Smiddy said-
So where does this leave the marine creatures, how are they affected by the global flood wiping out grass and vegetation , how are they affected by the sin of adam & eve and the curse GOD gave to Adam Gen.3:17-19 , their is no mention of a curse given to marine life ,which by the way covers about two thirds of the earths surface.
Interesting point you raise....
Of course, the punishment of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3 has nothing to do with the Flood, since the reason God declared a need for the Flood was the "evil found in the hearts of men" that led humans to commit bloodshed (eg Abel's manslaughter, and Cain's distant descendent Lamech who bragged of murdering two men: note the amplification effect occurring as the Genesis account progresses).
OF course, supposedly violence got so bad that God expressed regret for making man and animals in Genesis 6:
7 So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.”
The picture in another thread of the hawk carrying the fox in it's talons got me thinking about the ancient perception of animals engaging in 'evil' actions (which we now know is just the food chain of an ecosystem at work, and not the result of "evil animals"; ancient men wouldn't understand that concept). It seems reasonable to conclude that ancient men must've witnessed wild animals killing each other (and semi-domesticated animals like bulls goring humans to death) at the time the Torah was written, and explained their actions as animals committing 'sin' when they sometimes killed humans.
(Of course, animals killing other animals is of no concern (other than where a loss of livestock experienced by the owner by another owner's animal: then it's an issue of the loss of property, which can be compensated with $$$), but 'sin' enters into the picture if HUMAN blood is spilled (bloodshed))
After the Flood, Genesis 9:5-6 contains God's "fix" to the problem of evil found in His creations, with God's solution being wiping out the evil men first, but THEN delegating authority to man ('just' Noah) to enforce the newly-crafted "no bloodshed" law, which God handed down after the Flood. Prior to this, God had to resort to cursing the ground to be somewhat unproductive (eg Adam) or COMPLETELY unproductive (eg Cain). Noah's name means "comfort" in Hebrew, and his father prophecized that Noah would be the one to provide relief from Jehovah who cursed the ground, instead coming up with some other way to punish humans (eg laws, and a system of criminal justice to enforce laws).
Note that Genesis 9 also contains God's promise to even hold animals accountable for the human blood they spill; that policy is later codified in Deuteronomic law as the way to account for human blood spilled by bulls that gore humans to death (i.e. death penalty for the bull, of course, and possibly the owner, too, if they knew the bull had anger management issues but failed to take steps to protect his neighbors).
However, it's interesting that no mention is made of marine life in the Flood account; as you say, marine life contains wild animals, too, which engage in a food cycle.
Do you suppose that might be because Jerusalem is located 33 miles from the Mediterranean Sea, and humans must've been largely unaware of the great mysteries of the sea and the complex food chain and interactions occurring underneath its surface?
It's hard to imagine that 'sea monsters' (eg sharks) interacted with humans such that it came up on their radar (and of course, there were no domesticated sharks that might've chomped a neighbor to death, unlike the close interactions amongst cattle and humans). The 'Jonah and the whale' account comes to mind, but the animal only acts as a passenger transport.
Adam
