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Mgray82
Guest
In a recent debate with an athiest this topic came up for which I don’t have an answer.
Were Adam and Eve vegetarians? Or vegans?
Were Adam and Eve vegetarians? Or vegans?
- Status
1
10gr8kids
Guest
Genesis 9:2-3,
Dread fear of you shall come upon all the animals of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon all the creatures that move about on the ground and all the fishes of the sea; into your power they are delivered. Every creature that is alive shall be yours to eat; I give them all to you as I did the green plants.
I have always thought this verse seems to show that all people were vegetarians before the flood.
I wouldn’t think they were vegans because they used animals for things such as clothing and sacrifices to God. As far as eating byproducts of animals such as eggs and milk I don’t know.
Dread fear of you shall come upon all the animals of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon all the creatures that move about on the ground and all the fishes of the sea; into your power they are delivered. Every creature that is alive shall be yours to eat; I give them all to you as I did the green plants.
I have always thought this verse seems to show that all people were vegetarians before the flood.
I wouldn’t think they were vegans because they used animals for things such as clothing and sacrifices to God. As far as eating byproducts of animals such as eggs and milk I don’t know.
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R_C
Guest
If God had willed that man and women did not eat meat, then they would not be able to digest meat.
The Lord, who is perfect in all His ways, ate fish and lamb, and probably other meats that the Gospels may not mention directly.
Furthermore, the following revelation to s. Peter is very clear:
The Lord, who is perfect in all His ways, ate fish and lamb, and probably other meats that the Gospels may not mention directly.
Furthermore, the following revelation to s. Peter is very clear:
My point is not to say that it is bad to be vegetarian or vegan, only that God did not will that men become so.
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ThinkTwice
Guest
Genesis 1:29
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.
Yes I say they where veggies and is our future way as we evolve.
I understand Scripture seems to be contradictory at times. I do not believe Jesus ever ate meat despite what the bible seems to say.
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.
Yes I say they where veggies and is our future way as we evolve.
I understand Scripture seems to be contradictory at times. I do not believe Jesus ever ate meat despite what the bible seems to say.
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MaryandJoseph
Guest
I don’t understand ThinkTwice,if from the very mouth of God Peter is told that all the animals can now be eaten, and that Adam and Eve were given animals (granted after the fall), then how can you choose to disbelieve this?
As for Jesus eating meat. Many places in scripture it says that He is a faithful practicing Jew and they ATE lamb at Passover,plus, why would He prepare fish on the beach if He did not eat animal flesh?
As for Jesus eating meat. Many places in scripture it says that He is a faithful practicing Jew and they ATE lamb at Passover,plus, why would He prepare fish on the beach if He did not eat animal flesh?
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TheDoctor
Guest
OK, wait. You believe the bible verbatim when it says what you agree with and yet you disbeleive the bible when it says what you don’t agree with? You may, respectfully, want to ThinkTwice about that.
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10gr8kids
Guest
Why?
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sllhouette
Guest
actually it explicitly says Jesus ate fish in Luke 24:42. If Jesus, who was perfect, ate meat then so to did adam and eve.
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ThinkTwice
Guest
:
We’ll doesn’t everybody do that. How can you take it literally when it’s so contradictory at times?
There is also scripture that says one shall not eat any blood. The excuse to drain the blood is just that an excuse.
So how do we find out the truth, which way is correct.
And when I started eating vegetarian you find that the body has a better reaction to food. Many of the intestinal problems people have stopped, for me also to have bad breath and morning breath after eating caucuses. But when eating veggie all these bad reactions stopped.Even the ability to fall asleep improved.
That’s how you know.The fruitage of finding the correct principle(law)
It also puts you in line with the law thou shall not kill to also answer the poster that asked WHY?
OK, wait. You believe the bible verbatim when it says what you agree with and yet you disbeleive the bible when it says what you don’t agree with? You may, respectfully, want to ThinkTwice about that.
We’ll doesn’t everybody do that. How can you take it literally when it’s so contradictory at times?
There is also scripture that says one shall not eat any blood. The excuse to drain the blood is just that an excuse.
So how do we find out the truth, which way is correct.
And when I started eating vegetarian you find that the body has a better reaction to food. Many of the intestinal problems people have stopped, for me also to have bad breath and morning breath after eating caucuses. But when eating veggie all these bad reactions stopped.Even the ability to fall asleep improved.
That’s how you know.The fruitage of finding the correct principle(law)
It also puts you in line with the law thou shall not kill to also answer the poster that asked WHY?
A
Angelsflight
Guest
I firmly think that Adam and Eve were vegetarians and only after the fall did they eat meat.
Yes, Jesus ate meat and all that…but Adam and Eve were there long before Jesus came…and times had changed after the fall of the first humans. By then, eating meat was the norm.
If everyone was a vegetarian in the times of Jesus, he would have been the same I think.
Yes, Jesus ate meat and all that…but Adam and Eve were there long before Jesus came…and times had changed after the fall of the first humans. By then, eating meat was the norm.
If everyone was a vegetarian in the times of Jesus, he would have been the same I think.
J
JM3
Guest
No, veggies don’t grow on trees.
Genesis 2:16 - And he commanded him, saying: Of every tree of paradise thou shalt eat:
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TimothyH
Guest
The question was not whether Jesus was a vegetarian or whether God told Peter to slaughter animals and eat, but whether Adam and Eve were vegetarians. What is more important that the OP’s question however, is what God is trying to teach us through these Hebrew stories in the Book of Genesis.
God also said: "See, I give you every seed-bearing plant all over the earth and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit on it to be your food; and to all the animals of the land, all the birds of the air, and all the living creatures that crawl on the ground, I give all the green plants for food." And so it happened. (Genesis 1:29-30)
God clearly gave the plants, trees and fruit to Adam and Eve and to the animals for food. Scripture does not say whether Adam and Eve killed animals and ate them but it is clear that God gave Adam and Eve plants specifically and explicitly.
Abel became a keeper of flocks, and Cain a tiller of the soil. (Genesis 4:2)
We see that Abel was a shepherd, but that could have been for animal products such as wool and milk, and not necissarily meat. After the flood however, God said something very imporant to Noah.
***Dread fear of you shall come upon all the animals of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon all the creatures that move about on the ground and all the fishes of the sea; into your power they are delivered. Every creature that is alive shall be yours to eat; I give them all to you as I did the green plants. *(Genesis 9:2-3)
God said that as he had explicitly given mankind plants to eat in the past, so he was now doing with the animals. So it would appear that God’s original intent was that man not eat meat. Again however, whether Adam and Eve were vegetarians or not and when man first started eating meat gives us the literals sense of scripture, but what is much more important to us as Christians are the spiritual senses of scripture, how the stories point us to Christ and how they teach us to live our lives as followers of Christ and children of God.
The order which God creates things in Genesis 1 is important. Plants first, then fish and birds, then beasts, then man created in God’s own image. The order in which God creates things tells us it’s order of importance in creation and who has dominion over whom, and who serves whom. Creation is God’s gift to man and serves man but man is to care for creation. In creating man last, we see that man is to serve God and God is to care for man. That is God’s original plan.
But we fell, and the order in creation was wrecked. God however, has a plan to reestablish his original order, and after the fall God starts implimenting his plan.
The story of Noah is what I call the “Third Genesis”. It is a third creation story.
In Genesis 1:2 a mighty wind sweeps over the waters, and in Genesis 1:9 God gathers the water into a basin so that dry land appears. The same thing happens in Genesis 8 when God remembers Noah in the ark and causes a wind to dry up the water so that dry land appears. There is a direct paralel here. Then God does something unique; God enters into a covenant with Noah.
Covenants create family bonds, and God the Father makes the first coveannt with man, bringing him into his family as his son. This is the first step in God’s plan to restore man to his original place at the top of creation in the image of God, the first step in God’s plan to restore the natural order of creation. God makes a covenant as the first step in restoring man to his original condition before sin etered the world.
But man is fallen. Remember that. The covenant can only do so much because man has lost his original integrity, “Walking with God”, caring for creation which was God’s gift and serving God who is his creator. Man lost that.
Part of the “Third Genesis” of Noah and the ark is God calling Noah to care for the animals on the ark. This is God teaching man to do what Adam and Eve did in the garden before sin entered the world - they cared for the garden and ministered to creation in service to God who gave it to them as a gift. In calling Noah to care for the animals, God reminds man that creation is a gift and man is to care for creation.
And in giving man the animals to eat, God sets about restoring the original order of creation. Remember here that man was fallen. The order of creation was totally wrecked. The world was a viscious and evil place after the fall. Cain killed Abel. People engaged in incest, cannibalism, bestiality, sold their own daughters into slavery, and sacrificed their infants to false Gods. The world was so viscious and evil that God wants to start all over again, and he says as much to Noah as he begins to instruct Noah on the building of the ark.
When God saw how corrupt the earth had become, since all mortals led depraved lives on earth, he said to Noah: "I have decided to put an end to all mortals on earth; the earth is full of lawlessness because of them. So I will destroy them and all life on earth. (Genesis 6:12)
Then after Noah passes through the flood, God commences his plan to restore the original order of creation. He causes the dry land to appear just like in Genesis 1, and restores the most basic order of the relationship between plants, animals, man and God, making animals fear man and giving them to man as food while entering into a covenant with man and thereby creating a father-son relationship between himself and man.
The literal sense of scripture - whether Adam and Eve were actually veegans before the fall - is important only insofar as it points us to what God is trying to teach us about himself and ourselves and our relationship with him - the spiritual sense of scripture.
That’s how Hebrew storytelling works. The facts are not as important as what the facts are telling you about relationship, about cause and effect, about family bonds, about blessing and curse, about life and death, about our responsiblities as children of God, and about how we can trust God as a Father.
The literal sense is only important insofar as it leads us to the spiritual sense, and how we are supposed to be children who trust God the Father, and how God the Father loves us so much as to set in motion a plan to restore the natural order of creation for our own good.
-Tim-
God also said: "See, I give you every seed-bearing plant all over the earth and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit on it to be your food; and to all the animals of the land, all the birds of the air, and all the living creatures that crawl on the ground, I give all the green plants for food." And so it happened. (Genesis 1:29-30)
God clearly gave the plants, trees and fruit to Adam and Eve and to the animals for food. Scripture does not say whether Adam and Eve killed animals and ate them but it is clear that God gave Adam and Eve plants specifically and explicitly.
Abel became a keeper of flocks, and Cain a tiller of the soil. (Genesis 4:2)
We see that Abel was a shepherd, but that could have been for animal products such as wool and milk, and not necissarily meat. After the flood however, God said something very imporant to Noah.
***Dread fear of you shall come upon all the animals of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon all the creatures that move about on the ground and all the fishes of the sea; into your power they are delivered. Every creature that is alive shall be yours to eat; I give them all to you as I did the green plants. *(Genesis 9:2-3)
God said that as he had explicitly given mankind plants to eat in the past, so he was now doing with the animals. So it would appear that God’s original intent was that man not eat meat. Again however, whether Adam and Eve were vegetarians or not and when man first started eating meat gives us the literals sense of scripture, but what is much more important to us as Christians are the spiritual senses of scripture, how the stories point us to Christ and how they teach us to live our lives as followers of Christ and children of God.
The order which God creates things in Genesis 1 is important. Plants first, then fish and birds, then beasts, then man created in God’s own image. The order in which God creates things tells us it’s order of importance in creation and who has dominion over whom, and who serves whom. Creation is God’s gift to man and serves man but man is to care for creation. In creating man last, we see that man is to serve God and God is to care for man. That is God’s original plan.
But we fell, and the order in creation was wrecked. God however, has a plan to reestablish his original order, and after the fall God starts implimenting his plan.
The story of Noah is what I call the “Third Genesis”. It is a third creation story.
In Genesis 1:2 a mighty wind sweeps over the waters, and in Genesis 1:9 God gathers the water into a basin so that dry land appears. The same thing happens in Genesis 8 when God remembers Noah in the ark and causes a wind to dry up the water so that dry land appears. There is a direct paralel here. Then God does something unique; God enters into a covenant with Noah.
Covenants create family bonds, and God the Father makes the first coveannt with man, bringing him into his family as his son. This is the first step in God’s plan to restore man to his original place at the top of creation in the image of God, the first step in God’s plan to restore the natural order of creation. God makes a covenant as the first step in restoring man to his original condition before sin etered the world.
But man is fallen. Remember that. The covenant can only do so much because man has lost his original integrity, “Walking with God”, caring for creation which was God’s gift and serving God who is his creator. Man lost that.
Part of the “Third Genesis” of Noah and the ark is God calling Noah to care for the animals on the ark. This is God teaching man to do what Adam and Eve did in the garden before sin entered the world - they cared for the garden and ministered to creation in service to God who gave it to them as a gift. In calling Noah to care for the animals, God reminds man that creation is a gift and man is to care for creation.
And in giving man the animals to eat, God sets about restoring the original order of creation. Remember here that man was fallen. The order of creation was totally wrecked. The world was a viscious and evil place after the fall. Cain killed Abel. People engaged in incest, cannibalism, bestiality, sold their own daughters into slavery, and sacrificed their infants to false Gods. The world was so viscious and evil that God wants to start all over again, and he says as much to Noah as he begins to instruct Noah on the building of the ark.
When God saw how corrupt the earth had become, since all mortals led depraved lives on earth, he said to Noah: "I have decided to put an end to all mortals on earth; the earth is full of lawlessness because of them. So I will destroy them and all life on earth. (Genesis 6:12)
Then after Noah passes through the flood, God commences his plan to restore the original order of creation. He causes the dry land to appear just like in Genesis 1, and restores the most basic order of the relationship between plants, animals, man and God, making animals fear man and giving them to man as food while entering into a covenant with man and thereby creating a father-son relationship between himself and man.
The literal sense of scripture - whether Adam and Eve were actually veegans before the fall - is important only insofar as it points us to what God is trying to teach us about himself and ourselves and our relationship with him - the spiritual sense of scripture.
That’s how Hebrew storytelling works. The facts are not as important as what the facts are telling you about relationship, about cause and effect, about family bonds, about blessing and curse, about life and death, about our responsiblities as children of God, and about how we can trust God as a Father.
The literal sense is only important insofar as it leads us to the spiritual sense, and how we are supposed to be children who trust God the Father, and how God the Father loves us so much as to set in motion a plan to restore the natural order of creation for our own good.
-Tim-
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TheDoctor
Guest
Read what TimothyH posted in Post #13 as it is a good background.:
We’ll doesn’t everybody do that. How can you take it literally when it’s so contradictory at times?
No, not everybody does that. Remember that you are reading a translation of God inspired works written thousands of years ago, written to specific people at specific times for specific purposes (including us). This is why Jesus left us The Church as the sole and perfect interpreter of scripture.
You are talking about the Levitical law given to the Jews. These laws do not apply today and Christians are free to eat blood or blood products. How do we know this is correct? Becasue the Church that Jesus left here on Earth has explained to us what is correct and why. If you search the forums you will see a number of threads that go into this deeper.
If you are happy being a veggie person I am happy you are happy. I am a meat-a-tarian (I do get my veggie’s when the wife is in the house
) and I don’t have problems. So, which one of us is correct? There are objective truth’s (like gravity exists) and subjective truths. This is subjective, but as long as it does not cause harm what difference does it make?That’s not a correct reading. The commandment is not “Thou Shalt Not Kill” - this is a popular mistranslation. If you look at the Greek, it really is “Thou Shalt Not Murder”, which is the way the Church has taught it all along. Jesus ate lamb at the Passover meal (he was a devout Jew, to not do so would be a grave offense) and unless these lambs were suicidal, they got killed specifically at the command of God.
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garysibio
Guest
There is a difference between vegetarians and vegans. Vegans take vegetarianism to the point of being a religion. Adam and Eve were not given permission to eat meat. Assuming they were obedient - we’re not told either way - they were vegetarians but not vegans. God only gave that permission to humanity after Noah’s flood. Note in the account of Cain and Abel that Abel kept sheep. We can assume this was for their wool and not their meat. However, when he and Cain made their sacrifices, Abel had no trouble sacrificing one of the sheep. A vegan would find that abhorrent.
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cerad2
Guest
Yes. They were vegetarians. In fact, t-rexes were created just to crack cocoanuts open for them.
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garysibio
Guest
The ban on meat was for humans, not animals.
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ThinkTwice
Guest
We will have to agree to disagree.
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Blacksword
Guest
Except humans did not live with dinosaurs, they came and went about 64 million years before we got here. The Flintstones is not a historical documentary.
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TheDoctor
Guest
Not really my brother. If you don’t want to kill anything to eat that is fine. If you want to criticize me for killing animals, go ahead (I’ve got my big boy pants on today
). But what you cannot do is use the 5th commandment to justify either your way or to criticize mine.- Status