Mr Carcer

In the Garden of Eden God gives instructions to Adam and Eve that eating plantlife is acceptable

Genesis 3:2-3

• And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
• But of the fruit of the tree which [is] in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

Later he make it part of a curse upon Adam, Eve, and their descendents:

Genesis 3:18-19

• Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the
• In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou [art], and unto dust shalt thou return.

While in neither of these passages does God prohibited the eating of meat, he doesn't sanction it either.

Later God tells Noah:

Genesis 9:3

• Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.

At this point it would seem that there are three possible reasons that God would say this to Noah. The first is that prior to this God had not allowed people to eat meat. The second is that God had placed prohibition upon the consumption of certain kinds of meat. The third is that people simply hadn't chosen to eat meat.

Given the absence of any prohibition against eating meat one could say it is probably the third possibility and that what we've seen so far isn't actually a contradiction. However the question might be raised of why didn't God say anything before the flood. Also this possible answer tends to water down the whole convenant between God and Noah, ('I promise to not flood the world again as long as you promise to have lots of children and execute murderers.') Placing in the middle of this contract an aside where God says, 'Oh by the way you can eat meat, Noah' seems to me to be very out of place and one only has to look at the language to see that God isn't telling Noah that he can eat meat, he's saying that living things shall be meat for him.

I am reticent at this point to use the term contraction. Perhaps ambiguity or uncertainty would be a better phrase.

Where I think it gets interesting is when God introduces the dietary laws of Leviticus, e.g the prohibition from eating shellfish or pork. And it is at this point that the contradiction begins. God told Noah that he would be able to eat any living thing that moves. He didn't say every living thing except for pigs and shellfish.

A person might argue against this by saying, 'well that was just God's promise to Noah it didn't apply to everyone.' Except for this little passage:

Genesis 9:9

• And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you;

If the dietary part of the covenant applies only to Noah than so does the part about being fruitful, the part about executing murderers, and the part about not flooding the world again.

I am certain that the contradictions in dietary laws between the New Testament and the laws of Leviticus have been raised in this forum before and I only bring them up now to remind people of further difficulties in establishing God's will.

If God can't decide what we can or cannot eat how can we be confident of any laws he has bequeathed upon us. If this eternal, never changing, omniscient being can't make up his mind about what we can eat, how can we know for certain that he has made up his mind about anything.