Antediluvian Vegetarianism Poll
I am conducting an unscientific and informal poll. Any Christians or Jews in the audience, or anyone who knows a Christian or a Jews, is invited to answer.
Some Christians or Jews think that the passage in Genesis where God gives Noah permission to eat meat implies that those who lived before the flood were or should have been vegetarians.
Others think that those who lived before the flood were not forbidden to eat meat, and also not forbidden to eat animal living or drank their blood, but that the practice of eating live animals or of drinking blood was explicitly forbidden after Noah, and the eating of meat explicitly allowed.
For the purposes of this poll, I am lumping those who think antediluvians could not eat meat (were biologically incapable of it) and those who think antediluvians could eat meat but were forbidden by God to do so, as one and the same.
My question is this: how many Christians do you know who believe that the antediluvians were or should have been vegetarians? All? Most? Few? None?
Is this a majority, mainstream, widespread Christian belief, or is it an minority, rare, not-widespread Christian belief?
Let me emphasize that I am not asking you to argue for or against either proposition. This is a poll, not a theology quiz. Please, please do not tell me your opinion on which interpretation of Genesis you think is correct. I do not care about that.
I am trying to find out whether either interpretation is widespread or not widespread among Christians and Jews. I am NOT trying to find out whether the belief that antediluvian men were or were not vegetarians is or is not the correct interpretation of Genesis.
Here are the passages:
Genesis 1:28-30
God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.
Genesis 9:1-4
God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon every- thing that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea.Into your hand they are 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.”
The question is: how many Christians do you know who believe that the antediluvians were or should have been vegetarians? All? Most? Few? None?
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
