Genesis 2:8-9 (English-NIV)

8

Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.

9

And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground, trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

The tree of knowledge was there to test mankind, to see if we would obey God or eat from the tree that he commanded us not to eat from. Unfortunately man ate from the tree of knowledge after being tempted by Satan and as a result, physical death became our curse. God also drove man out of Paradise and pronounced the following curses.

Genesis 3:16-24 (English-NIV)

16

To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you."

17

To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, `You must not eat of it,' "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.

18

It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.

19

By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return."

20

Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.

21

The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.

22

And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever."

23

So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.

24

After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

Notice that God clothed mankind with skins, before this both male and female were naked and not ashamed. Now man was ashamed of his nakedness and also scared to fellowship with God.
See below.

Genesis 3:6-8 (English-NIV)

6

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

7

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

8

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

So at this stage in our human spiritual development, there is no mention of man eating animals or any kind of meat. Instead man would have to work very hard to produce food from the field.

Many generations later a Man called Noah was born.

Genesis 5:28-29 (English-NIV)  

28

When Lamech had lived 182 years, he had a son.

29

He named him Noah and said, "He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the LORD has cursed."

Note, that man use to live for much longer periods of time because he was closer to perfection than we are now. Sin causes death and as time went on, mankind's age expectancy became less, because of increasing sin.

Genesis 6:1-13 (English-NIV)

1

When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them,

2

the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.

3

Then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years."

4

The Nephilim were on the earth in those days and also afterward when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

5

The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.

6

The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.

7

So the LORD said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth, men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air, for I am grieved that I have made them."

8

But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.

9

This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.

10

Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.

11

Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence.

12

God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.

13

So God said to Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.

From the last scripture we have just read, we can see that man's thoughts were continually evil and also some of the rebel angels had sexual relations with women to produce offspring that are the legends of old. If we take the legend of Hercules for example, it is said that his father was Zeus a god and his mother was from earth (Gaiea). This is a perfect description of the Nephilim who were the offspring of angels (gods) and women (earth). The story of the Nephilim has been preserved to this day, all it is sure that the recording of these events have changed, never the less the essence or concept has been preserved through legends. Many cultures today worship gods who are these angels or their offspring. The Greeks for example worshipped Zeus, Hercules father according to legend.

God chose to destroy man from the earth and start again because of the following:

1 Man was continually thinking evil.
2 The human DNA (gene pool) had become corrupt with the Nephilim.

However Noah was righteous and blameless and God decided to save Noah and his family. The word blameless, is translated from the Hebrew word "tamiym" which means without blemish. This may have genetic connotations.

So God saved Noah and his 3 sons and their wives, that is 8 people in all. This gave man a new beginning or a new start, different from the corruption of the old world. Below is a description of how God destroyed the old world.

Genesis 7:4-5 (English-NIV)

4

Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made."

5

And Noah did all that the LORD commanded him.

Genesis 7:10-12 (English-NIV)

10

And after the seven days the floodwaters came on the earth.

11

In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month, on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.

12

And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.

After this God made a covenant with Noah, and it is in this covenant we find the first mention or reference about eating meat.

Genesis 9:1-9 (English-NIV)

1

Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.

2

The fear and dread of you will fall upon all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hands.

3

Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.

4

"But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it.

5

And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man.

6

"Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man.

7

As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it."

8

Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him:

9

"I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you

It may be asked, why did God allow man to eat meat. In Paradise God gave man trees with fruit to eat from. When man was cast out of Paradise because of disobedience, we had to work the land for our crops. Now we can see that God has decreed that man can now eat meat as well as fruit and crops.

One possible reason for this change could be attributed to the fact that the earths climate changed dramatically after the flood, and food from the trees and crops weren't so bountiful. Before the flood, the earth was most probably tropical, very lush from the North Pole to the South, this could have been created by a by a Green House Effect that caused all parts of the earth to heat up evenly. It is just speculation, but this theory can be supported with the following scriptures.

Genesis 1:6-8 (English-NIV)

6

And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water."

7

So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so.

8

God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning, the second day.

Genesis 2:5-6 (English-NIV)

5

and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain (or mist) on the earth and there was no man to work the ground,

6

but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground--

Genesis 2:10 (English-NIV)

Genesis 7:11-12 (English-NIV)

11

In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month, on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.

12

And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.

So we can see that there was 2 layers of water and sky between them.
The ground was watered by a mist and from streams underground. The first time that the bible mentions water falling from the expanse above is in the flood. So it is possible that this layer of water in the expanse above created a Green House Effect as sunlight would penetrate this layer of water but the heat would not escape so easily. This would mean that there was no frozen water at the poles of the earth and the whole earth could have been tropical and lush. When the water from the expanse above fell to the earth in the flood, it probably seeped into the ground to join the water in the expanse below and thus could have caused the change that we see in the climate today with regard to the different climatic zones, i.e. tropics, savanna, desert, temperate, tundra and of course the vast oceans that cover two thirds of the planet.

This theory also explains why scientists have found Mammoths with buttercups in their stomachs frozen in the north pole. This tangible evidence suggests to us that the North Pole was once a tropical zone as the food in their stomachs suggest, and that the climate suddenly changed to tundra so as to preserve them quick enough before physical decay set in. This can only be explained by a sudden change in climate. Other evidence such as sea shells high up in the Himalayas and Continental Drift supports the Biblical flood recorded in Genesis. This also explains perfectly the sudden extinction other animals as the fossil evidence shows us. Scientists have many theories to explain these mysteries such as a comet collision but I do believe that a world wide flood easily explains all this and a flood is also the perfect natural disaster to create the fossils that we see today. Contrary to what most people think, fossils are only created in natural disasters that kill and preserve animals and plants quicker than natural decay. Fossils do not form under normal circumstances, rather in a catastrophe of some kind.

Regardless of why God allowed Man to eat meat, the following evidence remains unchangeable.

1. Humans are able to eat meat and digest it. Not in large amounts though.
2. We have teeth similar to carnivores, for tearing or gripping meat.
3. Most of our teeth however are designed for chewing, like herbivores.
4. Our appendix may once have been a stomach that was used when we were herbivores.
5. God has decreed that we can eat meat in the same way that we eat veggies and fruit. Therefore it is not a sin to eat meat.

Romans 14:2-3 (English-NIV)

2

One man's faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables.

3

The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him.

So God the creator of all has allowed us to eat meat, but not to eat it in front of someone who may be offended by this, because it may weaken that persons faith. We are advised to not look down on or despise either of these types of people but rather except each other and work together to increase our faith in God which is far more important than food.

Romans 14:6 (English-NIV)
He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God.

So both eating meat or abstaining from it are good before God as long as we have a clear conscience toward him.

1 Corinthians 10:25 (English-NIV)
Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience,

So the important thing here is that we have a clear conscience before God and God has decreed that we can eat meat in good conscience toward him.

And remember that we should give thanks to our God for all the good things he has given us.