Did Adam Name The Animals In The Bible
Naming the animals: all in a day'south work for Adam
Could Adam have named all the animals in one day?
Posted on homepage: 5 January 2011 (GMT+10)
Genesis 1:24–27 states that God made the land animals, likewise equally the first man and woman, on 24-hour interval Six of Creation Week. Genesis 2:18–23 tells u.s.a. that Adam named the animals before Eve was created. And then how could Adam take named all the animals in ane twenty-four hour period?
The time factor
Day Half-dozen of Creation Calendar week began at evening (Genesis one:31), and so consisted of nearly 12 hours of darkness followed by virtually 12 hours of daylight. There is no reason why God could non have made the country animals, and Adam too, during the darkness menstruation of Day Six, and then that at first light in that location they all were!
If, still, God used the daylight period, there is no reason to suppose that His creative acts in making the animals and Adam took whatever longer than the instant for Him to command these events to happen.1 So either fashion it need not take taken any time at all beyond kickoff light on Day Six for all the land animals and Adam to have come up into existence.
Adam therefore had virtually of the daylight hours of 24-hour interval Six in which to complete his chore. Annotation that this task did not include his searching out the fauna, because Genesis 2:19 tells us that God 'brought them unto Adam to encounter what he would phone call them'. Presumably this was in some sort of reasonably orderly procession.
Naming the animals
The following points need to be noted:
1. Genesis chapter 1 says that the animals were created according to their kinds, rather than according to their species—the phrase 'after his/their kind' occurs x times in this chapter (referring to both plants and animals). Exactly what the term 'kind' (Hebrew min) corresponds to in terms of the mod Linnaean nomenclature organisation is not articulate, only it appears that sometimes the min corresponds to today'south species, sometimes to the genus, and sometimes to the family. It indicates the limitations of variation. What is clear is that numerically there must accept been fewer kinds in Adam's day than the number of species we count today. [Ed. notation: for more information, see Ligers and wholphins? What next?]
For example, it is more likely that there would accept been no domestic dogs, coyotes, and wolves every bit such, but rather one bequeathed kind containing the genetic information for all of these to announced under natural pick pressures.
This is non development, considering no new data is added. In the same manner, the mongrel dog population of a few hundred years back was able to requite rise (under human selection) to the diverse modernistic breeds of dog—because the data was already at that place in that population, much more than in today's specialized, genetically depleted breeds. That's why you can't start with a chihuahua population, and expect that breeding/option will somewhen produce Bully Danes.
ii. Today we dissever the animals into those nosotros call tame (mostly herbivores), and those we call wild (both herbivores and carnivores), but this distinction did not employ before Adam sinned.
Genesis i:30 says, 'And to every creature … I take given every dark-green herb for food', and Genesis 1:31, 'And God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very good.' From these nosotros conclude that animals did not kill each other for food pre-Fall, and they had no reason to fear man.
This means that we tin can regard them all every bit being tame at the fourth dimension Adam named them. It besides ways that they would not take eaten each other, while taking part in any naming procession!
The animals which Adam named are specifically described in Genesis ii:20. They were the 'cattle', 'the fowl of the air' (birds), and 'every fauna of the field'. This classification has no correlation with today'due south arbitrary system of human being-made taxonomy (amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals, insects), only is a more natural system based on the relation of the animals to man's interests.
If we compare this naming list with the creation list in Genesis 1:twenty–25—birds and ocean creatures (created on Day Five), beasts of the earth, cattle, creeping things—we see there are several very significant differences.2 Adam was non required to proper noun any of the sea creatures, or any of the creeping things. And every bit the beasts of the field were not specifically mentioned in the creation list, nosotros can regard them as being a subdivision of the beasts of the world. That is, Adam was required to name only some of the total land animate being population of his own day.
There is no proffer that the naming was meant to exist comprehensive. From this it follows that Adam's task was not to provide a scientific taxonomy, only a set of general names of a choice of the animals, for the do good of boilerplate homo beings who would come after him.
Then what animals were named?
1. The cattle (Hebrew: behemah )
The Hebrew term used hither usually refers to animals which lend themselves to domestication—what we might call 'domestic fauna'. Though no creatures were 'wild' in the modernistic sense, they would non all have been as suitable for utilize by man.
… virtually of the different breeds of what we call cattle today can be traced dorsum to a unmarried basic blazon.
Information technology is interesting to annotation that about of the different breeds of what we telephone call cattle today tin exist traced back to a single basic type, namely the aurochs, which itself is probably descended from the same created kind as the buffalo and bison grouping.3
Likewise, all the varieties of dog we have today have been bred from 1 bones dog/wolf type. Similar considerations may well apply to many other species of animals we use today, such as the horse.
All of this gives a total of a few dozen kinds at the most of behemah for Adam to name.
ii. The fowl of the air
The Bible mentions some 50 dissimilar birds, whereas modern ornithologists divide the bird course into virtually 8,600 species. Of these, some 5,100 are in the order Passeriformes (perching birds), divided into suborders, families, and subfamilies; and there are about 3,500 species allotted to all other orders of birds in their families. Thus there are 285 species in the pigeon family, 127 species in the cuckoo family, 18 species in the penguin family, and and so on.4 Then how many birds did Adam have to name?
Information technology is instructive to consider what Encyclopaedia Britannica says near parrots. 'The avian order Psittaciformes [parrots, lories, cockatoos] contains more than 300 species of generally brightly colored, noisy, tropical birds, to which the general proper noun parrot may be applied.'5
We exercise not know whether all such 'parrots' today are the descendants of ane created kind, or whether the parrots of today descended from a handful of original kinds, which had (created) similarities to each other such that today we grouping them all under 'parrot'.
If they were from i created kind, and so instead of the 300 we take today, there would have been only 1 for Adam to proper name. Even if in that location were, say, three parrot kinds originally, it would have been fully legitimate (just as today) for these all to have been given the general term 'parrot'. Therefore, only 1 representative from the three kinds would accept been needed in the naming procession for the proper noun 'parrot' (in whatever tongue Adam spoke) to accept been given.
By the same reasoning, Adam probably named one 'pigeon', ane 'cuckoo', one 'penguin', and so on.
Colliers Encyclopedia lists a total of 163 families of all living, fossil, and extinct birds.6 This means that if Adam named but i representing each such modern group, to which the aforementioned 'full general proper name' could exist applied, then in that location could accept been fewer than a couple of hundred birds involved.
3. The animate being(s) of the field
The Hebrew word sadeh, translated 'field' in several Bible versions, has the pregnant of a flat open up plain. The term 'animal(south) of the field' occurs several times in the Quondam Testament. These are all in a post-Fall situation, that is, afterwards sin had entered the earth.
They included animals that move in when humans move out (Exodus 23:29), 'wild asses' (Psalm 104:11), 'dragons and owls' (Isaiah 43:20),7 animals that prey on sheep (Ezekiel 34:8), and a range of carnivores (Ezekiel 39:17). As the condition of sin did not apply when Adam named the animals, the about we tin take from these verses is an indication of the diverseness of animals involved.
It is better to think of sadeh ('field') equally referring to the habitat, although non perhaps to the extent of asking 'which field'? or 'was the field the Garden of Eden?'
Taking all these factors into business relationship, particularly the affair of habitat, the beasts of the field named were probably those animals which alive today in open country and venture close to homo domicile. Not named were probably those animals which live exclusively in woods, jungles, mountains, wetlands, deserts, etc.
… the beasts of the field named were probably those animals which live today in open country and venture shut to human habitation.
On the basis of our before discussion concerning birds, it is articulate that nowhere near the number of species extant today would take been involved. Adam presumably needed to proper name simply one 'ophidian' (or at the most possible a few major anatomical differences, like 'python', 'rattlesnake', 'cobra'). Besides for many types of animals.
Information technology is therefore completely inappropriate to talk of his having had to name the half-dozen,000 species of reptiles or the two,000 species of amphibians known today.8 Quite apart from the fact that many, if not most, of these have been excluded on the ground of habitat anyway. Thus, fifty-fifty allowing for extinct types, it would seem more generous to let for counting of a k 'beasts of the field'—in reality, the figure may well have been in the low hundreds.
Was Adam equal to the job?
We learn language by association, only Adam, from the moment he was created, had language. Therefore he (and then Eve) must have already had built in 'programs' in their memory banks, so that when God said, 'Don't …' (Genesis ii:17), they immediately knew exactly what this meant. It seems that they must also accept known what it would mean to dice, even though they had never seen anything expressionless.
It is therefore reasonable for us to conclude that, at the 'naming parade', Adam could speak a precise language, using one or two words in place of a long description, just as our ane word 'elephant' refers to 'a big, big-eared, trunk-nosed, tusked quadruped'.
It also means that he did not need to ponder each conclusion. His naming of each different kind of fauna could therefore take been both quick and advisable, and also without confusion, for he would have had the chapters to recall the names he already had allocated with a pre-Fall memory that was crystal clear and voluminous.9
So, fifty-fifty in the unlikely event that there were as many as a yard animals paraded before Adam, how long would it have taken him to proper noun them?
There are three,600 seconds in an hour, so Adam could accept completed his chore in nether an hour. If he did information technology in a more leisurely and contemplative fashion, it would accept taken a few hours at the most (excluding time out for 'coffee breaks'!). Surely a pleasant solar day'due south work, leaving plenty of fourth dimension for God to create Eve from Adam's side that same afternoon.
Why?
Adam had been given dominion over the animals (Genesis 1:28), and God at present provided him with the opportunity to exercise this responsibility in a way which established his authority and supremacy—in ancient times, it was an act of authority to impose names (cf. Daniel 1:7) and an act of submission to receive them.
… the first man was not some stooped, dimwitted, grunting hominid.
This exercise likewise shows that Adam was not an ape-human, and indeed it was intended by God to show that he had no ape-similar siblings among which to find fellowship or a mate (cf. Genesis 2:20b: 'for Adam in that location was non institute an help meet [i.e. helper suitable] for him').
Reverse to the wishful thinking of evolutionists, the beginning man was not some stooped, dimwitted, grunting hominid, separated from his ape-like ancestors past a genetic mutation or two. The Bible portrays Adam as being essentially different from the animal world, because he had been created 'in the image of God' (Genesis 1:27).
This term refers primarily to human being'southward God-consciousness—his capacity for worshipping and loving God, his power to sympathize and choose between right and wrong, and his capacity for holiness.ten
A secondary meaning includes such things equally man's mental powers, reason, and capacity for clear, grammatical, symbolic speech. In Adam, before sin, these capacities may have dwarfed annihilation we know today.
God in His omniscience would take foreknown the ascent of humanistic naturalism in the twentieth century. This episode, mode back in the Garden of Eden, highlights for those who have an eye to see information technology, the fake and unbiblical nature of the evolutionary theory of human being origins!
References and notes
- Run across Grigg, R., Cosmos—how did God practice information technology? Creation 13(2):36–38, 1991. This shows that God'south creative 'speaking' in Genesis chapter one was equivalent to God's 'willing' things to happen. Return to text.
- Some skeptics and liberals have put forward the mistaken criticism that the order in Gen 2:nineteen–20 is chronological, i.due east. that Adam was created before the animals, contrary to the order given in Genesis 1:21–26. Nonetheless, Genesis 2 is non a 2nd and different creation account. This is shown by the omission of any mention of the formation of the sun, moon, stars, or sea. Rather, chapter 2 gives more details about sure aspects of the creation which particularly concerned Adam. Information technology would be both legitimate and in keeping with the sense of the Hebrew to interpret Genesis 2:xix thus: 'Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air …'. In fact, more than one mod translation of the Bible translates this verse in this mode. There is no contradiction. (Meet Genesis contradictions? for more details.) Render to text.
- See Wieland, C., Re-creating the extinct aurochs, Creation 14(2):25–28, 1992; creation.com/aurochs. Return to text.
- 'Birds', Encyclopaedia Britannica 15:1–112, 1992. Return to text.
- Ibid., pp. 68–69. Return to text.
- Colliers Encyclopedia, p. 210, 1994. Return to text.
- Several modern translations of the Bible render 'dragons' (Hebrew tannin) as 'jackals'. However, information technology is possible that 'dragons' (KJV) is a more correct term and refers, at least on occasion, to dinosaurs. If this is so, the number of dinosaurs named by Adam would take been limited, as with the other animals, to the comparative few whose habitat was flat open plains. Return to text.
- Especially then, when it is realized that many snakes are classified today according to the presence, absence, or location of diverse internal parts. Return to text.
- The human mind is capable of prodigious feats of memory, as for example chess players who can play several tens of games of chess 'blindfolded' (i.e. without sight of the board and communicating the moves by a recognised chess notation). Georges Koltanowski was a bully expert, and also tackled 56 sequent opponents blindfolded and won fifty games with 6 drawn, in 9.75 hours, on 13 December 1960 (Guinness Volume of Records, p. 245, 1972); or Hiroyuki Goto, who recited pi to 42,195 places in Tokyo on 18 February 1995 (New Guinness Book of Records, p. 309, 1996). Adam's listen at this stage was not affected by either genetic defects or sin. Return to text.
- The capacity for holiness, though flawed in the case of Adam and all of his descendants (u.s.a.) because of sin, was perfectly shown in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. Return to text.
(Likewise available in Romanian.)
Source: https://creation.com/naming-the-animals-all-in-a-day-s-work-for-adam
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