Dick,
Something you wrote got me thinking. You wrote: God points to the vast
countryside with Adam at His side and says, "I give you ... every tree that
has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food."
It seems to me that you have just pointed out a couple of other reasons for
us to believe that Gen. 1:26-30 is not describing the creation of Adam and
Eve.
For the words God spoke in Gen. 1:28-30 He spoke "to them." The "them" being
both "male and female." (Gen. 1:27) However, in Gen. 2 God gave His dietary
instructions to Adam, when he was alone in Eden before Eve's creation.
Also in Gen. 1 God told the people He had just created that He was then
giving them every plant "on then face of the whole earth" as their food. Of
course, we know "on the face of the whole earth" may have only meant "in the
whole land." But still, God placed Adam in the garden of Eden and He told him
that he was "free to eat from any tree in the garden" except for one. The
first set of dietary instructions, given in Gen. 1, certainly seems to have
referred to people who were then living in a much larger geographical area
than Adam and Eve were living in. For God spoke of "the whole earth" or at
least "the whole land" when he spoke to the people He had created in Gen. 1.
But God spoke only of "the garden" when he spoke to Adam.
So far as my being "consistent" regarding understanding the meaning of the
Hebrew words for "all" and "every," I think I am consistent. I believe those
Hebrew words in their broadest sense unless I have compelling evidence that
the Bible was using them in a more limited sense. In this case I have no such
compelling evidence.
Mike
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