Post by Mark on Nov 1, 2008 6:49:35 GMT -8
Genesis 9:3 is problematic for everyone.
Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.
(Genesis 9:3 KJV)
For the Messianic (and rabbinical Jewish) position that
existed from the foundation of the world, this suggests that Adonai commanded mankind to eat meats that will later be rejected at Sinai.
This is answered in the Christian understanding that the dietary laws are meant only for the Jewish people: that before Sinai, the distinctions were unnecessary and inappropriate- since Noah was not Jewish.
As long as we stay with King James, this position is a little difficult to answer against. There are valid arguments; but they sound a bit stretching when the text clearly says that "all animals are for us to eat." The problem is that when we read it in Hebrew, it doesn't say "all animals."
In fact, it gets worse. The word that Noah is told that he can eat is ray-mees. This isn't the generic, all purpose, non-human critter word. That would be behemot (or be-hee-maw). "Ray-mees" is specific to those things that skitter and slither on the ground: the reptiles and insects that are appropriately described by the King James text otherwise as "creeping things."
So Adonai told Noah to eat all the lizards... so, that must be what happened to the dinosaurs? In fact, if we take the text at absolute face value, there wouldn't be any lizards anymore. Noah would have finished them off in short order. But then, salamanders, newts and most other lizards are actually quite poisonous to eat. If he had done what the text says, the way that we read it today, there wouldn't have been any Noah. So, this text is problematic for Christians as well.
The easy answer is found in the qualification that Adonai gave to Noah, "as all the herbs." Just as we don't eat poison sumac, we don't eat salamanders; and Noah, knowing the distinction between clean and unclean would have understood this.
Even more is the envrionemental context of the word "kole" translated "all". It can either be interpretted as "every last one of them little buggers" or it can be interpretted as those which were abundant. Now, the snakes and salamanders wouldn't have been abundant in the way that we would have needed them to be in order to sustain our diet. Remember that the whole world had just been flooded for over a year. There wasn't enough of anything to sustain everyone; except one group of species. The quickest growing population which may have survived outside of the ark would have been the crickets, grasshoppers and locusts, which are clean (Leviticus 11:22). It would have been necessary to keep these populations under control in this fragile early period.
Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.
(Genesis 9:3 KJV)
For the Messianic (and rabbinical Jewish) position that
existed from the foundation of the world, this suggests that Adonai commanded mankind to eat meats that will later be rejected at Sinai. This is answered in the Christian understanding that the dietary laws are meant only for the Jewish people: that before Sinai, the distinctions were unnecessary and inappropriate- since Noah was not Jewish.
As long as we stay with King James, this position is a little difficult to answer against. There are valid arguments; but they sound a bit stretching when the text clearly says that "all animals are for us to eat." The problem is that when we read it in Hebrew, it doesn't say "all animals."
In fact, it gets worse. The word that Noah is told that he can eat is ray-mees. This isn't the generic, all purpose, non-human critter word. That would be behemot (or be-hee-maw). "Ray-mees" is specific to those things that skitter and slither on the ground: the reptiles and insects that are appropriately described by the King James text otherwise as "creeping things."
So Adonai told Noah to eat all the lizards... so, that must be what happened to the dinosaurs? In fact, if we take the text at absolute face value, there wouldn't be any lizards anymore. Noah would have finished them off in short order. But then, salamanders, newts and most other lizards are actually quite poisonous to eat. If he had done what the text says, the way that we read it today, there wouldn't have been any Noah. So, this text is problematic for Christians as well.
The easy answer is found in the qualification that Adonai gave to Noah, "as all the herbs." Just as we don't eat poison sumac, we don't eat salamanders; and Noah, knowing the distinction between clean and unclean would have understood this.
Even more is the envrionemental context of the word "kole" translated "all". It can either be interpretted as "every last one of them little buggers" or it can be interpretted as those which were abundant. Now, the snakes and salamanders wouldn't have been abundant in the way that we would have needed them to be in order to sustain our diet. Remember that the whole world had just been flooded for over a year. There wasn't enough of anything to sustain everyone; except one group of species. The quickest growing population which may have survived outside of the ark would have been the crickets, grasshoppers and locusts, which are clean (Leviticus 11:22). It would have been necessary to keep these populations under control in this fragile early period.
