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Contra_Mundum · #11 (**permalink**) 04-25-2008, 08:33 PM

I don't know, Tim. I would think the "sevens" were pretty much sacrificial animals--probably the sheep, goats, maybe oxen--and that's it. The first time God gives an explicit permission to eat animal-life is immediately after the flood. I can't say finally they were not eating them before for sure, but we also don't know if it was habitual or even occasional.

In Eden, God was explicit: Gen 1:29-30

And God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." And it was so.

So, it appears that while something may have changed at the Fall, nothing is given until after the flood.

Gen 9:2-3 The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.

In v3 it does sound like an expansion, possibly something they had not been given prior.

The inhabitants of the ark would have all had to be sustained by copious grains. Here is the charge to bring food: Gen 6:21 "Also take with you every sort of food that is eaten, and store it up. It shall serve as food for you and for them." Remember, this was a miracle. God could have put many animals to hibernation, miraculously sustaining others, just letting carnivores live on grass, which was not their normal diet. A few more minor miracles are hardly worth quibbling over, after the grand one.