On Thu, 11 May 2000, Dori Zook wrote:

> My only point was the
> you can make the Bible say anything you want.

Wouldn't that make it more or less useless?

Although it's fairly clear that agriculture is part of the curse
of Adam and Eve, upon their expulsion from the garden, it is far
from clear what their pre-falled life was supposed to be like.
Biblical vegetarians (as opposed to ethical vegetarians) point to
Genesis 1:29, where God says "Behold, I have given you every
plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and
every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for
you."  That, on the face of it, does imply vegetarianism, but the
following verse says, "And to every beast of the earth and to
every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth
which has life, I have given every green plant for food."

The latter is certainly interesting, because at face value it
means that *all* animals were supposed to be vegetarians as well.
That implies that before the fall there was not an animal food
chain as we know it.

Either that or it implies that we are reading it wrong.  For
example, in Gen 1:29, where it says "It shall be food for you,"
the Hebrew word that is translated as "food" literally means
"meat."  How can fruits and seeds be meat for us?  Well, maybe we
should just accept that "meat" means food.  Or perhaps we could
take a broader interpretation of both passages and say that God
was saying that green things would serve as the foundation of the
food chain, as indeed they do.  They are "meat" to us and to
every other beast precisely because without them there could be
no meat at all.

Todd Moody
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