How did Noah distinguish between the clean and unclean animals?

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B.J. Edenfield
Member of Independent Presbyterian Church (PCA)
Savannah, Ga.
"Captain, my religious belief teaches me to feel as safe in battle as in bed. God has fixed the time for my death. I do not concern myself about that, but to be always ready, no matter when it may overtake me. That is the way all men should live, and then all would be equally brave"- Stonewall Jackson

because clean and unclean animals were not a mosaic covenant addition.

despite pig fans, there are reasons we are to avoid fornication- both moral and physical Moral= God said it, that settles it. Physical= AIDS, need i say more? the same way with food laws and worship rules and festivals. God created certain animals for certain reasons. some to be eaten.

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Jeff Rod
Eastwood Presbyterian Church PCA
member.
webpage: myspace.com/reformationforever

To live a simple, peaceable life before God
To owe as little as possible, to few as possible.

I think you do need to say more actually, like what AIDS or fornication has to do with unclean animals...

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Mark Li
International University Church
New South Wales, Australia

hmm..

I was addressing plausible reasons why God gave dietary laws. to do this I was suggesting that there are actual reasons why God gave worship laws, dietary laws, moral laws, etc.

thats why I mentioned about God creating certain animals for food, and others for waste dumping. the pigs serve to keep things clean, the sheep serve as food. I dont see where God gives laws without a purpose, without intent or meaning. every command was given for a reason.

It's funny that you would think of my question in terms of the mosaic covenent.

A couple of things....

1. I think I would disagree with your reasoning for avoiding fornication for fear of AIDS. I contend that the only reason to avoid the act of fornicating is, soley, because God said so. If God had not said so, I could simply have my future partner take an AIDS test, then upon a passing score, proceed to fornicate.

2. Your analogy breaks down upon analysis. Even if I grant your moral/physical dicotomy, it still doesn't explain "how" Noah could hold to it. How could Noah determine, in the "Physical" sense, which animals were unclean/clean? If God had not "Said So", he could have only guessed.

3. All animals are created to be eaten, its called the Food Chain.

It seems that this question demonstrates that the Mosaic laws, both dietary and moral, went back long before Moses. In Genesis 26, God told Isaac that the covenant would be perpetuated through him because Abraham kept his laws, ordinances, and precepts. So obviously there were moral standards that were verbal/common knowledge long before the Pentateuch was written. Also the mere statements that Noah was righteous in his generation and that Enoch walked with God indicate standards.

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Mary Vanderkooi
Kale Heywott Church (KHC)
Soddo, Ethiopia

the dichotomy

the first one is what matters the most- because God said

the second one was simply another by product of the command

2) Noah knew because God told him. cant think of anyother possible explanation

3) all was created to be eaten by whom or what is the question some owuld argue that pork simply was not created/given to be eaten by humans. much in the same way Dog poo makes useful fertilizer but if someone said it was clean to eat- would you eat? nope, you never considred it food,

Mosaic covenenat was mentioned because most people ive met always think that that it was a sinai covenant and that no one before moses ever knew clean/unclean

Matthew Poole on Gen. 7.2:

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Andrew Myers
Husband of Jessica, Father of Jackson, Katie and Samuel
Member, Presbyterian Reformed Church of Northern Virginia
Warrenton, VA USA
Editor, The Matthew Poole Project

"On land, at sea, at home, abroad, / I smoke my pipe and worship God." -- J.S. Bach

The simplest explanation is that sacrificial animals were always prescribed starting with God's killing the animals for skin-coverings for Adam and Eve, the first sacrificial animals. IOW, the RPW is from the beginning. This would necessitate an elementary distinction between clean and unclean, starting then. Which was surely elaborated by the Mosaic code later. That we don't have all the details means very little.

I think it is a mistake to seek for "natural" explanations for God's separation ordinances among the Israelites. Even if one may be suggested, 1) it can never be stated with certainty that had anything to do with the institution of the regulation; and 2) some things God dictated certainly had no natural explanation at all, most obviously in those matters pertaining to dress and appearance (e.g. "men, don't cut the corners of your hair").

The laws were what they were because God was creating a "peculiar" or unique people. So, for example, he took a specific set of symptoms associated with a disease they called leprosy, and attached a host of judicial connotations to it. It was now a picture lesson of living death. The priestly "diagnosis" had nothing to do with a person's (or a garment's! or a house's!) illness or cure. That would be a healer's or physician's job. Trying to make this business all about hygiene or quarantine is missing the point. The priest made a judicial declaration respecting a man's condition, based on set criteria. Only for this specific set of symptoms, no others. No other diseases had to do with a priestly judgment.

Note that even having this incurable disease, once a man was totally affected, from his crown to his sole, the priest should declare him "clean" again (Lev 13:12-13). That is proof enough this was God investing a particular issue with divine intention, similar to the rainbow: It looks like a war-bow for divine arrows of judgment, as if God hung it up once judgment was accomplished; and it means something covenantally significant because God declared it, not because there is no longer the physical possibility for a world-flood.

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Rev. Bruce G. Buchanan
ChainOLakes Presbyterian Church, CentralLake, MI


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One of those things that are very hard to get an answer to!! We saw a Noah's ark picture with two elephants and two giraffes walking into the ark, and when I pointed out to my kids that there were two elephants and (depending on how you read the text) at least 7 giraffes. I asked my kids why they brought 7 oxen, giraffes, sheep etc.. onto the ark, and my kids said it was so that they'd have enough to eat during the stay on the ark and afterwards.

Sacrificial animals is w/o question on of the reasons, but simply having enough food was another. You don't eat a lion, so only two were needed.

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Tim Vaughan, 48 years old, member PCA church but currently attending EV Free church. San Luis Obispo County, California.

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.

Thanks, CM, you could be right. I just think about that 50,000 acre ranch I managed in Africa and say to myself "How would I have done it"? We have lists of clean eating animals that weren't sacrificial from the Scriptures, like the venison served at the King's table, Isaac's request for venison, the quail in the wilderness etc... and I ask myself how would I have started a herd or flock of those animals, and I would do it just like that, with a male antelope and 6 females.

Regards
Tim