I Think God Wants Us to Start Rebuilding Eden
Animals: Tradition - Philosophy - Religion Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM Renee King-Sonnen
Facebook posting, November 10, 2021

I have sat among my herd of cows and felt the “fear and dread” for the beasts of the Earth.

Genesis 9:2-3

It was very un-Texan of me in last week’s post when I suggested that ranching wasn’t part of God’s perfect plan. Even if you take the Garden of Eden as a symbolic parable, the lesson stays the same, that until they sinned Adam and Eve were plant-eatin’ nudists. In fact, today I’ll stretch the vegan boundary of the bible 8 more chapters to a verse very popular with omnivorous Christians, Genesis 9:2-3, where, after The Flood, God actually gives permission to Noah to eat animals.

The first thing this makes obvious is that eating animals was NOT OKAY with God, and part of the wickedness of the descendants of Adam and Eve could be the killing of animals. The Flood was the “great reset” and collective humanity’s “strike two.”

There is much biblical scholarship interpreting these verses — is this permission to eat animals conditional, a “limited time offer?” After all, they only just landed on a barren mountaintop, the rest of the world covered in water. The verse also follows the blessing, “be fruitful and multiply and replenish the Earth.” Well, that’s a prophecy filled in full! I’m not sure what eating animals has to do with population growth, but we certainly have reached an age where we can stop!

Most of all I think the grim tone of this verse shows that God isn’t rewarding Noah with a privilege he didn’t allow Adam and Eve. Verse 2 foreshadows our separation from nature and how we become enemies to the animals: “And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.” YIKES!

I sat among my herd of cows and I felt the “fear and dread” for the beasts of the Earth. Some may look at this verse and say, “God says it’s okay to eat animals!” but I think God wants us to start rebuilding Eden...at a time when appetite for meat perpetuates mass deforestation. Eventually, the wolf will lie down with the lamb…the Bible has vegan bookends!

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