The flood, and meat eating.

read carefully. this is not something the authors of genesis had not thought through. the animals in eden are "beasts of the field." ie: domesticated. they're created for company, according to the genesis. they of course fail in this regard.so carnivores in eden may be a moot point: are there any animals domesticated by the hebrews that ate meat? the egyptians had cats. but the hebrews did not. dogs seem to wild. mostly they had goats and sheep.goats and sheep for company for a man? could genesis be throwing an age-old bestiality joke here? lonely shepherds in the fields and such?anyways. other carnivorous animals might have existed outside the garden. and death certainly existed outside. at the very most eden was special in some respect. but i don't think it was immune to death -- adam and eve seem to be created mortal. that's basically what i've been saying all along. (stay tuned to mr ex's great debate with me)

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let's look at some presuppositions in your belief system: genesis does not indicate a fall of man. it indicates an expulsion from eden. it seems to imply that man is created mortal, and that there may be other people outside of eden in the rest of the world. (where does cain's wife come from?)there is no physical change indicated in man or the world or anything at all. all it says is that adam and eve are kicked out of the garden, and that they are condemned to eventual death because they are denied access to the tree of life.

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adam lives in a garden, where everything is provided for him. when he's kicked out, he has to work for his food. hebrews live in a desert. wonder what this is about.notice it doesn't say anything about a change in the rules of nature, or eating meat -- just the creation of the desert.

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no, not really. we're talking about a story, traditional mythology. so you saw the mind of mencia comercial on comedy central too? he's funny. you're not.also, i think you'll find the i'm the biggest "reading comprehension" advocate on this board. if you'd care to point out where incest comes into the story, be my guest. because it never once said cain married his sister, does it?but the first place i see it is in genesis 19, where lot is date-raped by his two daughters. they name their sons "mowab" for "from his mother's father" and "ben-ammi" for "son of my family." these are derogatory words in hebrews, the equivalent of "bastard" in english, and they sound like the names of two enemies of the hebrew peoples, the ammonites and the moabites.in other words, accusations of incest and condemnation for it is an insult to sling at your enemies even in 600 bc.This message has been edited by arachnophilia, 07-13-2005 01:24 AM

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uh, not exactly.in genesis 1, god gives man all of the plants to eat:

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Gen 1:29 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.

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animals are already here, but included in the acceptable things for man to eat. however:

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Gen 1:30 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.

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plants are also given to the animals to eat. no mention of them eating each other. skip forward to post-flood:

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Gen 9:1 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.

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Gen 9:2 And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth [upon] the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.

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Gen 9:3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.

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so man is not allowed to eat meat before, but is after the flood. in other words, they're not totally making this stuff up. it is literally what the text says, at least about man. animals also being vegetarian is also the direct implication of the text.there are other ways to read it, i suppose. we could say that it never forbids animals to eat each other in gen 1. but doesn't strictly prohibit man from eating them either -- it just says eat plants, and by the implication of genesis 9, they were to eat ONLY plants. since it uses the same wording for animals and man, we could presume that it means animals only ate plants as well.another dodge might be to say that it never records a command from god that allows animals to eat meat. since it never records a change, per se, and there exist carnivorous animals today (and in the time of the ancient hebrew), animals must have always been carnivorous. i doubt this is valid either, since the word of genesis 1 (as discussed in the paragraph above) strongly implies that animals were thought to be vegetarians at that point. the change is then another implication.however, i'd like to present another option: maybe the text really does mean that animals were vegetarians, and changed at some point, presumably at the same time as man, in genesis 9. it seems to be the most consistent with the meaning of the text. i'd also like to present the idea that it's just simply wrong.one has to remember that genesis is a collection of stories, the traditional mythology of ancient hebrews. there's nothing to even indicate that the 600bc judeans who compiled even believed the stuff. there's several schools of biblical history that think that they did not. for a better, more modern example, look at edith hamilton's "mythology," which records mostly greek myths. do you think she believes they literally happened? undoubtably not. yet she still recorded them from other sources as faithfully intact as she could.either way, the important part of the story is this bit:

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Gen 9:4 But flesh with the life thereof, [which is] the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.

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Gen 9:5 And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man.

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Gen 9:6 Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.

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Gen 9:7 And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.

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the first part of genesis 9 actually records the mythological origins of two very important hebrew customs. it explains why they drain the blood from their meat, and why they don't eat things that are still alive. (sounds like a no brainer, i know. but go order baby octopus in japan -- some cultures DO eat things that are still alive). it also contains another fundamental philosophy, that the person who lives by the sword shall die by the sword.so the story is not really about when man started eating meat, or when animals became vegetarians, but about why the hebrews of the time did certain things according to their traditions.This message has been edited by arachnophilia, 07-13-2005 06:08 PM

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it's WAY after "the fall" and completely unrelated. this is in the time of noah. i see no biblical basis for any change in the laws of nature (or animal behaviour) near the time of adam and eve's explusion from eden. yes, it would be, wouldn't? i don't think this is what actually happened, of course -- but remember in context of the story, god is essentially re-creating everything anyways. he had just unmade creation by flooding it, so the flood marks a kind of start-over point in the mythology.maybe he just made it differently the second time around, like he did with the ten (14?) commandments. he wouldn't have had to change a lot of animals -- just a boatload.

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or they're all magically given canines or something. *shrug* well, it's directed at the offspring of noah, ie: us, the readers. or at least the hebrews in 600 bc. but don't think i'm looking at this like a real account of an actual event -- as i said, i'm open to the high probability that the story is simply wrong. there's ample evidence against a flood, and all kinds of problems that arise from the story. just remember we're dealing with a traditional mythology. it doesn't have to make sense in modern scientific terms, just in the terms they were worried about at the time: spiritual and thematic ones.similarly, when most people go to the movies, they don't care much science is highly innaccurate -- just if the story's a good one. (or, well, if there's a lot of sex and violence. but anyways)genesis is a good story. it's not my fault if some people treat it like scientific fact. if they wanna believe it happened, that's fine. god is a god of miracles. i'm sure he could break a few of his own rules.

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parts of it, yes. parts of it, no. it's a little contradictory at times. one has to remember the primary function of genesis. genesis is a collection of etiologies for the most part, "just so" stories. it's the genesis of the people -- but more importantly it's the genesis of practices. one needs only look at the ends of stories to tell why they are there:chapter 1 is "why we take saturday off."
chapter 2 is "why we marry."
chapter 3 is "why we work in the field, have painful childbirths and a patriarchal society, and why snakes have no legs."etc.that bit at the end of noah's tale is "why we have rainbows, and why we eat meat."so it really needs not make sense with an earlier tale. they are all loosely related -- but not actually ONE story. in any case, realizing that this is the structure and function of genesis, one also has to immediately recognize that these are justifying practices contemporary to the authors -- they're being written AFTER the practices started.these are the traditional cultural myths. the stories of the patriarchs are similar to the stories of OUR patriarchs. "i cannot tell a lie" "throwing the silver dollar across the delaware" etc. these stories are common -- but not actually true. george washington never said or did those things.so, the question is why we should accept a loose and contradictory collection of anachronistic cultural traditions as scientific or historical evidence? the people who collected it may not have even done that.

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of the bible period, or of genesis specifically, or what?because i can identify some earthly authors of the bible. paul's a rather notable one. it's also pretty evident that the bible has multiple authors (even within the same book), so if some unearthly source literally wrote the bible, "god" would not a be correct answers -- "gods" would, though.

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