Blah, blah, blah mercy, kindness...blah, blah, blah. The people had flocks. Why. Please answer that??? Food! Now, I would agree that it should be eaten sparingly in times of famine and drought. But, please, animals are not humans and the idea that they are innocent beings isn't the same. That doesn't mean to mistreat them. Nothing changed after the flood. People still ate meat.
You're completely ignoring God's very clear statement in Genesis 1:29. In fact, you casually dismiss that as if God hadn't even said that...when it's on the very first page of the Bible! You're completely dismissing God's ideal and true intent for all creation, as if that isn't important. In fact, you even mock it, with your dismissive sarcastic "blah blah blah" comment. You do you, but I believe that mocking God's true intent and ultimate plan is sad... and deeply wrong.
As for why people had flocks....meat isn't the only reason to keep sheep. I don't think the Bible goes into detail or specifics on shepherding in the pre-flood days. But my guess would be it was likely for wool. You don't have to kill sheep to produce wool.
Also, I'm sure you will roll your eyes at this (which again is sad) but the original purpose of animals was for companionship. They weren't created to be menu items, or mere resources for us to selfishly exploit. The problem is, MOST people view this topic from their modern-day carnist lens. When you look at everything through that lens, it's understandable that you interpret it in the way you do.
Next, your understanding of the sacrificial lamb is really lacking. The purpose of the sacrificial lamb is a similitude of the only begotten first born in the flesh, Jesus Christ. Yes, they killed the sacrifices. Good grief.
Abel's gift was not a sacrifice. It was an offering! If you look at Genesis 4:4 in the original language, the word translated to 'offering' means just that - a
gift or
offering. There is another word entirely for sacrifice. So if it actually was a sacrifice, it stands to reason that the word specifically for sacrifice would have been used. Animal sacrifice wasn't even introduced in the bible until many centuries later.
Furthermore, as I have said many times on other threads, animal sacrifice was never God's idea in the first place!
It was a pagan practice that had already been taking place in other cultures, by the time the bible officially talks about it. Some say it originated in Egypt, but there is evidence it was also taking place in other ancient pagan cultures.
Also, I don't want to get too off topic here, but according to the book of Enoch, animal sacrifice has a demonic origin. Just like with flesh eating, it is written that it started with the Nephilim...Similar to so many other evils of this world that were taught to humanity by the fallen angels and the Nephilim.
There are PLENTY of scriptures - namely from the prophets - that clearly state that God never wanted or liked animal sacrifice in the first place. There are a couple different theories on why it was allowed, I've talked about this on other threads. So I don't think I want to go into that in detail yet again.
But getting back to Abel's offering....again, the word used is OFFERING, and no where in the text does it say he killed an animal and handed God a bloody corpse.
You also ignored what I wrote about Josephus' commentary on Abel's offering. Earlier on the thread you said "there's plenty of evidence" for meat eating before the flood. Since we already went over Abel's offering never mentioning killing or eating flesh, what else do you got to back up your claim?
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