What do the biblical verses Genesis 29 and 30 mean to you? Were humans and animals originally vegan? Or was that symbolic of a mythical utopian earth?

With a little context:

24
Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth all kinds of living creatures: cattle, creeping things, and wild animals of all kinds." And so it happened:
25
God made all kinds of wild animals, all kinds of cattle, and all kinds of creeping things of the earth. God saw how good it was.
26
4 Then God said: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and the cattle, and over all the wild animals and all the creatures that crawl on the ground."
27
God created man in his image; in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them.
28
God blessed them, saying: "Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the living things that move on the earth."
29
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;
30
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.
31
God looked at everything he had made, and he found it very good. Evening came, and morning followed--the sixth day.

[www.usccb.org]

Well, yes, to answer your question. I posted elsewhere that a classic interpretation of these verses is that there was no murder of any sentient thing until Adam and Eve sinned by partaking of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Afterward, they had the curse of modesty, and though they covered themselves with fig leaves, these withered and left them in shamed nakedness. Whereupon God slew one of his beasts so to give them clothing that would maintain. This is the first killing of another living thing, of a blameless innocent, in Creation. The blood of the creature is on Adam and Eve's hands, and though they may clothe their nakedness, the cause of it is an indelible stain on their souls, for because of it, the lion, which had previously lain down with the lamb, now must rend it to pieces for sustenance. Only the greatest sacrifice of another blameless innocent, Christ, can clear this iniquity from the soul of Mankind. But, of course, by then it is too late to reattain Paradise on this world.

I always thought the creation story was simply allegorical, nothing literal. A lot issues are raised in literal sense and simply confusing and nonsense.

Before the flood, God recommended a vegetarian diet. After the Great Flood / Noah's Ark, there wasn't enough plant food. God said it is okay to eat animals and gave rules. I think the exact rules given are described in Jordin Rubin's book "The Makers Diet", it's things like 'don't eat animals with two hooves like horses'

>" I think the exact rules given are described in Jordin Rubin's book "The Makers Diet", it's things like 'don't eat animals with two >hooves like horses'"

Huh? What horse has two hooves?

Perhaps. There is certainly the myth....and perhaps the prophecy (and I'm paraphrasing) that the lion will lay down with the lamb. Whether allegorical or not, I'm certainly working hard and doing my part to.....first and foremost.... avoid killing or imprisoning an animal if I can help it. Heh..heh.

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

SuperGreens Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Before the flood, God recommended a vegetarian
> diet. After the Great Flood / Noah's Ark, there
> wasn't enough plant food. God said it is okay to
> eat animals and gave rules. I think the exact
> rules given are described in Jordin Rubin's book
> "The Makers Diet", it's things like 'don't eat
> animals with two hooves like horses'

yes SuperGreens, camels, horses and all other single-digit-hooved animals were not for food.

3
any animal that has hoofs you may eat, provided it is cloven-footed and chews the cud.
4
But you shall not eat any of the following that only chew the cud or only have hoofs: the camel, which indeed chews the cud, but does not have hoofs and is therefore unclean for you;

[www.usccb.org] Leviticus 11:3-4

..I had forgotten the exact rules.. chewing the cud was a must, making cloven-hooved sheep considered clean, but ruling out non-cud chewing pigs.

Edit: ..had to brush up on our animal friend hoof anatomy too.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/21/2009 12:50AM by loeve.

SuperGreens

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Before the flood, God recommended a vegetarian diet. After the Great Flood / Noah's Ark, there wasn't enough plant food. God said it is okay to eat animals

I wonder where cooking got started ? Before or after the flood ?

Hi Everyone,

Rev. Malkmus has an expose on Gen 1:29 - 30 in this week's newsletter at hacres.com. In the 11th chapter of Leviticus, Moses tells the Israelites the foods that are 'clean & unclean' in relation to what they were allowed to eat.

It is true that after the flood there wasn't enough plant life to eat so man was given permission to eat animal flesh. Cooking must have been started by the time Abraham lived because he prepared a kid (goat I guess) for the men who visited him in Gen. 17-18. Of course, these were free range animals since they were mostly involved in agriculture.

That being said, there is so much evidence that a diet low or completely void of animal products reduces the risk of so many of today's debilitating diseases that alot of people choose to live vegan & raw.

For me personally, I feel & look much better when I live raw instead of SAD. We can choose to be healthy or we can choose to eat the things that make us sick in the long run. Many people avoid change as they age. I know for me that it's not easy to stay raw for long periods of time due to past conditioning.

HOWEVER.... WE ALONE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR HEALTH & WELL BEING.. CONDITIONING OR NOT!!

Joe

Love is patient, love is kind, it is not self-seeking, love ALWAYS protects,always endures. (1corinthians 13)

God IS love!! (1john4)
Jesus Christ...... The ONLY way to Heaven.
I am the Way, the Truth & the Life..(John 14:6)

another theory might be we just evolved over thousands of years from phytoeating zooplankton to the beings we are now and at some time learned how to bang two rocks together, make fire and fry our food, for better or for worse it was a step in our evolutionary development

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/21/2009 05:02AM by Jgunn.

Thank you Jodi!

I definitely believe we were created to be vegans... but because of our sin nature, the ease of being vegan and having enough to eat was a blessing that was removed for a time. But on the flip side I believe things will be restored to that Eden state again, because in Revalations it talks of much change on this earth regarding climate, politics, disease that wipe out many, etc. At the end we be given a literal New Earth. I can see this happening as a result of climate change - an ice age is coming, perhaps, to give us a fresh start.... lots of people will die before that though, unfortunately. We have to remember that this life is temporary, but life overall is eternal. It makes perfect sense to me though, how we will have to go through this transition as a planet and a species.


Me (30), Joseph (24 mo.) Jeremiah (4 mo.)

We are enjoying spring and being outside!!!

They don't mean anything at all to me - it's just a story.

To understand the following lines from The Essene Gospel of Peace is to understand the full meaning of the Genesis allegory:

"And your bodies become what your foods are, even as your spirits, likewise, become what your thoughts are... For your body is that which you eat, and your spirit is that which you think."

Those lines, as well as the Genesis allegory, are an attempt to explain the tragedy of the human condition (the deleterious effect of "forbidden" food upon body and brain chemistry) to a world in which the study of body and brain chemistry did not yet exist.

I think God talks to each of us us personally, not only through ancient people in books.

I think if God wanted me to eat animals I would look at animals and want to eat them like every other carnivore. If some guy told me God wanted me to eat animals I would blow him off. Why would I listen to him if he wrote it in a book thousands of years ago and said God told him to tell me? Why wouldn't I just talk to God myself?

My Grandma believed everything the Bible said. She never had a thought of her own. I think it is a self esteem problem. She didn't think her relationship with God was good enough I guess, or maybe she just had a relationship with the Church and Bible and not with God at all.

The thought of blindly following any other person seems ludicrous to me.

I do believe God inspires us and speaks to and through us in many ways like art, music and nature. I have found it pretty easy to sort through the frauds. I started blowing off the Bible at about eight years old. All the Bible "fun" stories ended and the rules and damnation started and I knew it was bogus after that.

Sorry if this post rubs some people the wrong way.

I have found that Christians like to talk a lot about their beliefs but many are not happy when others don't agree. I hope we are all respectful of differing opinions on this thread.

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What do the biblical verses Genesis 29 and 30 mean to you?

Nothing.

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Were humans and animals originally vegan? Or was that symbolic of a mythical utopian earth?

The latter.

On the subject on Genesis..

lol Narz that is about the funniest thing ive seen in a long time

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

Maybe it would be worth remembering that Genesis belongs to the Jews, the Christians, the Moslems, and the Mormons, and probably a few others. I consider the old testament to be a much rewritten history of ancient Semitic tribes. The outline of history is there, but the events may be a bit fuzzy.

cb,

Genius! GEEEEEnius!

cb,

Thant's perfect!

I fail to understand why this was moved from the main board.

Genesis 1:29 provides a raw vegan dietary recommendation to eat green-leaf vegetables and fruit.

How is that off-topic from raw foods?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/23/2009 06:00PM by Omega.

Gen 1:24 -- Then God said, Let the earth bring forth all kinds of living creatures...

Re evolution, God said let the **earth** bring forth living creatures in this 'first' (Gen 1:1) 7-day story of creation (5th century BC priestly source?); in contrast to the 'second' (ancient tribal?) 7-day account (Gen 2:4) where the **Lord God** formed man from the clay of the ground. To me, these 'two accounts' give a choice in believing in a sort of 'sit-back' God or a creator God. I admire those who believe in a literal 7-day creation perhaps 6,000 years ago, where dinosaur bones were placed because God has a sense of humor; such faith being a spiritual gift. For now I'm a struggling christian who believes God created humans through the process of evolution; starting about 3 billion years ago in the billion-year-long **day** where plants and animals had a common ancestral single-cell type evolving deriving its energy from the sun, before phytoplankton and zooplankton (or whatever) went their separate ways, so in that sense there was a time where our ancestors were truely raw vegan.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/24/2009 02:29PM by loeve.