Genesis 9:1-5

From my New American Bible, I quote these amazing, impactful lines from Yahweh to Noah and his sons: "God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them: 'Be fertile and multiply and fill the earth. Dread fear of you shall come upon all animals of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon all the creatures that move about on the ground and all the fishes of the sea; into your power they are delivered. Every creature that is alive shall be yours to eat; I give them all to you as I did the green plants. Only flesh with its lifeblood still in it you shall not eat. For your lifeblood, too, I will demand an accounting: from every animal I will demand it, and from man in regard to his fellow man I will demand an accounting for human life." These passages are so symbolically rich with implications, that I do not know where to start. First, take not the Yahweh cursed wicked humanity and destroyed them for their sins and rebellion, and saved and blessed Noah and his family for their rectitude, their piety, their obedience and goodness as they obeyed God's laws. Yahweh is sending a message to the rest of us for all of human history that the faithful and obedient shall be blessed and saved in this world or in the next, and that the faithless and rebellious shall be cursed and damned in this world or at least in the afterlife. These are iron laws of human destiny that none can ignore with imperiling their chances of going to heaven and avoiding needless suffering. Yahweh is not asking humans to be nice, faithful, loving and loyal; he is demanding and commanding it, lest malefactors and the impious be destroyed by Yahweh for noncompliance. Yahweh is a creator deity, so he is above and apart from nature, though in some paradoxical way he is also immanent in nature, evinced as natural law running the world and the lives of its creatures and flora. As animals would fear unnatural Yahweh, they will dread and avoid humans, that strange self-contradictory creatures that is half-divine creator or angel, and half-beast, of nature and in nature. There is enough of the unnatural divine spark in humans that animals instinctively flee us for they recognize that we are meta-natural, at least in part, although an occasion the puma, Komodo dragon, shark, bear, lion, tiger and python will detect that we are of flesh and blood and will taste good. Flies and mosquitoes like attacking us too, as we are natural prey for them. As Yahweh's representatives here on earth, all creatures and the earth itself and its powers are delivered into service for human use, utilization and consumption. These environmental extremists do not like to hear this, but that is how it is from ancient days, and within reason we are to use the earth, its creatures and plant-life and minerals for our gain. Humans did not eat animals before the Fall, and now they do, but the carcasses must be bled of the lifeblood representing the soul-force of the creatures slain. We could eat their flesh but not consume their souls. So even creatures slain to be eaten had souls, not be devoured, and this ancient reference to individual value, to be honored and not transgressed is one of the earlies Western sources of the power of the individual soul, and thus Stephen Hicks is incorrect in denying Hebraic influence on rise of that blessed, core values of the west, the sovereignty of the individual, influenced from Judeo-Christian sources, not just Roman or especially Greek origins. It seems that the Hebrews sacrificed animals and somehow their sacrifice were blood offerings to Yahweh to win Yahweh's favor and to signal human deference, obedience and supplication for divine presence, blessings and protection. Yahweh wants us to account for the lifeblood of every animal and every human, and this implies the worth and dignity of each individual creature and person is sacred and special, and God will demand an accounting for each time that lifeblood is spilled. Animal life is sacred and special, but human life too, so logically decent treatment, kindness and justice towards the earth, the creatures we steward and eat, and towards our fellow humans could all be seen to grow out of these mythological Hebrew verses. Now let me quote these same verses from the Holy Bible (KJV): "And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hands they are delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things. But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast I will require it, and at the hand of man of every man's brother will I require the life of the man."