Balaamsass2

I find Archeological evidence of humans hunting, eating and using EXTINCT prehistoric animals fascinating. Why?

#1. It blow apart Watchtower's sacred cow chronology that man was created only 6,000 years ago.

#2. It blow apart Watchtowers teaching early man was a vegetarian.

Early Huts made from Mammoth hides. Animal bones with scrapes and cuts from the stone tools and spears found nearby in caves and archeological sites.

Here is an interesting read.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/60-mammoths-house-russia-180974426/

blondie

A good discussion by an ex-jw about vegetarianism:

https://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/animals-vegetarian.php

Vegetarianism: Past and Future

Watchtower teaches that God created humans and all animals as vegetarians, changing them only after Noah's flood, and vegetarianism is destined again for Paradise earth. This is despite scientific evidence that animals were meat eaters well before the existence of humans.

Vegetarian

Watchtower doctrine explains that humans and animals were created vegetarian. It was not until 1600 years after Adam's sin that humans and animals started to eat meat, at the end of the Global flood of Noah. It is not explained why animals commenced preying upon each other at this point less than 4500 years ago, or why some animals are so suited to being predators. This is a significant concept, when considering how integral the food chain is to all life around us. (continues)

joey jojo

Blondie, really good points. Try telling someone that humans only started eating meat sometime around 2500 BCE without mentioning the flood.

I would suspect that even the average JW would find it hard to believe.

Jeffro

peacefulpete:

As a recent poster, and fluent Jew, has argued, our literalist/Fundamentalist training is very difficult to see around. Tales and stories need not be read as documentaries (and generally shouldn't) to have profound importance for teachers and students. Suspending our critical mind to enter the stories to try to feel what the author intended is not the same thing as dismissing the stories as worthless 'lies'. Nor is it the same as mistaking stories as history and dismissing scientific and historical reality.

It is true that such stories have been told in particular cultures to impart lessons rather than being intended as literal histories, and it can be helpful to have an understanding of that intent (while keeping in mind that those interpretations also aren’t the original interpretations or versions of the stories borrowed from even earlier cultures). But other cultures have reinterpreted those stories as literal, and there is nothing wrong with analysing or criticising those (re)interpretations, whether that be academically or just for amusement. This is especially the case when the proponents of those reinterpretations have a more significant impact on present society.

For example, if someone in the United States wants to use Genesis to teach creationism in schools, there is limited value in focusing on a Jewish interpretation of the story and concluding that there’s no issue.

KerryKing

Peacefulpete

Suspending our critical mind to enter the stories to try to feel what the author intended is not the same thing as dismissing the stories as worthless 'lies.

Your explanation above actually makes a lot more sense of the visions that came with the prophecies, as in, all this debate about dates and beasts with or without horns is maybe entirely off the mark.

truthlover123

Today, we see so much archaeology and history being uncovered, the fact that Gobeckli Tepi (for one instance) was dated to around 10,000 to 12,000 years ago and at that time, whether this be a huge acreage of land used for worship or living , as it is not totally uncovered, indicated all types of animals on the columns - were these used for sacrifice or food? With this archaeology dating of 10-12,000 years ago, the dates ( creation 4025 or 4026 to flood of approx 2400 bc) throws off everything we know about start of earth time. It says Eden was created then Adam formed outside and then put into garden but by that time Gobeckli Tepi was built and devoid of life.

Phizzy

Of more interest to me is the answer to the question " Is a Vegan Burger made up of whole Vegans ? ".

DesirousOfChange

Sea Breeze

Seems pretty clear the original diet before the fall was a vegetarian diet that consisted of fruits, grains, and nuts.

Gen. 1: 29 And God said, ‘See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food.'”

It doesn't say anything about eating animals. The verses you cite simply indicate that Adam and Eve were made on the same day as the animals:

24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

TonusOH

Isn't there a verse in Isaiah that implies that carnivores would one day eat vegetation?

Yeah, Isaiah 65:25: "The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, and dust will be the serpent’s food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain,” says the LORD."

Boy, it will really suck to be a serpent. But that's what they get for fooling Eve.

Where Adam and Eve Vegan/Vegetarian?