Ramblinman wrote:Genesis 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. [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.
With this passage, you have made a strong case that Adam and Eve were initially vegetarian at God's command, it suggests the possibility that there was no predation by animals within Eden, a specially prepared garden by the Bible's own words, but it is a weak case at best that predation did not occur outside the garden.
Verse 30 says every best of the earth, not every beast in Eden. Every fowl of the air, not just those in Eden... and every thing that creepeth upon the earth, not just creepers in Eden. This is clearly all-inclusive of the whole earth. This is the most plain reading of Genesis. Any other interpretation requires special pleading. I would also at this time like to point out one caveat distinction in verse 30, the "wherein there is life", which suggest there are some creeping things that are not classified as being "alive" in the Biblical sense. There are many other scriptures that give additional words describing what is "alive", as it says "breath of life". This would mean insects that do not have breath (lungs) are not considered "living", and would therefore be considered complex self-replicating mobile food sources (for plants like the venus flytrap and animals like the aardvark), plus all the millions of microbes that populate our guts to aid in digestion. Plants too are not considered "living" since they don't have breath. Notice in other Bible verses, it always mentions plants "withering" instead of "dying".
Genesis 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.
[3] Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.
[4] But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.
From these verses we see that God changed man's diet to now include meat after the flood. Before the flood, man was vegetarian, or at least supposed to be, and the animals too, at least supposed to be, but before the flood we also read:
Genesis 6:[11] The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.
[12] And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth
Most likely, animals and possibly humans, were killing for meat, but this was not God's plan, and while still in Eden, flesh had not yet been corrupted and there would have been no animals killing for meat either.
Perhaps my words "satan-ruined" are too extreme to describe the biosphere, even in its fallen state. If Satan fell to Earth billions of years ago, we do not know how much latitude God gave him to tamper with previous Earth ages that God destroyed through flood and other calamity on several occasions.
God saw ALL that he created and declared it "very good". I can't stress the importance of this point any more clearly than it is scripturally impossible to have Satan being a bad guy at this point in time. There is no room in scripture for a fallen Lucifer before day 6. Why do you keep insisting otherwise? There is no hint in scripture to suggest this. Where else are you getting this notion?
But I will try to consider both possibilities: that Satan did tamper with creation to the point that God had to destroy the Earth several times, or that these cycles of creation and destruction were part of God's plan to eventually bring forth a world or at least a garden that Adam and Eve could call Paradise.
Why not consider the third possibility, that there was no tampering or destruction of any sort before day 6, and certainly no world-wide calamity before the flood? Is that so hard to believe? That is what is clear from scripture. The only reason to think otherwise is because you are trying to push a square peg through a round hole, to make evolution (geologic column) fit in somehow with Genesis. It simply isn't there. Which do you believe? The Bible or the geologic column?
I did not say that God did not create the Earth and the web of life dwelling upon it. But we cannot assume that the scope of God's remark was about goodness was regarding the entire planet and not just Eden.
Then what does the word "everything" mean, specifically when it says "everything that he had made"? There is no "except" word anywhere in these verses to indicate it only applied to Eden or any other limiting factor. It is ALL, the entire universe of God's creation, everything declared to be "very good".
In addition, in our present age, we speak of God's creation as "good", and we do so on solid scriptural grounds, even though it is obvious that nature does not yet reflect his perfect will or at least his final will for the planet.
Look at the passages in Song of Songs, the book of Job and Psalms about the beauty of nature. What about Jesus' remark concerning the beauty of the lilies in Matthew 6:29, "...not even Solomon in all his glory was dressed like one of these".
Clearly God could describe a post-fall creation as good and not imply that it was totally perfect.
Nowhere ever in the Bible does it ever say "everything is good" post-fall. The only time everything is good is pre-fall. Yes, there are many things post-fall that are good, even today with all sorts of evil in the world, there are still portions of good. But surely no one would suggest to think that God would look at the curent state of his creation today and call everything "very good".
But most important, can you explain to me why you seem to insist that there must be billions of years of existence prior to Adam and Eve and the garden of Eden? Is it because "science" has told you there has to have been billions of years? If so, can we discus what evidence is supposed to support that claim?
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