Q. Did man eat meat before the flood?

A. The Bible doesn’t really say they did until after the flood (Gen 9.3) but that doesn’t mean they didn’t either. I believe man could have eaten meat before the flood and there are several reasons why. First, in Gen 1.29 it says man was assigned food from plants yielding seeds and from trees. But that could have been a temporary instruction because the creation was only days old and the animals needed time to procreate. Let man and the animal population grow and then it would be allowed. Man was not to start killing animals right away. After the fall he could start eating plants of the field (Gen 3.16) and then after the flood meat was included (Gen 9.3). However, Abel was a shepherd and offered a blood sacrifice in Gen 4.4 which would have been eaten (Lev 10.12) because it was a “minchah” offering and not an “olah” which was a whole burnt offering like the one Noah offered after the flood (Gen 8.20). So man was probably eating meat very soon after the fall at least. Noah was told to take 7 pairs of clean animals (as opposed to 1 pair of the unclean)onto the Ark which also seems to support the fact that man was already eating meat before the flood. Clean and unclean is related to what can be eaten and not eaten (Lev 11) and not just in a ritual sense. The instruction in Gen 9.3 was repeating the same instruction He gave to Adam. He told Noah to be fruitful and multiply but that doesn’t mean they weren’t doing it before the flood. There is no way to be certain whether or not they ate meat before the flood but there is no biblical reason to think they couldn’t have either. This brings up another aspect to the creation story. Did death enter the world for all living things because of Adam? I don’t believe so. Rom 5.12 and 1 Cor 15.21-22 says that death entered the world through sin for human beings and relates to a spiritual redemption but you can’t make a case for all living things from this. Messiah’s death does not make alive spiritually the animal kingdom or creation. It is limited to man. The plants given to man to eat had seeds that had to be planted and die in order to bring forth more, man and animals were then to eat the fruit of those plants and fruit so they died, and the list could go on. Adam had the potential to live forever if he ate from the tree of life which means he may have not been inherently immortal. He had to draw from the life of God. Separation from that life brought death (Gen 2.17). Now, if man was not inherently immortal it would seem that animals weren’t either. If Adam did not at least have an understanding of what death was he would not have understood what God meant by using the term in Gen 2.17. What Adam understood after his creation is not known but it was not a new concept to him. We know the first recorded death of an animal is in Gen 3.21 so whatever Adam didn’t understand was quickly made clear to him within days of his own creation. God said the creation was good but not perfect. Death from natural causes as opposed to violent death are two different concepts. Death from natural causes does not have to be linked to the fall of Adam. Man’s death certainly was, however. So, in conclusion it is possible that man ate meat before the flood and death did not enter the world for all created things as a result of Adam’s sin.