did he do with the rest, if not eat it?) and how Noah already knew the difference between clean and unclean animals.

As an aside, I hope Noah and his family didn't eat any of those animals before they had a chance to build up a population. Every meal would have been a possible extinction!