You quoted the verse from Genesis 1:30:
> And to every beast of the earth, and to every
> fowl of the air, and to every thing that
> creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is
> life, I have given every green herb for meat:
> and it was so.
My view is that this is limited to the animals living in the Garden.
The problem is in the Hebrew word translated earth. In Hebrew, the word
eretz can be used to refer to plots of land that are as small as a
little garden or vineyard or as large as the entire globe of the earth.
We know from the sciences that there were animals that were eating meat
from the Cambrian explosion to now. At no time was the earth void of
meat eaters. This fact compels us to adopt a different interpretation
of Genesis 1:30. I think the logical view is that God is referring to
certain animals that lived in a certain place on earth--Eden. The
meaning of the Hebrew is sufficiently broad to make this interpretation
feasible. The evidence in the fossil record make it absolutely
necessary.
Russ
Russell T. Cannon
rcannon@usa.net