Pre-Noah Vegetarians? Not So Fast ...

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
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The Staff reporter suggested that this question was an “easy one” – I’m not so sure. Here are a few reasons why it is anything but clear that, according to the Bible, all people before Noah were vegetarians.

  1. The Staff reporter failed to make clear that there is a definite distinction between the period of time before Adam and Eve were “cast out” of the garden of Eden, and the time after they left. Before, they seemed to live in a state of relative innocence, not realizing they were naked or worrying about good and evil and like deep issues. However, after they ate the forbidden fruit they were commanded by God to leave. At that time, Eve was told that she child-bearing would be extremely difficult, and Adam was told that the ground would no longer freely offer up fruits and plants, but rather that he would be required to eat bread “by the sweat of [his] face” (Gen. 3:16-19; using the KJV as was used by the Staff reporter). In other words, the innocent, peaceful, relatively stress-free lamb-and-lionesqe existence that they had lived was gone once they were sent out of the garden of Eden. Because many realities of existence for them changed at that point, it is too simplistic to just assume that they remained vegetarians.

  2. Adam and Eve didn’t have Cain and Abel until after they left the garden of Eden (see Gen. 4:1-2). Abel was a shepherd, and Cain was “tiller of the ground.” As was pointed out by the Staff reporter, the flocks were at least used for sacrifice (see Gen. 4:4), and also for clothing (see Gen. 3:21). But what else? Note that the sacrifices made were not of any and all sheep, but only of the “firstlings of [the] flock” (Gen. 4:4). So that left a lot of sheep that were not being slaughtered for sacrifice. Were they used only for clothing (skins, wool perhaps) and milk? Again, such an assumption seems too simplistic, especially in light of the new world in which Adam and Eve lived. On a related note, Genesis 4:20 mentions that one of the decendants of Cain, a man named Jabal, was “the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle.” Again, why the need for keeping cattle? Only for skins and milk and sacrifices?

  3. Let’s turn to the Noah story. Starting in Genesis 6, Noah is warned of the impending flood and begins preparing the ark. The way most of us remember the story is that Noah takes animals on board “two-by-two.” However, that is not the case. In Genesis 7:2-3 God commanded Noah to take only two (a male and female) of every beast that is “not clean”, but of “clean” beasts, and also of “fowls of the air”, Noah was commanded to take seven. Why would he be commanded to do this, if the only purpose of bringing the animals on board was to preserve the species? And note the distinction between clean and unclean; this seems to be a reference (spelled out later by Moses in Leviticus 11, and in Deuteronomy 14:3-20) to the difference between animals that were okay to eat and those that were prohibited as food. Why would God make this distinction if it wasn’t in reference to using the excess animals as food? It is *possible * that these animals were to be kept and eaten after the flood abated, but that wouldn’t easily explain the fact that Adam apparently understood the difference between “clean” and “unclean” animals already.

I am not a Bible scholar by any means. The point of all of this is simply to say that the question of whether or not, according to the Bible, all people before Noah were vegetarians is really not as “easy” as one might think.

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First, nomoser, welcome to the Straight DOpe Message Boards, we’re glad to have you with us.

When you start a thread, it’s helpful to other readers if you provide a link to the Staff Report (or column) under consideration. In this case, it’s Were Adam and Eve vegetarians? It won’t actually appear on the website until this coming Tuesday (17 Feb 2004), but can be viewed currently.

I’m sorry if the Staff Report was unclear. I thought I emphasized that vegetarianism was in the Edenic state. It’s not clear whether people ate meat between the expulsion from the garden and the point at which Noah gets permission to eat meat. It is fairly clear that Noah is given permission to eat meat.

Now, one can start to go off on all sorts of speculation. The generation of evil-doers that was wiped out in the flood, did they eat meat without God’s approval? If so, why drown them in the Flood and then give Noah permission to eat meat? And so on. All good conversation over a few beers, but all wild-eyed speculation not supported by the text.

Your point about clean and unclean animals has to do with sacrifice. Clean animals were the ones that could be sacrificed, unclean animals could not. Hence, that’s not inconsistent with the notion of vegetarianism as the ideal (Edenic or Messianic)state. (How Noah knew which animals were clean and which weren’t when the laws of sacrifice weren’t revealed fully until the time of Moses, many many centuries later, is a whole different question.)

So, what does seem to be fairly clear in the text is that (a) Adam and Eve in the Garden were allowed to eat any kind of vegetable or plant; and (b) Noah was given permission to eat meat; and © prophetic visions of the Messianic Era imply vegetarianism amongst carnivores. Hence, the logical conclusion that the text supports the notion of vegetarianism as an ideal, without ever being quite explicit about it.

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Thanks for the information on participating in this forum. I am a newbie here after all, even though I am a regular reader of the Straight Dope. And I appreciate your points made with respect to the question at hand. I agree with you that, pre-expulsion, all was vegetarianism, and that, post-flood, animal meat was fair game (no pun intended). Between those times … ? Obviously, arguments can be made both ways.

Thanks for the intellectual stimulation.

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Even if we accept the hypothesis that prior to The Flood, men did not eat animal flesh, It’s not at all clear to me that the sheep raised “before the flood” were raised for anything but their milk and hides. Many middle eastern sheep breeds are not wool sheep, but hair sheep. As such, their pelts are of some value, particularly for a soft leather, but they do not actually grow wool, or if they do have wool, they grow a coarse wool good for rugs, but awful for clothing. I suppose that wouldn’t stop people from wearing it. But gaw.