Dinosaurs and the lost paradise

Did animals eat meat before the Flood?

Copyrighted 1987 by Randy “Tarkas” Hoar/Companion Games—All Rights Reserved

Today, there are many animals that kill other animals for food. Exactly when this habit first began is a mystery. But it could not have started until sometime after man’s first sin. In the original Creation, all the animals ate plants, not meat (Genesis 1:30). There was no killing before the Fall (when Adam and Eve rebelled against God in the Garden of Eden). It was not until sometime after sin’s “beginning” that the animals began to eat other animals.

Did this habit begin right after Man’s first sin? Probably not. It is certainly not likely that animals instantly changed into the way they are today. These habits probably developed naturally in man’s sinful world over hundreds and thousands of years. And they may not have become common until sometime after the Flood.

Peaceful Animals. Copyrighted 1988 by Gail J. Butler. All Rights Reserved. Used with permission.

Before the Flood, there is no indication in the Bible that any of the animals ate meat or were violent and vicious. It is people that God says were so terrible and violent.

By the time of the Flood, most animals must still have been able to live on plant foods alone. Every basic kind of land animal and bird in the world was on the Ark. They ate only plants during the voyage. For God told Noah to load the ship with every kind of food the animals would need (Genesis 6:21). These foods must have been the same things God assigned to the animals in the beginning—“every green plant.”

There is no hint that God changed this command between the time of Creation and the Flood. Before the Flood, there may have been no need for animals to kill each other for food.

NEXT — When did animals begin to kill and eat other animals?