Did Carnivores Exist Before the Flood of Noah's Day?

[The Librarian]

According to the Bible there were no carnivores before the flood and animals did not fear us.

[Pudgy]

I do not believe the Bible says that anywhere.

Ever see a T-Rex's teeth?

Or the great prehistoric Jurassic and before sea "monsters"

Sharks are millions of years old ... what did they eat .... seaweed?

Have a clear, unambiguous Biblical reference?

[John Houston]

the Bible says everything on land ate vegetation, but when life ended that animal had to be disposed of; and it was not by decay and maggots. The mere size should tell us that these creatures ate one another after they died. they may not have hunted themselves, but they ate the flesh of the dead. and we will also after the end of the 1000 years. Adam's sin interrupted God's purpose and timeline for us. After the Flood he told Noah that ALL FLESH was edible, but then due to Isreal being his "special property", some flesh was off limits, as stated in the Law. So when things are righted we will see.

[JW Insider]

1 hour ago, John Houston said:

the Bible says everything on land ate vegetation, but when life ended that animal had to be disposed of; and it was not by decay and maggots. The mere size should tell us that these creatures ate one another after they died. they may not have hunted themselves, but they ate the flesh of the dead.

Allowing the animals to eat other animals after they died is supposedly a clever solution to the idea that Jehovah would never have created carnivores. But it's only an explanation that might otherwise explain carnivorous teeth and claws and carnivorous digestive systems, and carnivorous hunting instincts. Otherwise we would have to explain how and why such teeth and claws and carnivorous digestive systems and carnivorous hunting instincts evolved so quickly from the time of Noah.

But even though the solution is clever it shows that the person who made up the solution didn't believe the Bible the way they thought they believed it. (I know it wasn't you who made up the solution, I've seen it in several fundamentalist sources.)

The Bible is clear enough that the overall intention of Creation was initially for humans to be vegetarian and for animals to be be vegetarian:

(Genesis 1:29, 30) . . .Then God said: “Here I have given to you every seed-bearing plant that is on the entire earth and every tree with seed-bearing fruit. Let them serve as food for you. 30 And to every wild animal of the earth and to every flying creature of the heavens and to everything moving on the earth in which there is life, I have given all green vegetation for food.” And it was so.

Technically, of course, this could mean that all animals would eat vegetation even if they also ate meat, so that all animals were either vegetarian or omnivores, and would therefore be competing with man for the vegetation. 

But trying to use the scripture in Genesis to prove that there were no carnivores falls short of explaining the carnivorous features and instincts of some animals. Merely claiming that they ate dead meat still contradicts the very idea they are trying to make use of from the Bible. Any animals eating dead meat are still eating meat, and not following the supposed "rule" of Genesis 1:30. And if you allow for animals to eat dead meat that died on its own, then why not allow maggots to eat of the same carcasses? What are they doing that is so different from what the larger animals are doing?

If a person is going to "go against" the Bible to claim that large animals could eat dead meat, then why not also allow them to be carnivores? The Genesis account never says there were no carnivores anyway. It just says that all the animals were also given vegetation to eat just like humans were given vegetation to eat. 

If one were take this to the absurd degree and not even allow for maggots and decay, then they aren't allowing Adam to have microbes in his intestines. They aren't allowing birds to eat spiders, or even to eat insects like mosquitoes. They aren't allowing for mosquitoes either, unless they believe mosquitoes evolved a new digestive process, and they are claiming that spiders evolved a complex "instinct" to create complex webs and capture flies. And some plants like "Venus fly-traps" evolved complex "instincts" to respond to captured flies and spiders, too. And all of this evolution, including spider webs, etc., would have to happened in the last 4,000 years???? 

I wonder how the human digestive system would work with chemical reactions and enzymes only, without any microscopic organisms to help the process.

Reminds me of a poem "Antiquity of the Microbe" supposedly the shortest poem ever, attributed to Ogden Nash or Strickland Gillilan:

Adam

had'm.

Ogden Nash and also Augustus De Morgan are both associated with another poem that has a bearing on the topic:

Great fleas have little fleas

Upon their backs to bite ‘em,

And little fleas have lesser fleas,

And so ad infinitum

And the great fleas themselves, in turn,

Have greater fleas to go on;

While these again have greater still,

And greater still, and so on.

[Dmitar]

3 hours ago, JW Insider said:

Otherwise we would have to explain how and why such teeth and claws and carnivorous digestive systems and carnivorous hunting instincts evolved so quickly from the time of Noah.

Can you clarify friend what time structure you are referring to? If it was within the garden of Eden, animal teeth and claws can be explained by what kind of vegetation those animals were consuming. This is why humans are born with canine teeth. Did Adam and Eve have canine teeth? Perhaps not in the Garden, but definitely after they were expelled from the garden. Since Adam was supposed to tame all the animal kingdom within the Garden, he lost that ability after the garden. 

Before God created man, the animal kingdom while created not to sustain themselves by carnage, they were a none thinking creation. This is the reason why God started bringing the wild animals to Adam. Genesis 2:18-20. 

Now, the time difference within creation is considerable.

[JW Insider]

8 hours ago, NoisySrecko said:

Can you clarify friend what time structure you are referring to? If it was within the garden of Eden, animal teeth and claws can be explained by what kind of vegetation those animals were consuming.

I was not trying to clarify a time structure. I was only showing to what extent we will begin making assumptions based on our own assumptions. And if it means adding or taking away from the Bible, or even promoting a contradiction to the Bible, we often won't realize just how easily and quickly we are ready to do this.

8 hours ago, NoisySrecko said:

This is why humans are born with canine teeth. Did Adam and Eve have canine teeth? Perhaps not in the Garden, but definitely after they were expelled from the garden.

That's a good example. Notice how the Bible doesn't say anything about Adam and Eve having canine teeth, and yet we can be so quick to make an assumption that has no Biblical evidence, one way or another. If animal teeth can be explained by what kind of vegetation those animals were consuming, then why couldn't Adam have canine teeth which could be explained by what kind of vegetation he would be consuming? You seem to be saying that Adam had no canine teeth at first, but Cain, Seth, Abel, and Cain's wife were born with canine teeth. And then Adam and Eve grew them after they were expelled. But there are no scriptures supporting this assumption.

[Dmitar]

6 hours ago, JW Insider said:

If animal teeth can be explained by what kind of vegetation those animals were consuming, then why couldn't Adam have canine teeth which could be explained by what kind of vegetation he would be consuming? You seem to be saying that Adam had no canine teeth at first, but Cain, Seth, Abel, and Cain's wife were born with canine teeth. And then Adam and Eve grew them after they were expelled. But there are no scriptures supporting this assumption.

Thank you friend for making that distinction. Human creation alongside the animal kingdom had canine teeth to consume certain types of vegetation. Those sharpen teeth regardless of the amount of canine teeth aided in the consumption of certain material. It would be unwise to suggest, canine teeth grew after the expulsion. One can understand, such as the black bear that strips the bark of a tree to consume the soft layer between the tree and bark.

[Pudgy]

The fractured, twisted, and mangled logic of these arguments, the normal conclusion of which is that to believe the Bible you NEED to be bat-crap crazy, can all be avoided by taking a hard look at what is REAL, and what has always BEEN real, since life began.

Agenda driven reasoning is ALWAYS wrong.

The points JWI makes are solid.

Or do you think that Able roasting a Lamb on an Altar to God, smelling that delicious aroma did not eat the leftovers, as the Levite Priests did thousands of years later?

…. And a planet full of ocean life ate straw?

 

 

[Pudgy]

The Bible has to be read in context.

Otherwise the Scripture about “… after I leave, wolves will enter in among the flock” becomes rationale for dogs going to heaven.

etc., ad nauseum.

[John Houston]

The comment  earlier is quite true. Birds eating flies, maggots eating dead flesh is what we know and what went own during life in the garden. We tend to think of Eden as clean and pristine, yet if the animals there did not have eternal live, did they leave like the elephant and go,out to a place of death to die? No! Dinosaurs died and their bodies were not eaten by only the microbes and maggots but other living animals. Why do I say this because, when Adam sinned, after the Flood God gave the edict that ALL flesh could be eaten. This was his purpose, but due to what happened in the garden, things were interrupted. We are going to eat from the flesh of the animals, not be vegetation eaters all through eternity. That is just common sense. To fill the earth with human life, and all the animal life could their be balance as we see being disruptive now?

The cover that encompassed the planet before the Flood has to be put back, the air quality of that period has to be repaired, the water has to be placed where it was before the Flood for our own safety. So we will eat from the bodies of the animals, as Jehovah made covering for Adam we will also make coverings for ourselves and these same animals will provide food and sustenance for all mankind; we will breed numerous other species from these we know now and those lost which we will find from the time we have in eternity. Yes, the Bible writers do not in particular pen what went on in the garden or before Adam was created, but common sense, reason tells us things that are not written down. Things that are still true.

[Dmitar]

²⁹ Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. ³⁰ And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

[Dmitar]

14 hours ago, Pudgy said:

The points JWI makes are solid.