I thought the YEC position was animals only started to eat meat post fall so these are just from that era. Since T-Rex was on the ark it means these could also be post flood fossils.
Given that specialized carnivores definitely appear by the mid-late Cambrian, that would make most of the Phanerozoic post-flood if it were applied consistently.
The idea that carnivores only came after the fall is not restricted to YEC. The whole notion of death being evil or the result of the fall is quite prevalent if mistaken. As is the idea that the wolrd could exist without death. (at east the world we have now)
Richard
You are quite correct here. Many animals are obligate predators. Moreover, without predation, many species which are not directly predator nor prey, would not be present. One of the most influential papers published in the field of ecology was FOOD WEB COMPLEXITY AND SPECIES DIVERSITY, in 1966 by Robert T . Paine, reporting one of the simplest experiments ever. He just selected a shoreline tidal poll full of marine life, and tossed out all that systemâs apex predator, which was the starfish. Neighboring tidal pools were left alone as controls. Over time, even though only the starfish were removed, the overall species diversity collapsed as monocultures took over.
Not only carnivores, but animals in general came after the fall. The âbeasts of the fieldâ refer to microbes that âtillâ, make the soil fertile. The fall itself was a transition from the plant kingdom to the animal kingdom. Plants produce their own food whereas animals donât⌠they have to gather or hunt food.
While Adam is seen as a person in the garden, there is symbolism there where Adam is allowed to eat from the trees of the garden⌠the same ones that he dresses and keeps, i.e. he worked to produce his own food. He was instructed not to eat from the tree in the midst of the garden, and while many will say that Eve was adding to Godâs initial instruction by relaying to the serpent, âneither shall you touch itâ, I think He probably did say that. In other words, the trees in the midst of the garden were for God Himself to tend. So, by eating the fruit, they were taking on a new nature⌠one where they are taking what is not theirs (what they did not produce).
I donât think its just death but also an attempt to balance what we believe is the goodness of God with the apparent cruelty of reality (evolution or the natural order) and the amount of suffering (human and animal) that occurs. Itâs hard to think pleasantly of the millions (billions? trillions?) of animals that get eaten alive or that get a foot stuck in something and slowly die of starvation while in painâlet alone humans. Maybe I watched too many Disney movies but it is difficult not to deem what appears to be gratuitous suffering in nature as evil. Death is actually a mercy at times.
Vinnie
Precisely the mistaken view i was claiming.
You are better off not mixing your science and theology.
Another example of false convolution from Scripture.
Althugh I accept the discomfort, that is no excuse for calling Death evil, as you say, it can be a relief.
But that is praagmatism, not Scripture.
Richard
PS ff, means that I have inclued the text that follows but not quoted it.
The experience in Yellowstone in the U.S. shows that â not only did species though extinct return after the massive fires in 1988, a few species thought extinct were found again after the re-introduction of wolves, a part of the radical re-adjustment of the parkâs flora once the predators returned.
Oregon did that experiment massively if accidentally: starfish were nearly wiped out because tourists collected them. When the state law protecting starfish was passed and their numbers recovered, the makeup of species in tidal pools began to change.
No, it doesnât â it refers to actual animals, frequently to ones that could be eaten. You donât get to change the meanings of words to fit your system of thought â unless you want to admit that youâve gone totally allegorical . . . keeping in mind that allegorical interpretations have led all too often to heresy (unless guided by the Cross).
This is called adding to the text in order to change the meaning of the story.
It strikes me that in all the times this has come up here Iâve never seen the Cross applied to the matter! Since Jesus is the perfect representation of God, and the Cross is the epitome showing just Who Jesus is, then everything in scripture has to be interpreted according to the Cross.
So what does the Cross have to say about âthe apparent cruelty of realityâ? It ties to the apparent cruelty of God in leaving Jesus to suffer the worst punishment ever invented by humans, and what that means. It means two things: first, that God can be (or at least appear) cruel; second, that God Himself is willing to die for the sake of others.
As to the first, that cruelty wasnât direct by God, it was because He took away all divine protection from Jesus, allowing the human powers in existence and the powers of darkness to have their way â so in the suffering of animals in evolution we can see the very same thing: God could extend divine protection, but in a fallen world He chooses not to do so. As to the second, the death of some so that others may live is exactly what happened on the Cross.
So in âthe apparent cruelty of realityâ we see something that corresponds to both the âalien workâ of God and the deep love of God. Of course this can only be seen by viewing things through the filter of the Cross, but then as Christians that is exactly what we should always do.
A further point is that via such apparent cruelty each species is improved as each generation is a tiny bit stronger or faster or whatever, which matches the goal of God that all things should improve. Yes, itâs a messy method, but one suited to a fallen world.
Yes the word could included animals, but they came later. No need to go allegorical here as microbes can be included within the definition of the words.
-
beast - (2416. ×Öˇ× chay) Alive, living, life
-
of the field - (7704. ׊ָ××Öś× sadeh) Field, countryside, open country ; Strongâs Exhaustive Concordance - country, field, ground, land, soil, wild
Can mean something alive, living in the soil. By saying that it only can include animals, or even that they can be eaten is excluding meaning from the words. There are a limited number of Hebrew words to describe things. So we get compound words⌠If God wanted to describe microbes to us, what Hebrew words would He use that existed in Bible times?
Its not adding to the text but saying just as Eve said. Did she lie? ⌠did she sin before she ate the fruit? No, Satan is the father of lies and the only think he said before Eve answered what in the form of a question.
Iâll add that the allegory is the story that we read on the surface. The true meaning, actual event, is embedded in the story.
I canât see that being what the people who wrote Genesis understood by those words.
So what were the birds and fish mentioned under day 3? Airborne bacteria and phytoplankton?
Why was this âinterpretationâ not considered before the invention of the microscope?
Correct. This deeper meaning is for us. They wrote as best that they could what they heard from God in terms they understood. So going back to Adam, the first living being, where abiogenesis occurred; God may have told Moses to think of the smallest thing He can think of and write that down. So Moses says that Adam was made of dust⌠God then may have said to Moses that Adam needs help breaking up the soil. Moses is then going to think of field animals to help with farming.
So, its written in a way that there can be duel meanings and make sense both to ancient writers and to have new meaning to us today. God knew how He created everything but chose humans to convey His thoughts to and write it in their own words they can understand.
The Garden of Eden narrative begins on Day 1 and concludes at the end of Day 4 when they are sent out. On Day 3 there were no birds or fish, just microbes and early plants. But âbirdsâ are mentioned in Genesis 2 along with the beasts of the field:
-
Gen 2:19 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and He brought them to the man to see what he would name each one. And whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found.
-
Bird - (5775. oph) bird, that flieth, flying, fowl From uwph; a bird (as covered with feathers, or rather as covering with wings), often collectively â bird, that flieth, flying, fowl.
God may mean something flying in the air, and Moses then needs to story build that by saying it was birds.
You are right, these would be airborne microbes which are also important for vegetation and rain.
According to Google AI:
Microorganisms can act as cloud condensation nuclei or ice nuclei, influencing cloud formation and precipitation patterns, thus affecting weather and climate.
In âliving creatureâ, living is the same word for beast that I defined earlier. And creature is a broad term (5315. × Öś×¤Öś×Š× nephesh) - Soul, life, self, person, heart, creature, mind, living being
âlivestockâ does pretty much mean what it says, (929. ×Ö°Öź×Öľ×Ö¸× behemah) - beast, cattle. This again could be story building in that Moses may be thinking about fields and having cattle helping plow them. However, this doesnât really fit with the setting in that this is a natural garden of God and there are microbes still building the soil at this early stage.
God does still approve of this wording in that this whole naming of the animals is a continuous process by Adam or âmankindâ, who is us today. We are still discovering new species and naming them.
- Gen 2:20a The man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field.
âgaveâ is actually in the imperfect tense. The whole naming could be parenthetical.
Thatâs obvious and as I said, it is an interpretation for us today. We do not need to go back to ancient Hebrew understandings and only look at scripture through that lens.
- 1 Cor 4:5 Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darknessâŚ
This is not just about revealing sin but also the âmysteries of Godâ from verse 1.
False.
Jesus is more than the Cross, and those who preceded Hm do not have that information to align to.
Furthermore there is more than one view of the Atonement. Each one affects how you view the Cross and its relevance to Christianity.
Nothing.
What follows is pure Roymond.
That is a subjective view. Not all âchangesâ are improvement in the manner you suggest. Being able to live in extreme cold is not an imprvement if living in the desert.
However, the presence of âOdditiesâ such as th Birds of Paradise and many "quirky " creatures denies Survival of the Fittest, and ToE. The axiom of âThe exception proves the ruleâ is not part of Science. Science has to account for every difference and pssibility. Survival of the Fittest does not do that, let alone your misconceptions about advantage, cruelty, suffering, and exstinction.
Richard
No, they didnât â they came right when the text says they came.
No, theyâre not â youâre playing semantic games rather than respecting the language of the text. the ancient Hebrews would not have believed you if you tried to tell them about microbes, and if they did believe you they wouldnât regard them as alive; alive referred to the visibly animate (which included plants, but thatâs a long excursus).
Sorry, but no â youâre chopping a term into two pieces, extracting the meaning you want, then putting it back together to mean something it doesnât. Language isnât just a collection of phonemes, phonemes can come in clusters. If ancient Hebrew was written like German, it wouldnât be âbeast of the fieldâ, it would be âfieldbeastsâ, one word. It refers to animals that breathe, i.e. that drew in breath and exhaled, where exhaling was like wind.
âIfâ. But there is no reason that God would want to describe microbes because Genesis isnât about science. Modern Hebrew might use the word to include microbes, but that is because microbes are something modern people know about; the ancient word does not.
Itâs adding to the text by putting words in Godâs mouth.
Thatâs not what allegory is.
No â thatâs exactly what allegory is, drawing out some kind of meaning that is not evident in the plain words.
Youâre doing what Tertullian rightly condemned: distorting the text and calling it enlightenment.
Exactly â and what the writer and original audience understood is what the words mean.
Heh â good point. Words mean what they mean, not what some philosophical scheme wants them to!
But youâre not getting any deeper meaning, youâre getting a shallow irrelevant meaning. The Creation stories were not meant to communicate science, theyâre in the wrong literary form for that.
Yes, we are able to draw out âdeeper meaningâ today, but not because of science, rather because God has allowed us to learn a lot about the ancient near east and thus about the ancient Hebrews that past generations didnât know. Just for starters we know that the first Creation account follows the common Egyptian creation story, with editing that gives a theological message.
And theology is what itâs about, not science. Trying to make it talk science detracts from the message we are meant to be hearing, it is a game of the flesh that serves to edify no one.
And it does nothing to show forth the Cross, which all scripture must do: Christ is the perfect representation of the unseen God, and the Cross is the epitome of Who Jesus is, and since all the scriptures speak of Him, that is the measure of any new interpretation if any passage.
Youâre assuming that God communicated to Moses in terms of a MSWV. That denies the incarnational aspect of scripture: scripture comes through men, the Word becoming incarnate not in a form convenient to modern readers but to the writer through whom it is being breathed.
Which is not what the Creation accounts are about â they are theology, not science. God didnât care about science because it doesnât convey theology.
Your approach is no better than YEC âflood geologyâ â science fiction.
That is not found in the text, it is something that has to be forced onto the text. The Garden narrative is not a modern objective report that expands on another modern objective report; indeed read as objective reports they are contradictory. And you make it worse because the only place that the second Creation story can fit with the first one is on Day 6 because that is when humans are first mentioned.
Yes, we do, because thatâs where the message is. We can filter that through the Cross, but there is no justification in scripture for bringing in an alien worldview such as a MSWV and forcing the text into it â unless you know of a passage where we are instructed to make the text talk about science?
So now you dare to disagree with Jesus! Heâs the one Who said that everything in the scriptures is about Him!
âRelevanceâ?! The Cross is Christianity! It is the victory, the ultimate display of Godâs nature: love. It is the message, the core of what we know about God (at least according to Paul).
You donât see any cruelty on the Cross?
No, âwhat followsâ is solid theology from the church Fathers and more.
No, they donât.
You really need to drop the arrogance of thinking that you know what ToE is about better than people who actually have science degrees and who work in the relevant field â they keep trying to inform you, but you act as though you know everything infallibly, refusing to learn. Just because you canât comprehend how something works doesnât mean it doesnât work.
Err, no. As it isnât, He wouldnât say it was. I very much Doubt that he has much to do with Song of Solomon, or any of the Wisdom writing.
You appear to be globalising again, but as you refsue to cite anything i am only guessing.
Richard