Death: Part of God’s World From the Beginning

I think the simple way to go about this discussion is to simply point out that there is death on the fossil record. For example, dinosaur plant eaters with tooth scars on their bones, mammoths with diseases bones, trilobites of the Cambrian inside the stomachs of larger arthropods, eaten.

Death, in the animal kingdom, has always existed as long as there is evidence of life, which of course long predates the appearance of mankind as per geologic superposition.

Dale said:

I don’t understand why you think that meat wasn’t eaten until after the Flood.

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Because God said it wasn't.

God said very plainly in Genesis 1 that he gave all animals plants for food.
30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
What do you think ALL means? All except tigers? All except sharks? All means all.

He says the same exact thing for mankind
29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.

It will be like that once more after God remakes the world.
The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock; and dust shall be the serpent’s meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain,” saith the Lord.”
As it was in the beginning so it shall be again at the end.

So please do tell how you interpret Genesis 9?
Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.

God is referring back to Genesis 1
Just as I gave you the green plants,
I now give you everything.
How could he have given them meat to eat before this, when he is giving it to them now?

As far as Cain and Able eating animals, find me a text saying they did-you wont find one.
Offering an animal up as a burnt offering is not the same as eating it.

How can you read all of those verses and say God gave Adam and Eve meat and fish when it plainly says plants?

If you can read seed-bearing plant and fruit with seed as meat, fish and poultry I give up.

"The story of Cain and Abel shows us that animals were being raised, slaughtered and consumed from the beginning."

Find me a single word about Cain and Abel consuming those animals and I will donate to your paypal.

Isaiah 41:10 said:

I think the simple way to go about this discussion is to simply point out that there is death on the fossil record. For example, dinosaur plant eaters with tooth scars on their bones, mammoths with diseases bones, trilobites of the Cambrian inside the stomachs of larger arthropods, eaten.

Death, in the animal kingdom, has always existed as long as there is evidence of life, which of course long predates the appearance of mankind as per geologic superposition.

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That's a bit circular, don't you think?
You use the fossil record as evidence that death has always existed, yet the fossils are there because they died at some point in time. Thus the fossil record only proves that animals have died, not that they died before there was sin.

Think of it this way. Let's say that Adam and Eve lived for 100 years before they sinned. Thus, for that 100 years, they didn't die. If you look in the fossil record for evidence of Adam and Eve, you won't find it, because they didn't die in that 100 years.

Expand that to animals. If no animals died in that 100 years, there would be no fossil record of any animals dying for 100 years after creation. Your evidence says nothing about what happened during that 100 years, only what happened afterward.

(You would need to add to that any amount of time between when the first man or animal died and when the first man or animal was fossilized, because fossilization is not a normal thing--it is rare and requires special conditions, like enough drying sediment to cover the bodies sufficiently in places sediment normally isn't found--like where humans live, if we're talking about humans.)

Derf said:

That's a bit circular, don't you think?
You use the fossil record as evidence that death has always existed, yet the fossils are there because they died at some point in time. Thus the fossil record only proves that animals have died, not that they died before there was sin.

Think of it this way. Let's say that Adam and Eve lived for 100 years before they sinned. Thus, for that 100 years, they didn't die. If you look in the fossil record for evidence of Adam and Eve, you won't find it, because they didn't die in that 100 years.

Expand that to animals. If no animals died in that 100 years, there would be no fossil record of any animals dying for 100 years after creation. Your evidence says nothing about what happened during that 100 years, only what happened afterward.

(You would need to add to that any amount of time between when the first man or animal died and when the first man or animal was fossilized, because fossilization is not a normal thing--it is rare and requires special conditions, like enough drying sediment to cover the bodies sufficiently in places sediment normally isn't found--like where humans live, if we're talking about humans.)

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Well, if mankind appears late in the fossil record (Pleistocene?), and Adam is the first of mankind, then if death predates Adam, then death predates sin. That's how that logic works.

And animal life, and death of animal life, goes back millions of years (ediacaran?). Adam presumably didn't live for millions of years. Therefore death predates Adam.

Dale said:

Abaxvahl,

you made a hasty reference to Isaiah 11 as a “return to Paradise.” Let me take a look at that chapter.

The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling [Hebrew:;Septuagint lion will feed] together; and a little child will lead them.
The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper’s nest.
They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.
Isaiah 11: 6-9 NIV

This is a prophecy of the Messiah, although it seems to be a prophecy of Christ’s second coming, since all these things did not happen during the first coming. I am well aware that many people take this to mean that animals will stop eating each other in the Millennium, or after the Second Coming. I think it is far more likely that the animals in this passage symbolize nations or countries. The wolf and lamb, leopard and goat, lion and yearling mean that large, powerful and prosperous nations will live in peace with nations that are fewer in numbers and not militarily powerful. That is a much more likely interpretation, and it goes along with Isaiah calling the Messiah the Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6)

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And that's why you are having trouble believing the truthfulness of what God revealed about creation--you are too ready to make the scriptures say something you agree with, rather than being ready to agree with the scriptures.

But at least you use the phrase "much more likely", which hopefully means you are willing to consider the words in a more literal sense.

Could you tell me why you think there couldn't be a time in the future when an actual wolf will live with an actual lamb without one eating the other, or when an actual lion might actually eat straw? I'll give you an example where it happened in scripture.

We know that Nebuchadnezzar was a meat eater, because when the Hebrew young men, Daniel and his 3 friends, were fed the king's food, they asked to eat something better instead ("pulse" in the KJV, "vegetables" in other translations, but it shows that Nebuchadnezzar ate meat).
[Dan 1:5 KJV] 5 And the king appointed them a daily provision of the king's meat, and of the wine which he drank: so nourishing them three years, that at the end thereof they might stand before the king.

Later, when Nebby got too full of himself, God humbled him and he ate grass:
[Dan 4:33 KJV] 33 The same hour was the thing fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar: and he was driven from men, and did eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till his hairs were grown like eagles' [feathers], and his nails like birds' [claws].

Now, you might want to re-interpret this to mean that Nebuchadnezzar was really a kingdom, and the kingdom was at peace during this time, but that's not what God prophesied to him in his dream:
[Dan 4:24-25 KJV] 24 This [is] the interpretation, O king, and this [is] the decree of the most High, which is come upon my lord the king: 25 That they shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field, and they shall make thee to eat grass as oxen, and they shall wet thee with the dew of heaven, and seven times shall pass over thee, till thou know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will.

And to reinterpret this one, you would have to say that both the prophecy and its fulfillment, as described in the book of Daniel, are not to be trusted to tell us the truth of what happened.

Isaiah 41:10 said:

Well, if mankind appears late in the fossil record (Pleistocene?), and Adam is the first of mankind, then if death predates Adam, then death predates sin. That's how that logic works.

And animal life, and death of animal life, goes back millions of years (ediacaran?). Adam presumably didn't live for millions of years. Therefore death predates Adam.

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Why would you presume Adam didn't live for millions of years?

Derf said:

Why would you presume Adam didn't live for millions of years?

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The phylogeny of various independent studies suggests that the earliest human beings, our ancestors in particular, did not live beyond a couple million years ago.

I suppose me being a scientist plays a role in this conclusion, but I find it quite compelling. If you're curious, I'd be happy to go into detail.

That and, I think from a more entertaining point of view, I've just never considered Adam as being able to survive global bolide events like that which produced the K-T boundary. Though it would absolutely make for an incredibly interesting movie.

Isaiah 41:10 said:

The phylogeny of various independent studies suggests that the earliest human beings, our ancestors in particular, did not live beyond a couple million years ago.

I suppose me being a scientist plays a role in this conclusion, but I find it quite compelling. If you're curious, I'd be happy to go into detail.

That and, I think from a more entertaining point of view, I've just never considered Adam as being able to survive global bolide events like that which produced the K-T boundary. Though it would absolutely make for an incredibly interesting movie.

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I do really like your questions by the way. It helps me peel away layers of science to get to the heart of the matter. You get so many overlapping lines of evidence indicating the same answers and I tend to forget what's really at the core of it all.

Isaiah 41:10 said:

I do really like your questions by the way. It helps me peel away layers of science to get to the heart of the matter. You get so many overlapping lines of evidence indicating the same answers and I tend to forget what's really at the core of it all.

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I think that if we take a stereotypical YEC approach, Adam might be around 900 or so years old. If we take a literalist/progressive approach, there's no reason for us to stand in opposition of phylogenetic studies or to suppose that Adam survived the likes of ice ages and the Yucatan impact.

Isaiah 41:10 said:

The phylogeny of various independent studies suggests that the earliest human beings, our ancestors in particular, did not live beyond a couple million years ago.

I suppose me being a scientist plays a role in this conclusion, but I find it quite compelling. If you're curious, I'd be happy to go into detail.

That and, I think from a more entertaining point of view, I've just never considered Adam as being able to survive global bolide events like that which produced the K-T boundary. Though it would absolutely make for an incredibly interesting movie.

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The only thing you really know about humans before the first fossil, from the fossil record and assuming the timeframes are correct, is that no humans were fossilized before a certain point. It's merely an assertion that no humans existed before that point.

Isaiah 41:10 said:

I do really like your questions by the way. It helps me peel away layers of science to get to the heart of the matter. You get so many overlapping lines of evidence indicating the same answers and I tend to forget what's really at the core of it all.

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I appreciate this. It does help to reconsider things every now and then.

Isaiah 41:10 said:

I think that if we take a stereotypical YEC approach, Adam might be around 900 or so years old. If we take a literalist/progressive approach, there's no reason for us to stand in opposition of phylogenetic studies or to suppose that Adam survived the likes of ice ages and the Yucatan impact.

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If the scriptures say God created everything in the heavens and the earth in 6 days, and then that Adam lived 900+ years, proportionally Adam could be still alive. After all, the earth and everything in it, as well as the heavens and everything in them, took billions of years, right? If 6 days = billions of years, then what does 900 years equate to?

I don't know why humans wouldn't be able to scientifically detect coming catastrophes and find ways to survive them, right? We think we can do it today. Certainly an ice age wouldn't be too hard to survive--just move south for awhile. A significant meteor impact would potentially be determined before it happened by astronomers of his day, and preparations of food and water storage made. What about a global flood? If a man knew, say, 100 years before it happened, do you think he might be able to build a boat and fill it with supplies?

Derf said:

The only thing you really know about humans before the first fossil, from the fossil record and assuming the timeframes are correct, is that no humans were fossilized before a certain point. It's merely an assertion that no humans existed before that point.

I appreciate this. It does help to reconsider things every now and then.


If the scriptures say God created everything in the heavens and the earth in 6 days, and then that Adam lived 900+ years, proportionally Adam could be still alive. After all, the earth and everything in it, as well as the heavens and everything in them, took billions of years, right? If 6 days = billions of years, then what does 900 years equate to?

I don't know why humans wouldn't be able to scientifically detect coming catastrophes and find ways to survive them, right? We think we can do it today. Certainly an ice age wouldn't be too hard to survive--just move south for awhile. A significant meteor impact would potentially be determined before it happened by astronomers of his day, and preparations of food and water storage made. What about a global flood? If a man knew, say, 100 years before it happened, do you think he might be able to build a boat and fill it with supplies?

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I think that in order to understand what I mean by phylogenies, you have to understand the science. I completely agree with your critique, but I think that my response goes a lot deeper than what you are seeing.

The easiest way I can try to boil down the science is to try to describe it as follows:

The phylogenies of the fossil succession match those of genetics, comparative anatomy, morphology and genetics (and many more fields too, but I'm trying to keep things simple).

Meaning that, put simply, I can use DNA phylogenies to predict where fossils will be, and I can use the fossil record to predict genetic similarities of animals today.

And that is what I'm trying to express. That's how we know that mankind, our ancestors, do not predate just a couple million years.

The fossil succession, you're correct, alone is not sufficient. But when we take the fossil succession and view it as a piece of a collective matching group of phylogenies, is significantly more compelling and meaningful.

Isaiah 41:10 said:

I think that in order to understand what I mean by phylogenies, you have to understand the science. I completely agree with your critique, but I think that my response goes a lot deeper than what you are seeing.

The easiest way I can try to boil down the science is to try to describe it as follows:

The phylogenies of the fossil succession match those of genetics, comparative anatomy, morphology and genetics.

Meaning that, put simply, I can use DNA phylogenies to predict where fossils will be, and I can use the fossil record to predict genetic similarities of animals today.

And that is what I'm trying to express. That's how we know that mankind, our ancestors, do not predate just a couple million years.

The fossil succession, you're correct, alone is not sufficient. But when we take the fossil succession and view it as a piece of a collective matching group of phylogenies, is significantly more compelling and meaningful.

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The fossils themselves never really held much meaning on their own. They're just bones after all. It's not until we see that their succession matches that of other fields, that their meaning and significance is highlighted.

Isaiah 41:10 said:

I think that in order to understand what I mean by phylogenies, you have to understand the science. I completely agree with your critique, but I think that my response goes a lot deeper than what you are seeing.

The easiest way I can try to boil down the science is to try to describe it as follows:

The phylogenies of the fossil succession match those of genetics, comparative anatomy, morphology and genetics (and many more fields too, but I'm trying to keep things simple).

Meaning that, put simply, I can use DNA phylogenies to predict where fossils will be, and I can use the fossil record to predict genetic similarities of animals today.

And that is what I'm trying to express. That's how we know that mankind, our ancestors, do not predate just a couple million years.

The fossil succession, you're correct, alone is not sufficient. But when we take the fossil succession and view it as a piece of a collective matching group of phylogenies, is significantly more compelling and meaningful.

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And when I say that I can use DNA phylogenies to predict where fossils will be, I mean both laterally/horizontally, and at what depths too. Meaning that if you give me a genome sequence, I could tell you where their fossils ought to be based on DNA sequences of other animals elsewhere on earth.

Because these phylogenies align, I can then know with certainty, to be fair it is essentially certainty, that we would never find human fossils in the Cambrian. The reason being not simply because Adam never died back then, but rather the reason being that he simply didn't exist. And how we distinguish between the two possibilities is that we confirm thousands of times over, that the phylogenies match. And if the phylogenies verify one another, and if the phylogenies show us that people just weren't around back then, then we know that Adam simply wasn't created yet.

If we don't take into account the synchrony of phylogenies, then your logic would make sense. But when we take the synchrony into account, then it changes the entire discussion.

Derf said:

The only thing you really know about humans before the first fossil, from the fossil record and assuming the timeframes are correct, is that no humans were fossilized before a certain point. It's merely an assertion that no humans existed before that point.

I appreciate this. It does help to reconsider things every now and then.


If the scriptures say God created everything in the heavens and the earth in 6 days, and then that Adam lived 900+ years, proportionally Adam could be still alive. After all, the earth and everything in it, as well as the heavens and everything in them, took billions of years, right? If 6 days = billions of years, then what does 900 years equate to?

I don't know why humans wouldn't be able to scientifically detect coming catastrophes and find ways to survive them, right? We think we can do it today. Certainly an ice age wouldn't be too hard to survive--just move south for awhile. A significant meteor impact would potentially be determined before it happened by astronomers of his day, and preparations of food and water storage made. What about a global flood? If a man knew, say, 100 years before it happened, do you think he might be able to build a boat and fill it with supplies?

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Here's another thought on the above.

At first glance, your idea/response makes perfect sense. If Adam never died, there would be no fossils of early man and therefore how could the fossil succession tell us that man wasn't alive?

And this line of thought reminds me of a very similar question.

If someone believed the earth was ancient (at least millions of years old), I would say that it's almost impossible to truly understand the fossil record and simultaneously not be familiar with common descent or not to accept common descent. Because the two topics are practically one in the same when we look at geological superposition (the order of animals on the fossil record) and DNA phylogies (the order of animals based on DNA studies).

When we come to realize that these orders are a 1-1 match, the conclusion is that the fossil succession matches DNA because the fossil record is a product of DNA+Time. And if common descent is true, then Adam must have existed in a certain window of time in which the phylogenies align in suggesting that He did.

It's like saying that in a baseball game, in the 2nd inning if a team had 5 points, and then in the 8th inning the team had 7 points, then the only conclusion is that some time between the 2nd and 8th inning, they must have had a score of 6. If all ancestral species were reptiles in the carboniferous and mankind exists today (as observed in phylogenies), then Adam would have been between the carboniferous and today. Which post dates death observed in Cambrian Burgess shake species.

That's an overly technical answer for a question that most people would never ask. Most people are either YECs or theistic evolutionists, but your question comes from a perspective in between, a position that few people have.



And the answer the question resides

Isaiah 41:10 said:

I think that in order to understand what I mean by phylogenies, you have to understand the science. I completely agree with your critique, but I think that my response goes a lot deeper than what you are seeing.

The easiest way I can try to boil down the science is to try to describe it as follows:

The phylogenies of the fossil succession match those of genetics, comparative anatomy, morphology and genetics (and many more fields too, but I'm trying to keep things simple).

Meaning that, put simply, I can use DNA phylogenies to predict where fossils will be, and I can use the fossil record to predict genetic similarities of animals today.

And that is what I'm trying to express. That's how we know that mankind, our ancestors, do not predate just a couple million years.

The fossil succession, you're correct, alone is not sufficient. But when we take the fossil succession and view it as a piece of a collective matching group of phylogenies, is significantly more compelling and meaningful.

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Congratulations on finding DNA so far back!

Derf said:

Congratulations on finding DNA so far back!

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Hm? What do you mean?

Maybe I just need practice at explaining. But let's see what you think I said. Maybe you can help me understand what details I need to clarify in.

A modern day amphibian, like a frog, has DNA. And a modern day fish has DNA. And a modern day mammal, like a dog, has DNA.

A dog's DNA is more similar to a frogs than it is to a fishes. Therefore, if phylogenetic trees match, in the fossil record we should see an order if fossils fish>frog>dog. And so we do. The first fish appear in the Cambrian, the first frogs in the carboniferous, and the first dogs (or wolves to be fair) in the late Cenozoic.

Another example, a bear and a camel have DNA more similar to a whale than to a shark. If you look in the fossil record you will find that prehistoric bears and prehistoric camels appear in the fossil record closer together and closer still to whales than they do to sharks.

A whale and a hippo have DNA that is more similar to each other than to a salamander. Wheels and hippos or more specifically ungulates and prehistoric whales appear in the Cenozoic, closer to each other but much further away from the first and 50 ends of the Devonian.



This is what I'm attempting to describe.

I don't need to have DNA of prehistoric species of the fossil record, I can use DNA of animals that exist today to find their morphologic prehistoric counterparts in the earth. And vice versa, I can use fossils and can predict what modern-day species DNA will look like based on the order that fossils are found in the earth.

Feel free to let me know if I can clarify more on that.