21st Century Bible Hebrew -- Food for humans

Genesis 1:28-29

כח וַיְבָ֣רֶךְ אֹתָם֘ אֱלֹהִים֒ וַיֹּ֨אמֶר לָהֶ֜ם אֱלֹהִ֗ים פְּר֥וּ וּרְב֛וּ וּמִלְא֥וּ אֶת־הָאָ֖רֶץ וְכִבְשֻׁ֑הָ וּרְד֞וּ בִּדְגַ֤ת הַיָּם֙ וּבְע֣וֹף הַשָּׁמַ֔יִם וּבְכָל־חַיָּ֖ה הָֽרֹמֶ֥שֶׂת עַל־הָאָֽרֶץ:

כט וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֗ים הִנֵּה֩ נָתַ֨תִּי לָכֶ֜ם אֶת־כָּל־עֵ֣שֶׂב ׀ זֹרֵ֣עַ זֶ֗רַע אֲשֶׁר֙ עַל־פְּנֵ֣י כָל־הָאָ֔רֶץ וְאֶת־כָּל־הָעֵ֛ץ אֲשֶׁר־בּ֥וֹ פְרִי־עֵ֖ץ זֹרֵ֣עַ זָ֑רַע לָכֶ֥ם יִֽהְיֶ֖ה לְאָכְלָֽה:

Translation: Gd blessed them, Gd said for them fruit and multiply and fill the earth and take control of it and subjugate the fish of the sea and the flyer of the sky and all the wild animals that creep on the earth.

Gd said Now I have given you every plant making seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree that has fruit making seeds, it is yours for food.

Notice that instead of lemor, the purposeful speech, Gd simply says to people that they have everything that makes seed for food.

Well, what plant doesn’t make seed?

That depends on your definition of plant. In Blackman’s commentary on Mishnah Brakhot 6:3, he says that the phrase “growth is not from the ground” means, among other things, mushrooms. So you make a different blessing over mushrooms than over grain products, tree fruit, and vegetables. R. Blackman does not cite to Talmud or Mishneh Torah in saying this and so I have no clue how early Jews realized that mushrooms are not plants, but the Iyun Daf ha-Yomi site helped me find the citation in Babylonian Talmud Brakhot 40b. It is attributed to “rabbanan” which means it was of long standing by Talmudic times.

That was millennia later than this story.

Basically the permission applies to angiosperms, and to gymnosperms like the stone pine which has been used for food since Akkadian times. The provenance of the creation story might be in proto-Semitic times.  (If you want to argue Documentary Hypothesis, you need to see my blog first. Don’t want to? Blog your opinions on your site and send me a link.)

Science tells us, however, that the idea that humans originally ate only plant food dies a horrible death when you realize that a number of non-hominid primates eat animal food. Chimpanzees even hunt down animals cooperatively, much as the australopithecines probably did. Humans cannot make their own vitamin B12, unlike herbivores such as cattle; animal food is still our only bioactive source of this essential nutrient, which prevents dementia. Humanity’s most concentrated source of bioactive iron is also animal food, and it is essential to the health of breeding females who lose iron during menstruation.  (Only bats and elephant shrews menstruate; except for nectar/fruit bats, they eat animal food.)

We are not in the Garden of Eden yet, at this point in Genesis.