![[#09] Genesis 1:11-12 – Was there Death before the Fall?](https://redeeminggod.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/One-Verse-Podcast-Jeremy-Myers-150x150.jpg)
This episode of the One Verse Podcast might be the strangest one yet. We’re going to talking about oceans of bunnies and mountains of spiders, and what both have to do with Genesis 1:11-12.
If you want to hear something you’ve probably never heard before, listen to the Podcast below!
The Text of Genesis 1:11-12
Genesis 1:11-12. Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth”; and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
In this discussion of Genesis 1:11-12 we look at:
- Why there are two actions of God on Day 3 of Creation.
- How Day 3 serves as a literary “hinge” between Days 1-3 and Days 4-6.
- Whether there are 1, 2, or 3 types of plants mentioned in Genesis 1:11-12.
- What it means for plants to bear seed “after their kind.”
- Why death is necessary for creation to properly function.
- What the plant cycle before the Fall teaches us about spiritual cycles in our own lives.
Resources:
- Logos Bible Software
- New Theological Categories
- Lennox, Seven Days – Amazon or CBD
- Miller and Soden, In the Beginning – Amazon or CBD
- Sailhamer, EBC: Genesis – Amazon or CBD
- Walton, Lost World of Genesis One, Amazon or CBD
- Walton, Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds – Amazon or CBD
- Wenham, Genesis – Amazon or CBD
- Subscribe and Leave a Review on iTunes
Downloadable Podcast Resources
Those who are part of my online discipleship group may download the MP3 audio file for this podcast and view the podcast transcript below.
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It has been argued that not all animals were defined as having ‘nephesh’/life in ancient hebrew tradition. Also, God knew the fall would happen. Perhaps He took that into account in His plans. I haven’t listened to the podcast yet (or any of the others) but I will.
Thanks. I will hopefully be able to get to some transcripts soon. I never realized how much time it took to do Podcasting!
I am sure God knew that the fall into sin (and therefore death) was a possibility, but I have trouble thinking that maybe God planned for this…
The nephesh idea is interesting. So the ideas is that animals do not really have life in the first place?
That’s how I’ve read it. Some have it, some don’t. I haven’t read extensively on it. Here’s a series based on a book that deals wih Gen. 1-11. I’ve read the book and would love to have the dvd’s. AiG is an excellent source for Genesis answers. https://answersingenesis.org/store/product/six-days-other-biblical-perspectives/?sku=30-9-207
Hey Jeremy, just wanted to say that your podcasts on Genesis are great. I had not even considered approaching it from the angle that you are presenting. It makes perfect sense though. I have learned a lot and have really enjoyed them. Thanks for starting the podcast.
Great listening. Interesting thoughts. What I don’t get, Jeremy: You seem to make a difference between animal death and human death. But if humans weren’t meant to die, we’d have the same problem as with rabbits, it would only take a bit more time. Say, we’d be 50 or 100 billion by now instead of 10, still too much for our planet I guess. It would make more sense to me to say, yes, God planned with a cycle of youth – age- death from the beginning, for all his creation. Or could we think tha lions would not have eaten any humans befor they (the humans) fell in to sin?
You are right. It is the exact same problem.
My personal opinion sounds a bit like science fiction, I suppose… I sort of think that God didn’t create the rest of the universe just so we could have pretty stars in the sky. I think He made it so we could explore it and colonize it. We see this happening now with our attempt to colonize Mars. I think we have this desire because it is something God built in to us from the very beginning.
Of course, if this is what helps take care of the human death problem, then could this also have taken care of the animal death problem so that when humans traveled elsewhere, they took animals with them (like Noah on the Ark)? Hmm. Maybe. But then there is still the problem of plant decay and death for the cycle of planting…
There is just so much we do not know…
Hi, Jeremy
A thought provoking podcast. John Calvin said “For who even of slight intelligence does not understand that, as nurses commonly do with infants, God is wont in measure to ‘lisp’ in speaking to us?”
As you have said over and over, taking the genesis account too literally or scientifically can present tons of problems as you have so graphically explained with your mountains of spiders illustration.
Perhaps God truly is ‘lisping’ to us in Genesis (and throughout scripture). God is using baby talk just so we get a dim idea of his awesome creative ability. My guess is we have a “what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived” situation where it is simply impossible for us to imagine what a normal life cycle would have looked like before the fall.
I used to be a young-earth creationist, but realized I could not defend the idea of “no death before the fall.” For instance, plants are alive, their cells have the same basic structures as those in animals, like a nucleus and cytoplasm, and they died per Genesis 1, and not because of sin, but because they were given as food. And the mere fact that “food” had to be given “in the beginning” implies that death by “starvation” was also possible.
I also realized that larger animals probably could not have avoided ingesting smaller ones, or stepping on them, unless via yet another unmentioned miracle, their movements were finely choreographed. Extinct species of gigantic fish, sea reptiles and sea mammals, chewing off gigantic mouthfuls of seaweed would have had to carefully spit out even the tiniest fish that was also feeding on the seaweed. Gigantic species of herbivores biting off a bunch of leaves could accidentally ingest small living things among the foliage. Gargantuan dinosaurs like brontosauruses, or gigantic mammals like Baluchitherium could easily have inhaled insects, and they would have to dodge ants, beetles, worms, frogs, snakes, and even much smaller mammals with each gargantuan step. And spiders would have to assist in the release of any insects that flew haphazardly into their webs.
And what if NO living things died, at all? A single bacterial cell that divides every twenty minutes would multiply to a mass four thousand times greater than the earth’s in just two days.
A single oyster, left to its own devices, produces more than one-hundred-twenty-five million eggs in a season. That’s more than enough oysters, if none died in eight years, [10 to the 89th power number of oysters] to crowd the water out of the oceans and make it cover the earth.
If all the eggs from one mother housefly lived, she would produce more than five trillion offspring in just one season.
A sunfish sometimes lays three hundred million eggs.
A female sea turtle lays a hundred or more eggs.
There are even more bountiful numbers from the world of fungal spores right up to seed-bearing plants.
What about the Second Law of Thermodynamics and decay? They goes with death, right? But is decay due to “sin?” I read an exchange in The Creation Research Society Quarterly between two young-earth creationists, Henry Morris and Robert Kofahl, in which the latter argued that the Second Law of Thermodynamics must have existed in Eden before the Fall because the animals and Adam had to break down the molecules in the food they ate, and the necessary biochemical reactions would not occur without the Second Law of Thermodynamics being in effect. See also Creation Matters Sept/Oct 2001, “Did Entropy Change Before the Curse?” in which a young earth creationist argues that “Reasonable evidence exists from the Scripture that heat did indeed flow before the Curse, which would imply a change in entropy.” He argued that when God created two great lights to light the Earth, and their light shone on the earth, and if that included a transfer of thermal energy to the Earth, “then, from the standpoint of classical thermodynamics, there was a change in entropy before the Curse.” And, in Genesis 3:8, just after the Fall but before the Curse, “notice that God came down during the ‘cool of the day.’ That sounds like the temperature changed. If the temperature changed, then wouldn’t thermal energy flow? If the answer is yes, then entropy changed before God instituted the Curse… Therefore, Creationists should refrain from claiming that entropy did not change before the Curse was implemented.” In fact not even the existence of “friction” would follow without the Second Law being in effect. Talk about a slippery Eden!
But if the Second Law was in effect, and the animals and first couple digested their vegetarian dinners might they not have expelled gas, the product of such decay? Or defecated? And if there were helpful E. Coli bacteria in their guts (half of fecal matter is the waste produced by E. Coli including dead E. Coli) might not their fecal matter have had an odor? What about the bacteria living on the bodies of every living thing, such as in the armpits of Adam and Eve, and the waste produced by those bacteria? Did it also have an odor? What about the bacteria in their mouths and the waste products it produced, along with possible odors? Morning breath? Neither did they have soap to wash their bodies? Nor mouthwash. In other words, wouldn’t Adam and Eve have felt just a LITTLE embarrassed (let’s not say “ashamed”) of discovering such odors for the first time, even before they were embarrassed (let’s say “ashamed”) to discover they were “naked?” So if one insists that the original creation was so perfect there was no death, nor even any signs of decay, one might retort with, “No decay my rear end!” Or should I say, “Adam’s rear end?”
Hello Jeremy, been following your blog for a while and I have been blessed reading your posts. I really want to know how I could get (download) your podcast to listen to offline. I anticipate your prompt response.
Hi Jeremy,
While I don’t argue against your proposed theory (death before the fall), I would argue against the mountains of spiders and seas of bunnies (or any other creature).
My guess is that the fall of man happened very soon after the creation. Nothing suggests Adam (and Eve) spent a lot of time in the garden, tending to it. I would even consider the fall happening as soon as the next week after creation (given our 7 days/week cycle).
The devil would try to intervene as soon as possible to destroy God’s creation.
Consider what God said to Adam even before the fall of man:
Genesis 2:16-17 King James Version (KJV)
16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
My thinking is that If there was no death before the fall of man,may be God wouldn’t had mentioned ” you shall surely DIE” in the warning he gave to Adam.