While people disagree on whether or not to accept what the Bible teaches, what the Bible teaches is not in doubt. As shown in the post below, Hebrew scholar are in agreement that the author of Genesis intended for his audience to understand that God created in 6 calendar days in the recent past and that there was a global flood.
Check out the details below…
In this debate, my Christian friend @CuriousChristianity attempted to argue the positive for this case, and I took the much easier (and biblical) case for the negative
Americans on average go through 12 years of public school indoctrination in evolution. Those, who go to college and those who get advanced degrees get 4, 6 or 8 more years of deeper indoctrination into the ideas that animals have been dying for millions of years. Even those who don’t get advanced degrees are saturated with movies and tv shows and news bulletins and flyers and conversations among work associates that bloodshed and death are pervasive for the assumed millions of years of evolutionary development. Some would call this science, but it is at the very least a philosophical idea that is deeply ingrained in 21st century thinking. It takes courage and discernment not to drink in and believe the worldly philosophy of evolutionism as a basic assumption. My friend may or may not believe in evolution, but the influence of the philosophies of death for millions of years is both pervasive and assumed in this culture. Many Christians who have been indoctrinated in the philosophy of death for millions of years search for holes in the text of the Bible to see if there is room to insert these outside ideas of death and suffering before the fall into sin. See if in this debate, you can discern how the assumptions of death have influenced the arguments of my friend rather than starting instead with the eternal word of God.
My case will have 3 points: Good, Food and Blood
My friend has the very unenviable task of building the case that the Bible teaches that animals died before the fall of mankind. It is particularly difficult since no where in the Bible will you find death before the fall. He might make some assumptions and you’ll likely hear him try to talk about how good death really is, but please pray for my friend: his case is hopeless
During the creation account in Genesis 1 God declares his creation to be good 7 times and the 7th time, He declared it to be very good. What does the Hebrew word (tove) mean? Those, who hold to the temple inauguration view (like my opponent) will say it means “functional” or “ready”. Does this hold up to a textual analysis from Moses, in the same context to the same audience?
Gen 1:31 “God saw all that He had made, and it was very functional”
Gen 2:17 “But you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of functional and dysfunctional”
Gen 3:22 “Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing functionality and dysfunction”
Of course, this does not make any sense, but this is what the guru, John Walton, would have us believe from p50 of his book The Lost World of Genesis, where he says: “the meaning of the repeated formula ‘it was good’, which I propose refers to functioning properly…functional readiness”
This is the trendy tactic for Walton’s followers to get around the serious problem of animal death. If they can redefine good to have nothing to do with sin/morality or the fall, then they can accept the modern paradigm’s view that animal death has been happening for millions of years (or as they might say “for an unknown amount of time). But if good has to do with the absence of evil or the antithesis of evil/harm/destruction, then those who hold to this view have a serious theological problem.
This word good H2896 tove (tob) is used to describe God Himself at least 27 times in the old testament. Are we to believe Walton’s definition that the Almighty is functional? 40 times in the old testament tove is paired with ra (evil) H7451 as its inverse. And we clearly see from Isa 11:6-9 that the destruction caused by the fall includes predatory destruction. The Apostle Pual picks up this seamless theme in scripture that during creation week there was an absence of corruption but because of the curse of sin “For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.”
If my friend’s case is true, then suffering, cancer, and death are “very good”. But I Cor 15:26 tells us that “the final to be destroyed is death”.
If good is to have any meaning at all, then it cannot include suffering, harm, destruction and death as would be necessary for my friend’s case
Genesis 1:28-29 has 5 commands
Gen 1:30 relates the 5th command of God to “every beast of the field, every bird of the heavens & everything that creeps on the earth – everything that has the breath of life”
Predation is shown to be forbidden. Humans SHALL eat the green plants for food & those under man’s dominion shall eat green plants. Why would we assume that those under Adam’s jurisdiction be granted a freedom to consume meat that was denied to humanity?
If you doubt that the Genesis 1 command to eat only the green plants is NOT a command, we can look to the recreation language of God after the global flood in Genesis 9
Gen 9:1-3 “And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground amd all the fish of the seas. Into your hand they are now delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood”
Again we see the commands of God to be fruitful, fill the earth, subdue it and have dominion over animals. But the 5th command is freed of the restriction of animal consumption. This pattern at the creation and recreation is apparent and even if not in words, is logically denied by my friend. There’s every reason to believe Gen 1:29 is also a command for humans because this command is reversed in Genesis 9. And by deduction, we see that the animals are subject to God’s pre-fall dietary commands as well – to be vegetarian
The 1st recorded bloodshed in the Bible is the penal substitutionary atoning sacrifice of an animal in the garden by God Himself to cover the sins of Adam and Eve. The skin of this animal was used to cover their nakedness. This picture of the eventual bloodshed of Jesus was represented in the garden by the 1st recorded death of an animal. Without the shedding of blood there can be no forgiveness
Before the fall, God’s creation was very good – completely absent of evil/harm/destruction/predation and God promises that his creation will be restored to a state that is absent of evil/harm/destruction/predation through the redemptive work of Jesus. There was no room for animal death suffering or predation in God’s very good creation prior to the fall. As the writer of Hebrews tells us “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness”. Has there been millions of years of needless suffering, bloodshed, and death in a world that God called very good as Walton tells us? Or as Romans 8 tells us, did the whole of creation become subjected to its bondage to corruption and groaning because of the sin of mankind?
It would be unexpected (according to my friend’s view) for something as meaningless as the bloodshed and death of animals to represent the atoning bloodshed of the Savior. It’s discordant with all of scripture to assume that there was some unknown epoch of meaningless bloodshed/death of animals that suddenly became the picture of Jesus’s redemptive sacrifice. But it is perfectly aligned with the teaching of the Bible that no bloodshed occurred until mankind sinned. The Spirit revealed to the writer of Hebrews how animal death isn’t meaningless as would be the logical result of my friend’s view.
Hebrews 9:13-22 “For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive. Therefore not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you.” And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.”
All of the Bible is about Jesus as seen in Luke 24:44-45. The picture of the bloodshed of Jesus was represented in the bloodshed of animals as recorded for the 1st time after Adam/Eve had sinned. There is a gaping theological hole in the argument that rather than there being representative significance to the bloodshed of animals, the bloodshed and death of animals is meaningless because it happened for millions of years prior to the curse of sin. It is an unwitting diminution of the blood sacrifice of Jesus
As you can see from the video, the Bible does NOT teach that animals died before the fall. You have to appreciate the effort by my friend, but he had an impossible task. The assumptions and speculations he has made are just not found in the text itself.
There is great symmetry between the old and new creation. The Bible has a clear chiastic structure which we can see when looked at as a whole. God’s original good creation was cursed by bondage to corruption and death because of man’s sin. But because of what Jesus has done as the prophets & Revelation reveal, God will restore creation to a state that will be absent of evil and harm. This redemptive plan brings glory to Jesus. The resurrection of Jesus has power to redeem all of creation from its bondage to suffering, corruption and to defeat the last enemy: death.
Be brave and discerning dear Christians. Though the dominant paradigm is saturated with worldly philosophies like evolution and deep time, we need not be captive to this kind of thinking. We have the mind of Christ, and out thinking should be shaped according to Christ’s revelation and for His glory
The Bible tells us that humans are made in the image of God. As image bearers, humans were empowered to uphold God’s dominion over all of his lovely creation. Genesis tells us that the curses for sin were thorns, suffering, and death. Jesus took each of these curses upon Himself at the cross. Denying that the curses for sin had no effect on the creation over which mankind had dominion, limits both the universally destructive power of sin AND the redemptive work of Jesus, whose power is even greater than that of sin. His death and resurrection heals not just the hearts of the repentant, but restores the relationships of the wolf and the lamb, the leopard with the goat, the calf and the lion. There will no longer be harm and destruction that has pervaded this sin-cursed creation.
During the debate, Adam said, “We should let God define good”. And I heartily agree. When we let scripture speak for itself, goodness is clearly an absence of evil/harm/death. God uses the Hebrew word for good (tob, H2896) to describe Himself at least 27 times in the old testament. And at least 45 times in the old testament God contrasts good (tob) with evil (ra, H7451). The Hebrew word ra means evil, harm or destruction. The definition of good is the absence of evil, harm, & destruction. So, Adam’s entire case is discordant with what the Bible teaches. So, yes – Let God define what is good
While the argument about the tree of life is a good one, it is easily shown to be insufficient to overcome the teaching from scripture that everything in creation was very good before the fall. And since the Bible (Rev 22:2) tells us that the tree of life is for the *healing* of the nations. This healing is easily inferred to be from the mortal wound of sin. Without sin, there would be no need for healing.
What about plants or bacteria or spiders (as Adam brought up several times in the debate? Plants, while categorized as alive today, are really just a self-replicating food source. As for the others, see the article here.
If you are unfamiliar with the misery, suffering, bloodshed, and harm that animals deal with, follow these accounts on X. These are the behaviors that old earthers think are part of a “very good” creation for millions of years prior to the sin of mankind
Some more thoughts about how God views blood as important, check out these passages:
So animal blood, while much less valuable than the blood of Christ, is shown to be valuable for covering sins. The shedding of animal blood is the picture of Christ’s blood, so it is not insignificant as would be necessary in the views of old earthism. Predation and death of animals would not be expected from a biblical view. It is only the worldly philosophies that bring in the ideas of perpetual predation and animal death prior to the sin of mankind
Don’t overlook the effects of the cultural saturation of evolution in the arguments of my friend. The myth millions of years of death and suffering are so engrained in the cultural milieu, that Adam just assumes death has been a part of history for that long. It’s definitely not a biblical teaching. It comes from outside the Bible. So, we can say with certainty that the Bible teaches that animals did NOT die before the fall
ApoloJedi 