spurly

That's a good question. I may give you an answer now, and then come back tomorrow and change that answer after I have had more time to think about. I hope you would allow me the freedom to do that. I am sure you will.

Yes, the prohibition against incest would fall under the category of the moral law and not the ritual law. Yet if the Genesis story is correct, that in the beginning there were only two people, then in order to carry out God's command to multiply and fill the earth, incest would have had to happen at the beginning.

I guess God could have created more people than just two at the beginning, but as far as we know he didn't, so I will not offer that as a way out like some people would.

The only reason I can think of from this side of the fence is that in the beginning God protected the human race by keeping the problems that come about from incest and inbreeding from affecting the rest of the human race.

How did he do this? I don't know. But if the Biblical story is correct, within Adam and Eve was the genetic structure for the entire human race - all possibilities were present in the first two creatures. Maybe, (and this is only conjecture and I might change my answer tomorrow after thinking about it more) since Adam and Eve were so close to the time of perfection in the garden of Eden, when they didn't have the genetic problems that people would have further down the human chain.

Then, once there were enough people to continue the human race without incest, God put an end to it to keep us from the genetic problems and the family problems that come with incest.

How early did this happen. At least by the time of Abraham and Lot. Lot was a righteous man and he knew incest was wrong. To get him to participate, his daughters had to get him drunk. It was at least considered a moral sin by Genesis 19.

That's my answer for now.

Gregg

I realize this is way off the original topic, so perhaps we should continue this discussion elsewhere. But let me say I expected you to make this exact argument, even though it doesn't agree with what the Bible says.

I DO think we can assume the Bible writers are including known carnivorous species when they refer to God creating the "...great sea monsters and every living thing that moves..." (1:21). They never say EXPLICITLY that God created carnivorous species, though, as you seem to suggest above.

I DO NOT see any possible way to get out of Gen. 1:30 that the Bible writers are talking about some kind of "food chain." The passage clearly reads, "And to EVERY beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." The meaning is quite clear.

It is only after the Flood that God lets human beings eat meat (without the blood). Nothing is ever said about letting animals eat meat (with the blood, obviously), so I guess we have to assume that this change was made around the same time as the change for humans.

Even though the Bible writers don't tell us when carnivores actually became carnivores, it seems pretty clear to me what their intent is in describing a world where all animals, and man, eat only green plants. This is a world that is completely free of death and bloodshed. Both are entirely unknown until the Fall. There's nothing in the text at all to indicate that freedom from death belonged to man alone. There's nothing to indicate that the writers are obliquely referring to the "food chain." In fact, trying to make scientific sense of this creation myth destroys its meaning.

You could, of course, argue that carnivores did NOT exist before the Fall. However, this requires that, after the flood, carnivores evolved from herbivores. But if a grazing animal evolves into a dedicated predator, is it still of the same "kind" ?

Gregg