Genesis 1 & 2

[BobRyan]

10 hours ago, BobRyan said:

And since "all flesh" had corrupted its ways both man and animal in Genesis 6 -- calling for their destruction... it is not at all certain that animals were sticking to a vegetarian diet.

36 minutes ago, Retrobyter said:

Shabbat shalom, shiloh257.

Well, too bad. I'm just going to pass on the burden of proof to the one who originally made a claim, BobRyan. He's the one who originally said, ...

So, BobRyan must prove that animals weren't sticking to a vegetarian diet between the Fall and the Flood.

Personally, I don't think that's possible to prove. I'll take the Null Hypothesis.

I find your logic "illusive" at that point. Genesis 6 declares all flesh both man and animal to be corrupt and violent. The idea that "corrupt and violent" cannot possibly include predation within the animal kingdom - is not at all self-evident nor likely. It is an extreme position that would need to be proven not merely assumed. What is proven is that God did not have predation as a food source for either man or beast in Genesis 1. In the sinless perfect conditions of creation it was not part of God's plan. But it is certain that it did occur after the fall of man where even nature itself was turned over to corruption as Romans 8 states.

In any case -- Shabbat shalom, differences of opinion welcomed.

[BobRyan]

11 hours ago, BobRyan said:

It shows they weren't "supposed" to eat meat then - but it does not show that post-flood wicked mankind "didn't" eat meat before the flood. And since "all flesh" had corrupted its ways both man and animal in Genesis 6 -- calling for their destruction... it is not at all certain that animals were sticking to a vegetarian diet.

 

2 hours ago, Retrobyter said:

Shalom, BobRyan.

Look, it's simple enough. The animals - including the lions, tigers, panthers, leopards, wolves, hawks, eagles, and yes, allosaurs, spinosaurs, and even the tyrannosauri rex were ALL plant-eaters. It would do you well to investigate this claim, because it is truly fascinating!

Shabbat shalom Retrobyter -

I fully agreed with your statement as noted above.

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Did you know, for instance, that the T-Rex's teeth were not suited to eating meat? They were CERATED and spaced apart. Although they were 6-to-12-inch-long teeth, they only were embedded in the jawbone an INCH! If they tried to tear meat out of some animal, they would tear their teeth out of their heads instead! One Creationist scientist reported that they would serve better to rake leaves out of trees!

  Komodo dragons are carnivores, meaning they eat meat. They are such fierce hunters they can eat very large prey, such as large water buffalo, deer, carrion, pigs and even humans. They will also eat smaller dragons.

What made T-Rex teeth so strong?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/what-made-t-rex-teeth-strong_us_55b799c9e4b0224d8833d8dd

"While the structures are only common among carnivorous theropods, similar teeth can be found today in the mouths of Komodo dragons, which are the only living terrestrial animal with serrated teeth, Brink said.  "

 

So while I fully agree with you that all the animals in your list were created and designed to eat vegetation. They had DNA - genetic coding - which allowed them to adapt to their environment. The Epigenome is today considered as significant if not more so - than the active coding genes, when it comes to expression in phenotype.

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We're told in Isaiah that the lion - an obvious carnivore today - would eat straw like an ox (or a bullock)!

Isaiah 65:25
25 The wolf and the lamb will feed together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox,
but dust will be the serpent's food.
They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,"
says the LORD. 
NIV

Isaiah 65:25
25 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.
KJV

What do you suppose the wolf is feeding upon if it feeds with the lamb? How about grass?

What an animal feeds upon is INSTINCTIVE; it's not a LEARNED RESPONSE! 

 

Those texts are about the new earth not about the behavior of predatory animals today.

There was a study done that shows that a certain type of parrot in the south Pacific changed from vegetarian diet to adopting predatory behavior and killing sheep to eat the fat around the kidneys when they had been deprived of their normal plant food source.

http://www.birdorable.com/blog/kea-the-sheep-eating-parrot/

 

[Guest shiloh357]

4 hours ago, Retrobyter said:

Shabbat shalom, shiloh257.

Well, too bad. I'm just going to pass on the burden of proof to the one who originally made a claim, BobRyan. He's the one who originally said, ...

So, BobRyan must prove that animals weren't sticking to a vegetarian diet between the Fall and the Flood.

Personally, I don't think that's possible to prove. I'll take the Null Hypothesis.

What I've stated has been the acceptable, orthodox position long before modern man discovered the existence of dinosaurs.

The bottom line is that I challenged  YOU and you could not back up your claims.   Just admit it.   Trying to slough it all off on Bob Ryan is just a cop out.  You made claims that you tried to prove and have ultimately failed to prove.  That's really all that is important where I am concerned.

[Retrobyter]

7 hours ago, shiloh357 said:

The bottom line is that I challenged  YOU and you could not back up your claims.   Just admit it.   Trying to slough it all off on Bob Ryan is just a cop out.  You made claims that you tried to prove and have ultimately failed to prove.  That's really all that is important where I am concerned.

Shabbat shalom, shiloh357.

No, the bottom line is that you challenged an orthodox position with the goal of showing me up. You've been doing quite a bit of one-up-manship lately. Therefore, THAT'S what is really important to you. You don't really care whether animals before the Flood were carnivorous or not. 

I seriously care because IF animals could be shown to be carnivorous before the Flood, then it provides that ... "chink" in the ironclad Scriptures to suggest that evolution could actually be true, and the worst thing in evolution is the humanistic philosophy behind it that allows mankind to say that evolution created all the animals that we see, not God. So, I hope you can see that it's truly important that we sew this up! God's Word is truth, and God's Word said that God SPOKE all things into existence over the time frame of 6 "yamiym" ("days") or 6 periods of light from "boker" ("morning") until "erev" ("evening"), or 6 LITERAL, 24-hour days (Gen. 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, and 31), the same days that were used by Moses in other places within the Torah (Ex. 16:8; 18:13; Lev. 24:3) which were also considered 24-hour days. We see this in Genesis within the Creation account, and we see this in the giving of the law for Israel to observe the Shabbat (or "Sabbath," Friday sundown to Saturday sundown).

Exodus 20:8-11
8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
KJV

Exodus 31:12-18
12 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
13 Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the LORD that doth sanctify you.
14 Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death: for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people.
15 Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death.
16 Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant.
17 It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.
18 And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.
KJV

And, why, if He had just destroyed the dry ground and all that was upon it for "being corrupted by eating meat," did He buckle under and allow the eating of meat AFTER the Flood, if that was part of the "corruption"?!

Edited June 3, 2017 by Retrobyter

[Guest shiloh357]

3 hours ago, Retrobyter said:

Shabbat shalom, shiloh357.No, the bottom line is that you challenged an orthodox position with the goal of showing me up.

There is no "orthodox" position on this.   I have not read anywhere that animals were herbivorous until after the flood.   And it would make no sense to argue such a thing.

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You've been doing quite a bit of one-up-manship lately. Therefore, THAT'S what is really important to you. You don't really care whether animals before the Flood were carnivorous or not. 

No, that's not my motivation at all.   I am simply pointing out that there is no biblical support for the claim that the animals were herbivorous until the flood.   The fact that you can't support it might be a blow to pride, but it is the truth, nonetheless.

 

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I seriously care because IF animals could be shown to be carnivorous before the Flood, then it provides that ... "chink" in the ironclad Scriptures to suggest that evolution could actually be true, and the worst thing in evolution is the humanistic philosophy behind it that allows mankind to say that evolution created all the animals that we see, not God.

No, it would not support the evolutionist claim, at all.    What would support the evolutionist claim is if it could be proven that animals were carnivorous BEFORE the fall of man in the garden.   That would contradict scripture and support Evolution.

 

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And, why, if He had just destroyed the dry ground and all that was upon it for "being corrupted by eating meat," did He buckle under and allow the eating of meat AFTER the Flood, if that was part of the "corruption"?!

Who said he sent the flood because animals were carnivorous?   In Gen. 6 he said that was sorry he made man.   It doesn't list the animal kingdom as a motivation for destroying the earth, so if the animals were eating meat, it wasn't the reason God destroyed the earth.   It was the utter sinfulness of man and the depraved state of humanity that is cited as the only reason for God sending the flood.

[PlanetChee]

On 5/15/2017 at 7:43 AM, Aryeh said:

...and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. <    > And he said to me, "The waters <...> are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues.

Why do you think that the "water" in the Bible is H2O, and the light is photons? Light is Torah, as it is said in Proverbs. Accordingly, why do you consider the creation of plants and animals in Genesis as the creation of biological objects, and not as a picture of certain spiritual phenomena?

For example, animals are certain qualities of the character of primitive man: "lion" - courage, "wolf" - predation, "hare" - cowardice, "" snake "- cunning and deceit. But all these qualities did not become an assistant to the development of human society. "Wife" - society, has become an "assistant" for every person. "Bone" is "essence" in Hebrew.

The sin of Adam - a man began to listen to people around him, did not listen to the Spirit, but began to live by the mind, to his own self-interest. (In the film "Avatar" Adam is shown before he ate the fruits of knowledge.)

 

The movie Avatar has nothing, even by inference, to do with the Book of Genesis. It's underlying theme off planet was that of anti-Imperialism and pro-pagan-nature Communist modeling. 

 

[Retrobyter]

18 minutes ago, shiloh357 said:

There is no "orthodox" position on this.   I have not read anywhere that animals were herbivorous until after the flood.   And it would make no sense to argue such a thing.

No, that's not my motivation at all.   I am simply pointing out that there is no biblical support for the claim that the animals were herbivorous until the flood.   The fact that you can't support it might be a blow to pride, but it is the truth, nonetheless.

 

No, it would not support the evolutionist claim, at all.    What would support the evolutionist claim is if it could be proven that animals were carnivorous BEFORE the fall of man in the garden.   That would contradict scripture and support Evolution.

 

Who said he sent the flood because animals were carnivorous.   In Gen. 6 he said that was sorry he made man.   It doesn't list the animal kingdom as a motivation for destroying the earth, so if the animals were eating meat, it wasn't the reason God destroyed the earth.   It was the utter sinfulness of man and the depraved state of humanity that is cited as the only reason for God sending the flood.

Shabbat shalom, shiloh357.

Well, perhaps they ARE more arguments from silence, than direct proof; however, there are three things one cannot deny from the Scriptures:

1. The animals were created herbivorous. - Gen. 1:30
2. The animals were not the ones cursed directly in the Fall; therefore, they exibited ONLY the decay and death that was passed on to them by Adam when God cursed the ground for his sake. - Gen. 3:17-19
3. The animals were warned against harming human beings after the Flood when human beings were given animals to eat, implying an equal appetite. - Gen. 9:2-6

Genesis 6:5-13 doesn't directly apply to the animals, as you said, because they were merely caught in the fall-out of man's wickedness and evil. They suffered the same fate PURELY because they existed on the same ground as did mankind when God decided to destroy the ground with mankind.

Genesis 6:5-13
5 And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his
heart was only evil continually.
6 And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
7 And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.
8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.
9 These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.
10 And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
11 The earth also was corrupt (Hebrew: Vatishaacheet = "And-it-was-decaying") before God, and the earth was filled with violence (Hebrew: chaamaac = "mistreatment; violence").
12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt (Hebrew: nishchaataah [f] = it-was-decaying); for all flesh had corrupted (Hebrew: hishchiyt = they-were-decaying) his way upon the earth.
13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence (Hebrew: chaamaac = "mistreatment; violence") through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
KJV

So, as far as their diet is concerned, there's NO direct proof that it changed at all until AFTER the Flood.

Anyway, there IS an orthodox position, although you'll never see the word "herbivorous" or anything like that modern vocabulary. However, there is a belief that mankind and animals ate plants until after the Flood. I'll look it up, but I believe I saw it in Matthew Henry's Commentary.

[BobRyan]

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And, why, if He had just destroyed the dry ground and all that was upon it for "being corrupted by eating meat," did He buckle under and allow the eating of meat AFTER the Flood, if that was part of the "corruption"?!

 

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11 hours ago, shiloh357 said:

Who said he sent the flood because animals were carnivorous?   In Gen. 6 he said that was sorry he made man.   It doesn't list the animal kingdom as a motivation for destroying the earth, 

 

Gen 6

¹¹ The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. ¹² So God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.

¹³ And God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth.^...7 And behold, I Myself am bringing floodwaters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life; everything that is on the earth shall die.

 

Violence was specifically listed as the cause/reason for the need to destroy the Earth. "all flesh" had corrupted its way  - not just mankind. The argument is not that the violence of predation alone was the great sin - only that predation could not be excluded "by definition" from such statements.

 

[Retrobyter]

22 hours ago, BobRyan said:

And since "all flesh" had corrupted its ways both man and animal in Genesis 6 -- calling for their destruction... it is not at all certain that animals were sticking to a vegetarian diet.

I find your logic "illusive" at that point. Genesis 6 declares all flesh both man and animal to be corrupt and violent. The idea that "corrupt and violent" cannot possibly include predation within the animal kingdom - is not at all self-evident nor likely. It is an extreme position that would need to be proven not merely assumed. What is proven is that God did not have predation as a food source for either man or beast in Genesis 1. In the sinless perfect conditions of creation it was not part of God's plan. But it is certain that it did occur after the fall of man where even nature itself was turned over to corruption as Romans 8 states.

In any case -- Shabbat shalom, differences of opinion welcomed.

Shabbat shalom, BobRyan.

Thank you for the welcome on opinions. 

In my study of the Hebrew of the passage, it's not that they were "corrupt" in the sense of being sinful; they were "corrupt" in the sense of DECAYING. That's what the word "shaachat" means:

OT:7843 shaachat (shaw-khath'); a primitive root; to decay, i.e. (causatively) ruin (literally or figuratively):
KJV - batter, cast off, corrupt (-er, thing), destroy (-er, -uction), lose, mar, perish, spill, spoiler,  utterly, waste (-r).

(Biblesoft's New Exhaustive Strong's Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary. Copyright © 1994, 2003, 2006 Biblesoft, Inc. and International Bible Translators, Inc.)

Thus, I don't think any malfeasance can be applied to the animals. The violence done was probably TO the animals, rather than BY the animals.

[Guest shiloh357]

9 hours ago, Retrobyter said:

Shabbat shalom, shiloh357.

Well, perhaps they ARE more arguments from silence, than direct proof; however, there are three things one cannot deny from the Scriptures:

1. The animals were created herbivorous. - Gen. 1:30
2. The animals were not the ones cursed directly in the Fall; therefore, they exibited ONLY the decay and death that was passed on to them by Adam when God cursed the ground for his sake. - Gen. 3:17-19
3. The animals were warned against harming human beings after the Flood when human beings were given animals to eat, implying an equal appetite. - Gen. 9:2-6

 

 

   One of the features of the Messianic Kingdom will be that when the curse is partially removed animals will no longer be predatorial.   So, it appears that we can tell when animals became predatorial by noticing the lack of predatorial natures when the curse of sin is partially removed during the Millennium.  If the partial removal of the curse is the cure for the predatorial nature of animals, it stands to reason that the curse of sin  is the reason for and the source of their predatorial natures in the first place.

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Genesis 6:5-13 doesn't directly apply to the animals, as you said, because they were merely caught in the fall-out of man's wickedness and evil. They suffered the same fate PURELY because they existed on the same ground as did mankind when God decided to destroy the ground with mankind.

It doesn't apply to animals at all.  Animals are not sinners.  Animals are not redeemable.   Their predatory nature is the result of man's sin and there is no reason to assume that even if man remained vegetarian, that animals were not at least omnivorous.