"And It was so" points back to the creation command (Gen. 1:26) as it does on every other day. The rest of the verses (27-30) may be included, but there is not a focus on the verses about plants as food. So, I do not understand your point.
On every other day? Ok, this is a good example of the whole issue of heremeneutics and taking things in their own context. First off, it does not occur in the 5th day, which kills any such parallels by itself (further, it does not occur in the first day, either, although the vowel
hayah does). Second, the phrase "and it was so" does not serve as an inclusio for the entire day in any place where it does occur. So let's look at the structure of each day's account with reference to "and it was so":
Day two:
- Then God said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters."
God made the expanse, and separated the waters which were below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so. God called the expanse heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.
Here, the "it was so" can be taken to go back to either "God made" or all the way back to the first "God said." You will see from the remainder of the usages that it should be taken as going back to "said."
Day three:
- Then God said, "Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear";
and it was so. God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters He called seas; and God saw that it was good.
Then God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them"; and it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good. There was evening and there was morning, a third day.
Here, we have TWO "and it was so" statements, both following each of God's statements. Interestingly, both statements are marked off as being "so," and both the works that follow them are marked off as being "good."
Day four:
- Then God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth"; and it was so. God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.
Here, we have again only one "and it was so" statement, which follows God's first statement but does not from an inclusio for the entire day. Again, the statement is marked off as being done; the work is marked off as being good.
Day six:
- Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind"; and it was so. God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind; and God saw that it was good. Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth." Then God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food"; and it was so. God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Again, we have TWO "and it was so" statements. The first goes back the God's first stament. The work is marked off, again, as being good. The second statement has neither an "an it was so" nor a reference to being good", but this entire section is also poetic, whereas the other sections have not been. Thus a change here is not suprising. Finally, the last statement is marked off as being so, and then ALL God made was very good (which I take to go back to all the work from day one to day six).
What this means is that the "and it was so" parallel always goes back to the immediately preceeding statement, in this case, the reference to food.
Animals were here before humans (Gen. 1:20-25). Then God creates man and tells him to take control of the animals and earth (ecology). In this context God tells man what he is to eat. Since man is new to the earth and is to be in control of the environment, God informs man that the animals have also received plants as food.
Notice the tense of the verb "I have given" (
nathan). It is in the qal perfect, which means it is a completed action (it happened in the past). This verb applies to BOTH human and animal diet, for it governs both of the passages. Let me here post a grammatical diagram you may find useful:
Now, there is something very instructive in all of this. The tense of
nathan tell us that God had already given to mankind his diet, and therefore, this is instruction/information. Likewise, God had
already given the animals their diet, so the issues of animals coming before men has nothing to do with our discussion. Man's knowledge of what animals were or were not to eat had no bearing on the reality itself. That's good old fashioned philosophy. Knowledge doesn't determine reality.
So the question is, just what WERE humans and animals given to eat? It is very clear: plant life. If human diet is exclusively vegetarian, then so also must be the animal kingdom's, based on the nature of the parallels and the single governing verb.
As I have pointed out Gen. 1:29-30 is directed at man not the animals. As I said above, the animals were here and eating before man showed up. Man was to take charge, so it was important for him to understand that animals would be sharing the plants with him. When God gave directions to man about his diet He uses the same words at creation and after the flood and He emphasises the fact that it is given to man.
Gen. 1:29 - "Behold, I have given to you...lachem (to you) yihyeh (it shall be) le (for) ochlah (food)."
Gen. 9:3 - "...lachem (to you) yihyeh (it shall be) le (for) ochlah (food); like the green plant I have given to you all.
This is different than the statement God made to Adam about animals.
"Behold, I have given to (all animals)....green plants for food."
You assume yihyeh to be implied. I assume it to be left out on purpose.
I was mistaken in the implication fo
hayah as implied (that's what I get for running over my grammar too quickly), but in any case, I still don't see the point you are trying to make based on the presence of the verb. It is the standard state of being verb in Hebrew. In our verse, it is imperfect, which simply conveys the idea of current and/or future action. It certainly has no limiting aspect. What does have a limiting aspect is both the grammatical and structural parallel of 29 and 30.
I have given:
a) To you -> all the plants | (they are) for food
b) To animals -> all the plants | for food
No commentaries I have surveyed make any point of
hayah. I'm not going to try to be so dishonest as to contruct an argument to tear it down, so if you want to make a specific exegetical argument based on the presence of the verb, I would love to see it. Until then, you've left almost entirely untouched my own discussion on the matter.
God nowhere gives direction to the animals about what they should or should not eat. This finds confirmation in the divinely inspired commentary on creation in Ps. 104:14-17, 21. This shows that man and some animals eat plants, but some animals eat meat. This shows the way the Hebrews understood what God had done.
Again, I reject that notion that Ps 104 is a creation psalm. It is a psalm of majesty and praise. It is not a commentary on Genesis 1. It talks of how God is revealed in nature even today. In any case, 1:30 does give animals direction on what they should or should not eat. They are to eat green plants. That is what God
has given them for food. To say it is obvious is an understatement. It is the plain reading of the passage in the strongest sense of the word. This isn't like the "plain reading" of "day=24 hours" thing, because the word
yom has, in its semantic range, other meanings. But nothing like that is the case in our present passage.
Since the phrasing is different for animals and there is no direction from God to the animals, there is no reason to think that their diet was the same as man's. We are only told that we share some foods in common. In fact most animals eat plants even today, just as God said.
Of course there is, and you can't just ignore all the features I've already suggested with one sentence. The phrasing of something has almost no meaning. Words have meaning. Context has meaning. You can't say, "it isn't phrased as X and therefore it can't mean Y." That's just a non sequitor. It does not follow that because 1:29 has the verb
hayah that 1:30 therefore has a different meaning entirely. That's just absurd. Further, if you DO take 1:30 to be non-exclusive, you must ALSO take 1:29 to be non-exclusive. After all, the phrase "it shall be for food" doesn't negate that meat isn't for food, either. You don't need 9:3 to tell you that 1:29 is exclusive. It is obvious from the verse. Put differently, 9:3 doesn't tell us how to interpret 1:29. It is based on a previous, and obvious, understanding of 1:29, and that same understanding is no less obvious in 1:30.
Again, there is the absence of the vast seas full of meat eating creatures.
I've already addressed this. The Bible doesn't mention bacteria. It doesn't mention a lot of things. Since when are we expecting the Bible to be exhaustive?
There is an important hermenteutical point you are avoiding here, which is occasion. What caused Moses to write this? He isn't just trying to satisfy curiosity. He is making an important theological point that the people of his day needed to understand. Now, I can compare Egyptian and Mesopotamian creation mythologies and their underlying theology to Gen 1 and it is obvious what point Moses was making. But in your reading, there is no point to be made whatsoever.
Again, heremeneutics, my friend. You can't read this passage as a 21st century person and through the lens of modern science. You are
forced to read the passage in a particular way that has NOTHING to do with the occasion, and that, because it lines up with your theology. Isn't it convenient that your reading of the passage answers questions that apologists are asked today? Yet, at the same time, your reading answers questions that no one would have been interested in asking when Moses wrote it.
The word yalad means to beget. But, you cannot use the broader definition for the word here, because it is determined by context and the contexts in which it means ancestor come later. Therefore, you are doing (in a round-about fashion) what you said was wrong. You have let someone else (a lexicon) go to latter context to get you this meaning. You must show from this context a broader meaning for the term. This is one of the weaknesses of your limited definition of Scripture-interpreting-Scripture.
Wrong. I can appeal to its broader definition. Looking at a word's semantic range has nothing to do with future revelation. The word occurs 165 times in the Pentateuch. That is more than enough to get a feeling of how the word was used by Moses and to establish its semantic range.
Your use of Genesis 4 and 5, to show gaps, will not work. Gen. 4 has little in common with Gen. 5 or 11 and the similarities you use are wrong.
There are few similarites between the geneologies in 4 and 5? What? You didn't even bring up the points I already made. You can't just dismiss things without talking about them, dayage. I already pointed out the similarities:
1. Theologically, Cain's line is ungodly whereas Seth's line is godly. The similarity here is one of religious tone.
2. There are ten names listed in each.
3. The names themselves are remarkably similar, showing they were purposefully chosen. I'll list them for your convenience:
Adam [man] ................... Adam [man]
Cain [to create] ................... Seth [annointed one]
Enoch [initiated] ................... Enosh [mortal]
Irad [fugitive] ................... Kenan [dwelling]
Mehujael [smitten of God] ................... Mahalalel [praise of God]
Methushael [who is of God] ................... Jared [to descend]
Lamech [? - possible "powerful"] ................... Enoch [initiated]
Jabal [stream] ................... Methuselah [man of a dart]
Jubal [stream] ................... Lamech [? - possible "powerful"]
Tubal-cain [brought of Cain] ................... Noah [rest]
So, note the many similarities. Enoch is clearly similar to Enosh; in the fourth generation, you have a fugitive vs. a dwelling; in the fifth, you have very similar names with antithetical meanings; both geneologies use Lamech (in one, Lamech brings polygamy into the world, in the other, Lamech brings rest to the world); in the seventh generation of each you have the most wicked man compared to the most righteous man.
No, the similarites are there and are clearly intentional, which give a person more than good reason to accepting the fact that the list was specifically chosen to demonstrate a theological point.
In the three genealogies in use we find the definition of yalad as actual father
Cain interacting with his family (clearly direct father)
Cain names a city after his son Enoch (direct father)
Adam is Seth's direct father
Seth named Enosh (Gen 4:26 actual father)
Lamech named Noah (actual father)
Yes, and there is nothing to say that the word can't go back and forth. My father is, after all, my ancestor. But that would not at all lead the observer to think that therefore all generations were direct, biological fathers. Further, as you point out, the text makes it VERY clear when there ARE actual fathers, which would lead the reader to conclude that the others were NOT direct fathers, but were, as previously demonstrated, selective.
Along with people naming their children, we have the ages (Gen. 5 and 11) at which the children are begotten. Therefore, you have shown no evidence for a broader meaning of yalad.
Yes, and the ages do not at all require the meaning of direct fathership. The word can perfectly well mean "became the ancestor of."
Cain's genealogy has 6 (or 7 if we go back to 4:1) names ending with the 4 children of Lamech. Most are begotten by women. There are no ages at all mentioned. Because, there are no ages we cannot know if the same time frame is meant to be covered.
The complete lack of ages whatsoever in Cain's line makes it clear that Moses wasn't interested in their timeline. He presented their line for another reason entire, which, I argue is to 1) create the setting for Gen 6, and 2) provide a contrast to the godly line of Seth, which Moses IS interested in.
Some of the names are similar or the same, but this is no help. For example, Enoch is in the wrong place. If we try to match up the names to determine if the amount of time was to be the same, the two Lamechs would show that Cain's genealogy ended at the time of Noah. It did not go all the way to the Flood. It stops 500 years earlier than Seth's line. This would bring Gen. 4 and 5 in line and tend rule out gaps.
See above.
Also, in Seth's line at least 3 and maybe 5 people begat sons well below the average age in his genealogy. This would tend to bring Seth's genealogy in line with Cain's, even though Cain had fewer names. Therefore, there is no evidence for gaps.
Wrong. It never says that the first child of each person is listed. People clearly had children from early to very late in life. The author is only interested in certain ones of those children and their lines, which all the more argumes in favor of gaps because it shows the selective nature of the geneologies.
Ch. 4
Cain's genealogy has 6 (or 7 if we go back to 4:1) names ending with the 4 children of Lamech.
I don't believe I said there were ten GENERATIONS each (that would preclude the possibility of gaps). I said there were ten NAMES each, starting with Adam. See the list above. I left off the name of Naamah because she is listed as "the sister of Tubal-Cain." We are dealing with heads of families here.
But, why then should she be listed? Because her name means "pleasantness." Now, what happens in Gen 6? The sons of God (Seth's line) see the daughers of men (Cain's line)--that they are pleasant--and take wives from then, as many as they choose. Again, the purpose of the name is to tie in to Gen 6, which AGAIN shows selectivity in the geneology.
Ch. 5
Seth's genealogy has 10 names ending with the 3 children of Noah.
See above. But that does bring up another intersting parallel . . . Seth's geneology end with three sons; Cain's geneology ends with three sons. Whose family, then, survives the Flood? Seth's, because they were godly.
Ch. 11
There are 9 names ending with the 3 children of Terah.
I'm not arguing that there are any structural similiarties between 4/5 and 11. The only reason those names are given is because all of them will come up later in the story.
The pattern is not the same in these genealogies. This is an old-earth creationist myth. One I fell for in the past.
I don't care which group of people have commonly held to gaps in the geneologies. The text proves it to be the case. More importantly, the text demonstrates that the selection was THEOLOGICALLY MOTIVATED. Moses wants his readers to see something specific, which he does.
The theological comparison between the Godly line of Seth and the ungodly line of Cain has no bearing on determining whether or not the text shows evidence for gaps in the genealogy.
Of course it does. The theological comparison CANNOT be made without selectivity in the geneologies.
Unless you assume the definition for yalad that must be proved, your method cannot deal with the difference between Genesis 11:12 and Luke 3:35-36 (the second Cainan). You have gone outside of your own interpretive method to deal with the differences.
See above.
So I stick to the understanding that Scripture-defining-Scripture goes backwards as well as forwards. This is why I can say Hebrews four shows the seventh day to be a long period of time and Luke 3:36 (as well as other latter genealogies, like Moses') shows that Genesis 11 has gaps.
And I've shown why you are wrong above. You do NOT need Luke 3:36 on this issue.
A MAJOR aspect of hermeneutics that you have misunderstood is the importance of looking at the theological context in which a passage is written. I can't blame you for that, because you CANNOT look at that if you believe future revelation can change the meaning of previous revelation. But that is why I asked where you got your hermeneutics from. If you get them from general revelation, then it isn't hard to show that you HAVE to consider the theological occasion of the writing, and if that is the case, then you have another reason for rejecting your view of hermeneutics.
Bottom line: I think your method of interpretation is simply wrong. If your method is wrong, so then will be many of your conclusions.
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