The flood is over; the skies are clear. Since God remembered Noah a chapter ago (Genesis 8:1), we've been walking through creation all over again: the creative wind blowing over the deep, the separation of the waters, the return of dry land, and suddenly out from the ark come the flying and crawling and leaping and running things, and then human beings. So what we really want to know is whether this rewind will undo the exile of Adam and Eve, if this is a full do-over that undoes curse and fall. Sadly, a stow-away couldn't be kept off the ark: sin.1 “The intention of man's heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis 8:21). We cannot waltz our way back to the Tree of Life. “The restoration is not a return to paradise.”2 See, we're just not that innocent. Instead, God is going to rebuild the world around what we've become. Such a redesign will not only acknowledge our darkness, but accommodate it and even try to harness it for something good.3
In the first creation, after “God created humanity in his own image” (Genesis 1:27), the very next verse sees that “God blessed them, and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth'” (Genesis 1:28). The exact same thing happens here, where “God blessed Noah and his sons, and he said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth'” (Genesis 9:1). So far, so good! But here the words diverge. In the first creation, God continued by urging original humanity to “subdue [the earth], and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the skies and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1:28). The rewrite takes some liberties, ones which inject “a more sinister atmosphere” into the mood.4 In place of subduing the earth and exercising royal dominion in a peaceable kingdom, we hear the blessing fall flat.
Shifting from commandment to statement, God tells Noah and sons that “the fear of you and the terror of you shall be upon every living thing of the earth and upon every bird of the skies, in everything that moves on the ground and in all the fish of the sea” (Genesis 9:2). Now, the prophets invite God's people to have just one cause of fear and trembling: God himself (Isaiah 8:13; Malachi 2:5). But more often, 'fear and terror' is military language.5 When Israel invades the promised land, they should “not fear or be terrified” (Deuteronomy 31:8), because instead “the LORD your God will lay the dread of you and the fear of you on all the land that you shall tread” (Deuteronomy 11:25). So what is this saying about how we're relating to the other life on earth?
God is describing “animosity between man and the animal world.”6 The truce of the ark has expired,7 and they come out no longer as docile subjects but as combatants who look on us as invaders of their world, “enemy troops,”8 as though “war has been declared on animal creation.”9 Here “men are proclaimed to be a necessary terror to all the animals of the earth and the birds of heaven,”10 so that “all things were in dread even of man's shadow.”11 In other words, most animals naturally “fear and shun man because of this regulation.”12 And that's wise, because the darkness in us, whereby we so easily lapse from a “care mindset” to a “conquest mentality,”13 poses a danger to the creatures around us. So not only does this fear and terror clear the way for “a safe haven for Noah's descendants,”14 but it protects animals from us, encouraging them to stay clear as we rebuild.15
Now, when I look in my cat Bezalel's eyes, I certainly don't spy any fear, terror, or dread there; I'm not sure any animal has ever been quite so thoroughly domesticated as that one. But this verse went out of its way not to mention domestic animals like him.16 They're not the ones we're at war with; they're on our side. But when foxes get in the henhouse, when coyotes prowl the streets, when vultures circle and lions surround, they'll meet a firm human enemy ready to fight and conquer. And no sooner does God observe the conflict than he rules on its outcome: “Into your hand they are delivered” (Genesis 9:2), much as David taunted Goliath that “this day the LORD will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down” (1 Samuel 17:46). As Luther points out, “the human being is endowed with reason, which has the advantage over all the animals.”17
And so we have no need to fight dirty. There's no call here to mistreat animals, no license to subject them to any needless cruelty, much less the lawless violence that filled the earth before the flood. Even when it comes to these wild creatures, God doesn't tell us to strike fear and terror into their hearts; he's describing a situation, not prescribing it.18 We can't read this verse right if we forget that, in just a few verses, God will make the same 'covenant of peace' with every animal that he makes with us (Genesis 9:10). To live in that peace, we first must tame ourselves. And if that's true of the wild animals newly in our power, much more for the beasts we already live with, of whom Wisdom says, “Whoever is righteous has regard for the life of his beast” (Proverbs 12:10). But with them as with the wild ones, this second creation will remain a struggle, an imperfection; they'll keep contesting our authority all the days of the earth, deferring true domestication and dominion to the end.19
Already, in rewriting chapter 1, we've gotten off-script. But here things go further afield. What came after the blessing of dominion there is God telling us what to eat: “Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food” (Genesis 1:29). If Genesis 9 is following the same order, Noah and his sons should be hearing about their food in verse 3, and they do. Only it isn't salad that headlines the menu this time. “Every moving thing that lives, for you it shall be food. As the green herbs, I have given you everything!” (Genesis 9:3).
Does that mean that before the flood, nobody ever flipped a burger? Most Christians through the ages have read it exactly that way. In the fifth century, one commented that “in the beginning, God did not countenance the human consumption of flesh,” so the original humans “got their nourishment from the produce of the earth” alone.20 Two hundred years earlier, another wrote that “humanity's first food was only seeds and the fruit of trees. Then later, guilt added the use of bread” at the fall, and now with Noah “the use of meat was added.”21
I'm not quite sold, myself. The animals most similar to us, chimpanzees, “clearly relish meat,”22 even more than the other primates, nearly all of whom “include some component of animals in their diet.”23 Scientists recognize that the shortened human digestive tract seems designed to rely on meat,24 that the shape of our leg bones is designed to give us endurance for persistence hunting,25 and they suggest that the increase in brain size since earlier fossils may have been driven by the social complexities of hunters sharing meat after a kill.26 So far as archaeology is concerned, “our ancestors were flesh-eaters from the beginning.”27 Even sticking to the Bible, the story of the garden distinguishes wild animals from livestock (Genesis 1:24); Abel raised sheep and had the idea that God would like the flesh of one in sacrifice, which is a weird idea to come up with unless you already think of a sheep's flesh as food.28 One commentary concludes that “people probably ate meat before, but now God gives a divine command saying it is fine to do so.”29
It was said long ago that “divine grace grants to human needs the right kinds of foods suitable to the times,”30 in general “to arrange things appropriate to specific times” and to “make new concessions.”31 God now, for the first time, explicitly authorizes eating meat, giving it the verbal go-ahead with gusto and extending to the human palate “a wider provision” than before,32 where “the freedom to eat what they please is broadened,”33 “permitting the consumption of them all without hesitation.”34 It would have been generous of God to offer us just one species, so “how much greater a blessing it must be considered that all animals fit for food are permitted!”35 Now “human beings in general are allowed to eat any kind of meat,”36 from “every animal whose food is shown not to be harmful to the body and human society admits as food.”37 It isn't Israel's standards of cleanliness alone that count here, but those of any culture, with customs open to pig and pufferfish, bat and horse, dog and monkey, scorpion and tarantula – Noah gets no such limits. And so here we have “God's permission for humans to be hunters,” and not only hunters but ranchers and butchers and grillmasters.38
Through the ages, some have speculated that the new gift of meat was so that Noah's family wouldn't starve before they could grow enough crops to subsist on,39 or that God gave us meat “to provide more strength to the human body” now that we have to “develop the whole world,”40 or that “the earth became less fertile and weaker due to the flood” and so meat compensates for that lower-quality produce.41 But still others wondered if meat was prescribed for us “in virtue of weakness, as a medicinal remedy” for our unhealthy bodies and spirits.42 And that might be closer to how to read this verse.
Before the flood, the leading expression of our dark-heartedness was 'violence,' hamas, a lawless aggressiveness that filled the earth (Genesis 6:11). In effect, God's gift of meat aims to “drive out one passion with another, and cure a greater ailment with a lesser.”43 Hunting, butchery, carnivory – God offers them as outlets for these predatory animal instincts lurking under the veneer of our humanity, “in the hope that man's ferocity would thereby be sated.”44 In offering us this “means for controlling human impulses,”45 God aims this development in diet to help our “progression toward holiness” in ways that will only be clear in hindsight.46
For in the garden, the man had received a very open grant, that “of every tree of the garden, freely you may eat” (Genesis 2:16), just as now “as the green herbs, I give you everything” (Genesis 9:3). But on the mountain as in the garden, something had to be held back. Before, there was one tree off-limits, that “you shall not eat from it” (Genesis 2:17). Now, there's a type of eating that remains off-limits: “Only, flesh with its soul, its blood, you shall not eat” (Genesis 9:4).47 The covenant here comes with a command, a law. But God's typical pattern holds true, that “first he bestows blessing... and then gives us commands that are light and easy.”48
The limit God places, as a limit, reinforces “the absolute authority of God over all life,” lest we forget and think we're masters because we're conquerors.49 No carnivorous animal can avoid eating flesh with the blood still in it, often still pumping and flowing as the devouring begins – “pieces of raw flesh and limbs that are quivering,” to borrow Luther's colorful phrase.50 We aren't to ape chimpanzees “crunching on bones and tearing flesh,”51 too lazy or impatient or ignorant to lay our prey to rest and process its meat.52 Nor are we called to be scavengers,53 like some early hominids who used tools to get at the marrow and brain of animals already gnawed up by lions and leopards.54 Our instincts are mediated by intellects; we know, in a way no chimpanzee or hyena does, what each creature is, and that leaves us without excuse to revere the life we take.55 The death of the smallest animal “should not be taken lightly,” even for our most basic needs.56 And as a corollary, to avoid animalistic predation, “eating blood is put under a total ban.”57 As though this rich substance were saturated with the animating spirit of the life it once sustained, God refuses to let it be consumed and instrumentalized.58
For every creature, its meat is in principle handed over to us, to satisfy our irrepressible cravings; but the blood within is the forbidden fruit of every living thing, held back to put brakes on our predatory natures. But now God hammers home a promise: “Surely the blood of your souls I will require” (Genesis 9:5). He doesn't say that about any other animal, but he does about us, “for in the image of God he made humanity” (Genesis 9:6). Our highest and godliest qualities depend on our lowest animal functions, all of which are sustained through the circulation of blood.59 In us, God has a vulnerable image. Cruelty to animals offends God deeply as an attack on his beloved work, but violence to a human being is a vicarious attack on God himself.60
God implicitly acknowledges here that it's going to happen. We will be subject to violence; human blood will spill – such evil is part of the warp and woof of life in this second creation.61 God does not promise he'll stop it; what he does promise is that he'll 'require' our blood – keep a strict accounting of it, and not let anybody cook the books.62 If our blood is disturbed, detained, and in discord, he promises to redeem it all.63
Not a drop is left to fall uncounted by God's extensive audit, his “relentless pursuit until punishment is meted out.”64 That applies even in the case of an animal attack: “From the hand of every living thing I will require it,” he says (Genesis 9:5). In some mysterious way, “God will demand accountability from animals that kill people,”65 a notion less alien to ancient thought than to ours.66 Whatever harms human life must fall – be it animal or machine. And if even a grizzly isn't guiltless in mauling a man, how much guiltier those of us who hear and understand the law? “From the hand of every living thing I will require it, and from the hand of the human” (Genesis 9:5). Since “the same nature is the mother of all people..., we are all brothers... bound by the same law of parentage.”67 Every act of human-on-human violence is a replay of Cain, and if God once let Cains off easy, no more: “From the hand of a man's brother I will require the soul of the human” (Genesis 9:5).
Whether animals acting on instinct out of fear and dread, or the knowing brother of the victim, God demands the shedder of human blood repay the debt they owe. That's hardly cheery news for our country, where we've succumbed to a strong delusion that the industrialized slaughter of unborn human beings is somehow healthcare, where we've been in one war or another for around 93% of our national history and still find time to lead the global weapons trade, where we can always retread the scenes of lynchings and massacres, where mass shootings and gang violence became background noise, we have tens of thousands of murders within our borders each year. God demands an answer from the hand of the guilty for all of it.
But how does God get his answer? By these six Hebrew words in perfect symmetry: “Whoever sheds the blood of a human, by a human shall his blood be shed” (Genesis 9:6). And now, at last, we understand. On the one hand, being made in God's image was the source of our dignity, the reason our lives should remain inviolate and not subject to human disposal. But equally, God's image is a grounds of authority; and in a world where we're driven toward mayhem, being God's image is a call to subdue mayhem – to be instruments of divine justice, commissioned to redeem each other.68 Were it not for these words of authorization, only God could validly respond to the wrongdoings of those who bear his image.69 But here he entrusts to his image the likeness of the Judge, so that “like God, he has the power to grant life and kill,”70 to follow in the footsteps of the Father of flood and flame.71 Only by policing ourselves can the covenant of Noah be a success.72
And so we ourselves are called to be “God's agents for exacting compensation” for all these grave wrongs.73 This law “employs human wildness in the service of avenging human bloodshed,” allowing our aggressive impulses to minister the justice of God rather than our own lawless desires.74 God calls humans to sometimes redeem blood by blood, affirming human dignity and value thereby much the same as jailing kidnappers affirms human liberty.75 That can't be a free-for-all; it requires a new structure in society. Up until now, we've heard of human dominion over other creatures, but the Bible's not yet given one man any rule over another – no kings or judges with “the right to exercise rule and government” – but now that becomes unavoidable.76
These words of God are then “the source from which stem all civil law and the law of nations..., for here God establishes government and gives it the sword to hold wantonness in check, lest violence and other sins proceed without limit.”77 Here we're witnessing “the beginning of divinely mandated political authority.”78 Even pagan nations recognized that the basic principle of governance was authorized by the gods,79 a divine assignment “to make justice prevail in the land, to abolish the wicked and the evil, to prevent the strong from oppressing the weak.”80 It's no surprise that in the oldest laws we've found, the first rules read: “If a man commits a homicide, they shall kill that man; if a man acts lawlessly, they shall kill him.”81 Paul confirms that “the governing authorities... that exist have been instituted by God,” established in a sinful world to administer law as “a terror... to bad conduct..., an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer” (Romans 13:1-4).
After changing our diet and habits, after affirming our lives and founding a government, God again bids us “be fruitful and multiply, and swarm on the earth and multiply in it” (Genesis 9:7). Now blessing is a command.82 Despite the lethal violence now baked into the world, in the face of fear and dread and blood, God wants the world to march on unterrorized, defiantly joyful and life-affirming. But “the natural good of life is now bound up with the legal good of right and the legal obligation to defend it.”83 This is the new creation God covenants.
Looking back, people suggested that, based on this primeval law, “Noah began to command his grandsons with ordinances and commandments and all of the judgments which he knew,”84 an idea that, in later Jewish thought, bound every human society to uphold certain universal laws.85 But atop those laws, as Noah was the Moses of all humanity, so Moses would become the Noah of a new creation called Israel, the kingdom of God. And Moses brought them a covenant and a law, which granted them food, that “whatever your soul desires, you may slaughter and eat flesh, according to the blessing of the LORD your God” (Deuteronomy 12:15) – except that for this kingdom, many animals were withdrawn from the menu, creatures “unclean to you” so that “you shall not eat any of their flesh” (Leviticus 11:8). And “you shall eat no blood whatsoever in any of your dwelling places, whether of bird or beast; every soul who eats any blood, that soul shall be cut off from his people” (Leviticus 7:26-27). For “the soul of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the soul” (Leviticus 17:11). The animating blood of an animal becomes, as it were, a ransom for the living soul of the human who offers it on the altar.86 For “without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins” (Hebrews 9:22).
When it came to human life, though, Israel was warned from the first that they mustn't be predators of fellow human beings (Exodus 20:13), “lest innocent blood be shed in your land... and so bloods be upon you” (Deuteronomy 19:10). For if they did, “blood pollutes the land, and no atonement can be made for the land for the blood that is shed in it except by the blood of the one who shed it” (Numbers 35:33). To that end, God laid down a criminal justice system, ordering judges to try cases by standards of evidence and inquiries into motives so that justice could be done (Numbers 35:30-31).
But, sadly, the prophets found Israel's justice wanting. “There is no faithfulness..., no knowledge of God in the land; there is swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed. Therefore the land mourns, and all who dwell in it languish, and also the beasts of the field and the birds of the skies and even the fish of the sea are taken away” (Hosea 4:1-3). Only in the distance could they imagine a new “covenant of peace” that would banish predators from the land (Ezekiel 35:24) or even turn predators into friends who “shall not hurt or destroy” on the mountain of God's peace (Isaiah 11:9).
To bring that day's answer to humanity's long and bloody story, “when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son..., born under the law” (Galatians 4:4). Jesus, the Son of God, foretold how he'd “be delivered into the hands of men, and they would kill him” (Mark 9:31). True to his word, he was arrested in a garden, and Israel's own council of elders “all condemned him as deserving death” (Mark 14:64). Turned over to Gentile governing authority, he released a murderer but, “having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified” (Mark 15:15). It was a judicial process, but a gross abuse of the authority granted to Noah and sons. They administered their capital punishment to him, condemning themselves as murderers (Acts 7:52). For on that cross, God the Son in human flesh was “put to death” (1 Peter 3:18), “killed by the hands of lawless men” (Acts 2:23).
And yet their evil was harnessed for good by the Father's saving will, which “put him forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith” (Romans 4:25) by the sons and daughters of Noah, whether American or Iranian, Chinese or Haitian, Russian or Ukrainian, Israeli or Palestinian. “In him we have redemption through his blood... according to the riches of his grace” (Ephesians 1:7). Whether our failings are measured by the law of Moses or the law of Noah, “the precious blood of Christ” has “ransomed us from the futile ways inherited from our forefathers” (1 Peter 1:18-19).
Proving his resurrection by eating broiled fish in front of his bewildered disciples (Luke 24:42-43), he sent them with good news for all the children of Noah. And as they transcended the limits of Moses, Jesus' lead apostle Peter had a vision while dizzy with hunger one day while waiting on his lunch; he saw all creatures, was told to “rise and kill and eat,” and though he objected they weren't all kosher, thrice he was told not to reject “what God has made clean” (Acts 10:14-15), even as Jesus had already subtly “declared all foods clean” (Mark 7:19). The apostles determined together, by the Holy Spirit in their council, that Gentile believers, though free from the law of Moses, should at least “abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality” (Acts 15:29).87
Within these boundaries, like Paul said, “food will not commend us to God: we are no worse off if we don't eat and no better off if we do” (1 Corinthians 8:8). He had no problem eating meat, kosher or not, but “if food makes my brother stumble, I'll never eat meat” (1 Corinthians 8:13). The Apostle Matthew, according to an old tradition, was a vegetarian.88 But Scripture condemns those who “require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth” (1 Timothy 4:3), so “let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food” (Colossians 2:16). And so we may “eat meat with the blood drained off,” a symbol (some say) of repentance, “so that the earlier life may not be retained on their conscience... but may be poured out as if by confession.”89
And this all leads to the new covenant's grant of food, something better by far than what Noah ever heard: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:53-54), when God's reckoning will restore all things and “the saints will judge the world” (1 Corinthians 6:2).90 For then “the kingdom of the world [will] become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ” (Revelation 11:15), and the laws of the nations will become “the law of Christ” (1 Corinthians 9:21), and we will feast with God forever in a world finally at perfect peace (Isaiah 25:6)! Hallelujah! Amen.
1 Mark J. Boda, A Severe Mercy: Sin and Its Remedy in the Old Testament (Eisenbrauns, 2009), 22.
2 Donald E. Gowan, From Eden to Babel: A Commentary on the Book of Genesis 1-11 (Eerdmans, 1988), 102.
3 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 168, 174.
4 James McKeown, Genesis, Two Horizons Old Testament Commentary (Eerdmans, 2008), 64.
5 Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan Academic, 2001), 144.
6 Peter J. Harland, The Value of Human Life: A Study of the Story of the Flood (Genesis 6-9) (Brill, 1996), 149.
7 Raymond R. Hausoul, God's Future for Animals: From Creation to New Creation (Wipf & Stock, 2021), 100.
8 David L. Petersen, “Blood in the Post-Flood World,” in David J.A. Clines, Kent Harold Richards, and Jacob L. Wright, eds., Making a Difference: Essays on the Bible and Judaism in Honor of Tamara Cohn Eskenazi (Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2012), 246.
9 Iain W. Provan, Seriously Dangerous Religion: What the Old Testament Really Says and Why It Matters (Baylor University Press, 2014), 228.
10 Bede, On Genesis 9:1-3, in Translated Texts for Historians 48:204.
11 Theodoret of Cyrus, Questions on Genesis 53, in Library of Early Christianity 1:113.
12 Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis 9:2, in Luther's Works 2:134.
13 Iain W. Provan, Seriously Dangerous Religion: What the Old Testament Really Says and Why It Matters (Baylor University Press, 2014), 233.
14 Kenneth A. Mathews, Genesis 1-11, Christian Standard Commentary (Holman Reference, 2023), 375.
15 Daniel I. Block, “To Serve and to Keep: Toward a Biblical Understanding of Humanity's Responsibility in the Face of the Biodiversity Crisis,” in Noah J. Toly and Daniel I. Block, eds., Keeping God's Earth: The Global Environment in Biblical Perspective (IVP Academic, 2010), 125.
16 Iain W. Provan, Seriously Dangerous Religion: What the Old Testament Really Says and Why It Matters (Baylor University Press, 2014), 233; Raymond R. Hausoul, God's Future for Animals: From Creation to New Creation (Wipf & Stock, 2021), 100; Richard E. Averbeck, “The Importance and Meaning of 'Subdue' (kābaš) in Genesis 1:28,” in James K. Hoffmeier, Richard E. Averbeck, J. Caleb Howard, and Wolfgang Zwickel, eds., “Now These Records Are Ancient”: Studies in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical History, Language, and Culture in Honor of K. Lawson Younger Jr. (Zaphon, 2022), 25.
17 Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis 9:3, in Luther's Works 2:135.
18 David L. Petersen, “Blood in the Post-Flood World,” in David J.A. Clines, Kent Harold Richards, and Jacob L. Wright, eds., Making a Difference: Essays on the Bible and Judaism in Honor of Tamara Cohn Eskenazi (Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2012), 245.
19 David VanDrunen, “Natural Law in Noahic Accent: A Covenantal Conception of Natural Law Drawn from Genesis 9,” Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 30/2 (Fall/Winter 2010): 139.
20 Theodoret of Cyrus, Questions on Genesis 51, in Library of Early Christianity 1:109-111.
21 Novatian of Rome, On Jewish Foods 2.6-7, in Corpus Christianorum in Translation 22:197-198.
22 Craig B. Stanford, The Hunting Ape: Meat Eating and the Origins of Human Behavior (Princeton University Press, 1999), 64.
23 John H. Langdon, Human Evolution: Bones, Cultures, and Genes (Springer, 2023), 300.
24 Rene J. Herrera and Ralph Garcia-Bertrand, Sex and Cohabitation Among Early Humans: Anthropological and Genetic Evidence for Interbreeding Among Early Humans (Academic Press, 2023), 369.
25 John H. Langdon, Human Evolution: Bones, Cultures, and Genes (Springer, 2023), 299.
26 Craig B. Stanford, The Hunting Ape: Meat Eating and the Origins of Human Behavior (Princeton University Press, 1999), 5, 196.
27 Joseph E. Coleson, Genesis 1-11: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition (Beacon Hill Press, 2012), 75.
28 Daniel I. Block, “To Serve and to Keep: Toward a Biblical Understanding of Humanity's Responsibility in the Face of the Biodiversity Crisis,” in Noah J. Toly and Daniel I. Block, eds., Keeping God's Earth: The Global Environment in Biblical Perspective (IVP Academic, 2010), 133; Iain W. Provan, Seriously Dangerous Religion: What the Old Testament Really Says and Why It Matters (Baylor University Press, 2014), 229.
29 Brian Neil Peterson, Genesis: A Pentecostal Commentary (Brill, 2022), 94.
30 Novatian of Rome, On Jewish Foods 2.7, in Corpus Christianorum in Translation 22:198.
31 Peter the Venerable, On the Inveterate Obduracy of the Jews 4, in Fathers of the Church: Medieval Continuation 14:160.
32 Theodoret of Cyrus, Questions on Genesis 55, in Library of Early Christianity 1:115.
33 Prosper of Aquitaine, The Call of All Nations 2.14, in Ancient Christian Writers 14:112.
34 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 27.13, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:172.
35 Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis 9:2, in Luther's Works 2:133.
36 Donald E. Gowan, From Eden to Babel: A Commentary on the Book of Genesis 1-11 (Eerdmans, 1988), 102.
37 Pope Nicholas I, Letter 99.43, to Khan Boris I of Bulgaria, at <https://origin-rh.web.fordham.edu/Halsall/basis/866nicholas-bulgar.asp>.
38 Joseph E. Coleson, Genesis 1-11: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition (Beacon Hill Press, 2012), 248.
39 Martin Sicker, Reading Genesis Politically: An Introduction to Mosaic Political Philosophy (Praeger, 2002), 111-112.
40 Novatian of Rome, On Jewish Foods 2.8, in Corpus Christianorum in Translation 22:198.
41 Andrew of St. Victor, Exposition on Genesis 9:4, in Joy A. Schroeder, The Book of Genesis, The Bible in Medieval Tradition (Eerdmans, 2015), 127-128.
42 Robert Grosseteste, Hexaemeron 8.25.1, in C.F.J. Martin, Robert Grosseteste: On the Six Days of Creation (Oxford University Press, 1996), 254.
43 Theodoret of Cyrus, Questions on Genesis 55, in Library of Early Christianity 1:117.
44 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 181.
45 Peter J. Harland, The Value of Human Life: A Study of the Story of the Flood (Genesis 6-9) (Brill, 1996), 137.
46 Bill T. Arnold, Genesis, New Cambridge Bible Commentary (Cambridge University Press, 2009), 109.
47 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 27.13, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:172; Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis Chapters 1-17 (Eerdmans, 1990), 314; Raymond R. Hausoul, God's Future for Animals: From Creation to New Creation (Wipf & Stock, 2021), 98-99.
48 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 27.17, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:175.
49 Peter J. Harland, The Value of Human Life: A Study of the Story of the Flood (Genesis 6-9) (Brill, 1996), 155.
50 Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis 9:4, in Luther's Works 2:138.
51 Craig B. Stanford, The Hunting Ape: Meat Eating and the Origins of Human Behavior (Princeton University Press, 1999), 64.
52 Todd R. Hanneken, “The Origin and Development of the Prohibition of Eating Blood,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 85/4 (October 2023): 609.
53 Martin Sicker, Reading Genesis Politically: An Introduction to Mosaic Political Philosophy (Praeger, 2002), 112.
54 Craig B. Stanford, The Hunting Ape: Meat Eating and the Origins of Human Behavior (Princeton University Press, 1999), 110-112.
55 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 179.
56 Raymond R. Hausoul, God's Future for Animals: From Creation to New Creation (Wipf & Stock, 2021), 101.
57 Peter J. Harland, The Value of Human Life: A Study of the Story of the Flood (Genesis 6-9) (Brill, 1996), 154.
58 Yitzhaq Feder, Blood Expiation in Hittite and Biblical Ritual: Origins, Context, and Meaning (Society of Biblical Literature, 2011), 197-198; Anwarul Azad and Ida Glaser, Genesis 1-11: Bud of Theology, Grandmother of the Sciences, Seedbed of the Holy Books, Windows on the Text: Bible Commentaries from Muslim Contexts (Langham Global Library, 2022), 221.
59 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 186.
60 Ingrid Faro, Evil in Genesis: A Contextual Analysis of Hebrew Lexemes for Evil in the Book of Genesis (Lexham Press, 2021), 40.
61 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 175.
62 Kenneth A. Mathews, Genesis 1-11, Christian Standard Commentary (Holman Reference, 2023), 377.
63 Yitzhaq Feder, Blood Expiation in Hittite and Biblical Ritual: Origins, Context, and Meaning (Society of Biblical Literature, 2011), 174-175.
64 Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis, JPS Torah Commentary (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 61.
65 Zvi Grumet, Genesis: From Creation to Covenant (Maggid Books, 2017), 91.
66 Raymond R. Hausoul, God's Future for Animals: From Creation to New Creation (Wipf & Stock, 2021), 101.
67 Ambrose of Milan, On Noah 26 §94, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 140:89.
68 David VanDrunen, “Natural Law in Noahic Accent: A Covenantal Conception of Natural Law Drawn from Genesis 9,” Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 30/2 (Fall/Winter 2010): 138-139.
69 Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis 9:6, in Luther's Works 2:140.
70 Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis 6.15.2, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 91:143.
71 Stephen M. Wilson, “Blood Vengeance and the Imago Dei in the Flood Narrative (Genesis 9:6),” Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology 71/3 (2017): 270-271.
72 Berel Dov Lerner, Human-Divine Interactions in the Hebrew Scriptures: Covenants and Cross-Purposes (Routledge, 2023), 11.
73 Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan Academic, 2001), 145.
74 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 179.
75 Edward Feser and Joseph M. Bessette, By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of Capital Punishment (Ignatius Press, 2017), 15.
76 James B. Jordan, Primeval Saints: Studies on the Patriarchs of Genesis (Canon Press, 2001), 49.
77 Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis 9:6, in Luther's Works 2:140.
78 R. R. Reno, Genesis, Brazos Theological Commentary (Brazos Press, 2010), 125.
79 Laws of Ur-Nammu, prologue (A.i.31-42), in Writings from the Ancient World 6:15.
80 Laws of Hammurabi, prologue i.32-39, in Writings from the Ancient World 6:76-77.
81 Laws of Ur-Nammu 1-2 (C.iii.52-56), in Writings from the Ancient World 6:17.
82 Brian Neil Peterson, Genesis: A Pentecostal Commentary (Brill, 2022), 96.
83 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 176.
84 Jubilees 7:20, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2:69.
85 Seder Olam Rabbah 5, in Heinrich W. Guggenheimer, Seder Olam: The Rabbinic View of Biblical Chronology (Jason Aronson, 1998), 61-62; Tosefta Avodah Zarah 8.4; b. Sanhedrin 56a-b, in Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, ed., Koren Talmud Bavli (Koren Publishers Jerusalem, 2017), 30:50-51; and overall discussion in David Novak, The Image of the Non-Jew in Judaism: The Idea of Noahide Law, 2nd ed. (Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2011).
86 Yitzhaq Feder, Blood Expiation in Hittite and Biblical Ritual: Origins, Context, and Meaning (Society of Biblical Literature, 2011), 203-204.
87 Todd R. Hanneken, “Moses Has His Interpreters: Understanding the Legal Exegesis in Acts 15 from the Precedent in Jubilees,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 77/4 (October 2015): 701-705.
88 Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus 2.1 §16, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 23:107.
89 Augustine of Hippo, Answer to Faustus the Manichean 12.22, in Works of Saint Augustine I/20:139.
90 Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis 6.15.1, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 91:143.
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