GeoCreationism.com

With the flood over, it would seem that God is looking back over the circumstances that led to the flood, and is given Noah and his family a slightly different set of rules by which to live.

Before the fall, God gave man plants to eat (Gen 1:29, 2:16), and animals to subdue (Gen 1:28, 2:18).  After the fall, God cursed the ground (Gen. 3:17), making it hard to till.  Rather than farm the ground, Abel decided to raise animals for food (Gen 4:2,4); Cain tilled the ground (Gen 4:2,3).  Now, how do we know Abel’s flocks were for food? Because he knew to give God the fat most flavorful part… the fat portions. 

Cain, it would seem, was the more obedient …

 4 “But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it. 5 And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man.
 6 “Whoever sheds the blood of man,
       by man shall his blood be shed;
       for in the image of God
       has God made man.

 7 As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it.”
What a curious passage.  Not because it’s inconsistent with Christianity or Judaism or something I already believe however. It …

In Genesis 9:1-3 - When did man start eating animals? (Part 1) and Genesis 9:1-3 - When did man start eating animals? (Part 2), I make the assertion that mankind outside Adam and his descendants were eating animals long before Adam was even born.  Adam however was put into a garden, and given plants to eat and animals to care for.  When God cursed the ground, Adam’s descendants sinned further by eating the animals around them.  So, God used Noah to save representative samples of the animals there, killed off the people and remaining animals in their land, and then made the saved animals wild …

There are several arguments to be made, if one is to make the case that Genesis 9:3 is not the beginning of human carnivorism.  Theologically, they include the following:

Though sin can cause death, death is not sin
God’s statements in Genesis 9:1-3 were not a worldwide change
Adam’s descendants were eating meat already

Here is a good post to start with: 

Problems with Interpreting the Flood - Part 4 - Partial Revelation 

I have dealt with #1 at length already.  Here some good posts about it:

Genesis 2 - A recall of Genesis 1? No. …

 1 Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. 2 The fear and dread of you will fall upon all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hands. 3 Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.
The verses complement the following excerpts in the Creation account:
Genesis 1:
  28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be …

People follow the inclinations of the of the thoughts of their heart.  Generally our heart thinks of some combination of good and evil.  We then make our choices, whether to follow the good or the evil inclination, or some combination thereof.  But, as long as there is some good within us, there is hope for righteousness.  How does this work?  Consider for example how often you help that homeless person on the corner.  The fact that you did not might be your selfishness or your fear, two inclinations that have their root in evil (to some degree).  However, this does not make you evil per se.  Perhaps you also have some inclination to help at the same time.  That is an inclination rooted in …

As I showed in The Flood - An Epilogue (Part 3) - The Gulf within the Church… and the World, the gulf between the godly and ungodly is not a gulf between the churched and the unchurched or between the professed Christian and the nonbeliever; it is a gulf that runs through both.  The gulf, as it runs through the church, is rather obvious to nonbelievers and maybe less obvious to Christians; basically, some Christians are not Christians in faith (i.e., in faith), but in deed, and some not even in deed. 

As for nonbelievers, that gulf much less obvious.  In fact, it may prove only hypothetical, but it is at least theologically possible.  It is like the question regarding a …

As described The Flood - An Epilogue (Part 2) - Jesus Shows Compassion in the Afterlife, it would seem that after showing Adam’s descendants no presence of the divine in (at least) their last 120 years of life, God the Father just suddenly killed everyone.  Then, Jesus goes to Hades and tells them why.  Then, I have the gall to say that God’s silence is mercy, and Jesus’ preaching is compassionate.  How intellectually unsatisfying, huh? 

What’s unsatisfying is that God has not created a world that conforms with humanity’s black-and-white views on what is right or wrong… well guess what! Nor do we conform with God’s!  What’s most interesting is …

In The Flood - An Epilogue (Part 1) - God’s All-Knowing Patience, we noted how God knowingly waited 120 years before officially sending the flood.  We noted Christ’s statement in Luke and Matthew that the flood itself was unexpected, sent without warning.  Yet, God’s unspoken hesitancy was an act of mercy.  How contradictory, right?  But, scripture says it. 

The question is, can unspoken mercy be mercy?

Should it be troubling that God will silently give someone a chance to repent of their evil? and then punishes them without warning if they do not?  Consider the possibility that any man who met God face-to-face would change his ways. Wouldn’t …

When I wrote Genesis 7:6-17 - Where was the ark? (Part 3) - Only Noah’s Family Knew, I went through every verse in the Bible about Noah to see if the people killed knew of anything about the ark and coming flood.  What I found was quite the contrary.  Here are just a few key verses, recalled in a sequence that I think tells the story…
Hebrews 11:7 - By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that …