Did God Or Adam Name The Animals-catholic?
Naming the animals: all in a day's work for Adam
Could Adam take named all the animals in one day?
Posted on homepage: 5 January 2011 (GMT+x)
Genesis ane:24–27 states that God made the land animals, as well as the offset man and woman, on Day Half dozen of Creation Week. Genesis two:18–23 tells united states that Adam named the animals earlier Eve was created. So how could Adam have named all the animals in one day?
The time factor
Day Six of Cosmos Week began at evening (Genesis 1:31), and so consisted of most 12 hours of darkness followed by about 12 hours of daylight. There is no reason why God could not have made the state animals, and Adam also, during the darkness menstruum of Day Six, so that at kickoff light there they all were!
If, however, God used the daylight period, there is no reason to suppose that His creative acts in making the animals and Adam took any longer than the instant for Him to command these events to happen.i So either style information technology need non accept taken any fourth dimension at all beyond beginning light on Day Six for all the land animals and Adam to take come into existence.
Adam therefore had nigh of the daylight hours of Day Six in which to consummate his chore. Note that this task did not include his searching out the beast, because Genesis ii:19 tells us that God 'brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them'. Presumably this was in some sort of reasonably orderly procession.
Naming the animals
The following points need to exist noted:
ane. Genesis chapter one says that the animals were created co-ordinate to their kinds, rather than co-ordinate to their species—the phrase 'after his/their kind' occurs 10 times in this chapter (referring to both plants and animals). Exactly what the term 'kind' (Hebrew min) corresponds to in terms of the modern Linnaean classification system is not clear, only information technology appears that sometimes the min corresponds to today'due south species, sometimes to the genus, and sometimes to the family. It indicates the limitations of variation. What is clear is that numerically in that location must have been fewer kinds in Adam's day than the number of species we count today. [Ed. note: for more information, see Ligers and wholphins? What next?]
For instance, it is more than than likely that in that location would have been no domestic dogs, coyotes, and wolves as such, merely rather one bequeathed kind containing the genetic information for all of these to appear under natural pick pressures.
This is non evolution, considering no new data is added. In the same manner, the mongrel dog population of a few hundred years back was able to give ascension (under human being option) to the various mod breeds of dog—because the information was already at that place in that population, much more than in today'due south specialized, genetically depleted breeds. That'due south why you tin can't offset with a chihuahua population, and look that breeding/pick will somewhen produce Swell Danes.
2. Today we divide the animals into those nosotros phone call tame (mostly herbivores), and those we call wild (both herbivores and carnivores), but this distinction did non use before Adam sinned.
Genesis one:30 says, 'And to every beast … I take given every dark-green herb for food', and Genesis ane:31, 'And God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, information technology was very good.' From these we conclude that animals did non kill each other for food pre-Fall, and they had no reason to fear human.
This means that nosotros can regard them all as existence tame at the time Adam named them. Information technology too means that they would non take eaten each other, while taking part in any naming procession!
The animals which Adam named are specifically described in Genesis two:xx. They were the 'cattle', 'the fowl of the air' (birds), and 'every beast of the field'. This classification has no correlation with today's arbitrary system of homo-made taxonomy (amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals, insects), but is a more natural system based on the relation of the animals to man'southward interests.
If we compare this naming list with the creation list in Genesis i:20–25—birds and sea creatures (created on Day Five), beasts of the earth, cattle, creeping things—we see at that place are several very significant differences.2 Adam was non required to name any of the sea creatures, or any of the creeping things. And as the beasts of the field were not specifically mentioned in the cosmos list, nosotros tin regard them as being a subdivision of the beasts of the globe. That is, Adam was required to proper noun merely some of the total land animal population of his own day.
There is no suggestion that the naming was meant to be comprehensive. From this information technology follows that Adam's chore was not to provide a scientific taxonomy, just a ready of general names of a pick of the animals, for the benefit of average human beings who would come after him.
Then what animals were named?
1. The cattle (Hebrew: behemah )
The Hebrew term used here usually refers to animals which lend themselves to domestication—what nosotros might call 'domestic fauna'. Though no creatures were 'wild' in the modern sense, they would not all have been equally suitable for use by human.
… most of the different breeds of what we telephone call cattle today can be traced back to a single bones type.
It is interesting to notation that most of the different breeds of what we call cattle today can be traced back to a single basic type, namely the aurochs, which itself is probably descended from the aforementioned created kind equally the buffalo and bison group.3
As well, all the varieties of dog we take today accept been bred from 1 basic dog/wolf blazon. Similar considerations may well use to many other species of animals we use today, such every bit the horse.
All of this gives a full of a few dozen kinds at the nigh of behemah for Adam to proper name.
2. The fowl of the air
The Bible mentions some 50 different birds, whereas modern ornithologists separate the bird class into about 8,600 species. Of these, some 5,100 are in the lodge Passeriformes (perching birds), divided into suborders, families, and subfamilies; and at that place are near 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 unit, and then on.4 So how many birds did Adam have to proper name?
It is instructive to consider what Encyclopaedia Britannica says about parrots. 'The avian order Psittaciformes [parrots, lories, cockatoos] contains more than 300 species of generally brightly colored, noisy, tropical birds, to which the full general proper noun parrot may be applied.'5
Nosotros do not know whether all such 'parrots' today are the descendants of one 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 nosotros group them all under 'parrot'.
If they were from one created kind, then instead of the 300 we have today, at that place would take been but ane for Adam to proper name. Even if there were, say, iii parrot kinds originally, it would accept been fully legitimate (but as today) for these all to take been given the general term 'parrot'. Therefore, but ane representative from the 3 kinds would have been needed in the naming procession for the name 'parrot' (in whatever tongue Adam spoke) to have been given.
Past the aforementioned reasoning, Adam probably named one 'pigeon', ane 'cuckoo', one 'penguin', and then on.
Colliers Encyclopedia lists a total of 163 families of all living, fossil, and extinct birds.vi This means that if Adam named simply i representing each such modern group, to which the same 'general proper name' could be applied, then there could have been fewer than a couple of hundred birds involved.
3. The beast(s) of the field
The Hebrew give-and-take sadeh, translated 'field' in several Bible versions, has the meaning of a flat open plain. The term 'beast(due south) of the field' occurs several times in the Erstwhile Testament. These are all in a post-Fall situation, that is, afterwards sin had entered the earth.
They included animals that motion in when humans motion out (Exodus 23:29), 'wild asses' (Psalm 104:11), 'dragons and owls' (Isaiah 43:20),7 animals that casualty on sheep (Ezekiel 34:eight), and a range of carnivores (Ezekiel 39:17). Equally the condition of sin did not use when Adam named the animals, the almost we tin can take from these verses is an indication of the variety of animals involved.
It is improve to think of sadeh ('field') every bit referring to the habitat, although non possibly to the extent of asking 'which field'? or 'was the field the Garden of Eden?'
Taking all these factors into business relationship, particularly the matter of habitat, the beasts of the field named were probably those animals which live today in open country and venture close to man habitation. Not named were probably those animals which alive exclusively in forest, jungles, mountains, wetlands, deserts, etc.
… the beasts of the field named were probably those animals which live today in open country and venture close to man habitation.
On the basis of our earlier discussion concerning birds, information technology is clear that nowhere near the number of species extant today would accept been involved. Adam presumably needed to name only ane 'snake' (or at the about possible a few major anatomical differences, similar 'python', 'rattlesnake', 'cobra'). Likewise for many types of animals.
Information technology is therefore completely inappropriate to talk of his having had to proper noun the vi,000 species of reptiles or the 2,000 species of amphibians known today.8 Quite autonomously 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, information technology would seem more than generous to permit for counting of a thousand 'beasts of the field'—in reality, the figure may well accept been in the low hundreds.
Was Adam equal to the task?
We acquire language by association, but Adam, from the moment he was created, had linguistic communication. Therefore he (and then Eve) must take already had congenital in 'programs' in their memory banks, and then that when God said, 'Don't …' (Genesis 2:17), they immediately knew exactly what this meant. It seems that they must also take known what information technology would mean to die, even though they had never seen anything dead.
Information technology is therefore reasonable for u.s. to conclude that, at the 'naming parade', Adam could speak a precise language, using ane or two words in identify of a long description, just as our one word 'elephant' refers to 'a large, big-eared, trunk-nosed, tusked quadruped'.
Information technology too means that he did not need to ponder each conclusion. His naming of each different kind of fauna could therefore have been both quick and appropriate, and also without defoliation, for he would take had the capacity to recall the names he already had allocated with a pre-Autumn memory that was crystal clear and voluminous.9
So, even in the unlikely event that there were as many equally a m animals paraded earlier Adam, how long would it have taken him to proper name them?
There are 3,600 seconds in an hr, and so Adam could accept completed his task in under an hour. If he did information technology in a more leisurely and wistful way, it would accept taken a few hours at the nigh (excluding time out for 'coffee breaks'!). Surely a pleasant solar day's work, leaving enough of time for God to create Eve from Adam's side that same afternoon.
Why?
Adam had been given rule over the animals (Genesis 1:28), and God now provided him with the opportunity to practice this responsibility in a fashion which established his authority and supremacy—in aboriginal times, information technology was an act of authority to impose names (cf. Daniel ane:7) and an human action of submission to receive them.
… the start human being was not some stooped, dimwitted, grunting hominid.
This exercise too shows that Adam was not an ape-man, and indeed it was intended past God to bear witness that he had no ape-similar siblings among which to find fellowship or a mate (cf. Genesis 2:20b: 'for Adam there was not found an help meet [i.east. helper suitable] for him').
Contrary to the wishful thinking of evolutionists, the first man was not some stooped, dimwitted, grunting hominid, separated from his ape-like ancestors by a genetic mutation or two. The Bible portrays Adam as being essentially unlike from the animal globe, considering he had been created 'in the image of God' (Genesis one:27).
This term refers primarily to man'south God-consciousness—his capacity for worshipping and loving God, his ability to understand and choose between correct and wrong, and his capacity for holiness.x
A secondary meaning includes such things as human being'due south mental powers, reason, and chapters for clear, grammatical, symbolic voice communication. In Adam, before sin, these capacities may have dwarfed anything we know today.
God in His omniscience would have foreknown the rise of humanistic naturalism in the twentieth century. This episode, fashion back in the Garden of Eden, highlights for those who have an eye to see it, the false and unbiblical nature of the evolutionary theory of human origins!
References and notes
- Run into Grigg, R., Creation—how did God do it? Creation 13(2):36–38, 1991. This shows that God's artistic 'speaking' in Genesis affiliate 1 was equivalent to God's 'willing' things to happen. Render to text.
- Some skeptics and liberals have put forward the mistaken criticism that the society in Gen 2:19–twenty is chronological, i.east. that Adam was created before the animals, contrary to the society given in Genesis 1:21–26. However, Genesis 2 is not a second and different creation business relationship. This is shown by the omission of any mention of the formation of the sun, moon, stars, or sea. Rather, affiliate ii gives more details about sure aspects of the cosmos which particularly concerned Adam. It would exist both legitimate and in keeping with the sense of the Hebrew to translate Genesis 2:19 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 modern translation of the Bible translates this verse in this way. There is no contradiction. (See Genesis contradictions? for more details.) Return 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. Render to text.
- Ibid., pp. 68–69. Return to text.
- Colliers Encyclopedia, p. 210, 1994. Render to text.
- Several modern translations of the Bible render 'dragons' (Hebrew tannin) equally 'jackals'. Nevertheless, it is possible that 'dragons' (KJV) is a more correct term and refers, at least on occasion, to dinosaurs. If this is then, the number of dinosaurs named by Adam would have been limited, equally with the other animals, to the comparative few whose habitat was flat open plains. Return to text.
- Peculiarly so, when information technology is realized that many snakes are classified today according to the presence, absence, or location of various internal parts. Return to text.
- The man mind is capable of prodigious feats of memory, as for instance 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 great skillful, and also tackled 56 sequent opponents blindfolded and won 50 games with half dozen drawn, in ix.75 hours, on 13 December 1960 (Guinness Book of Records, p. 245, 1972); or Hiroyuki Goto, who recited pi to 42,195 places in Tokyo on xviii February 1995 (New Guinness Volume of Records, p. 309, 1996). Adam's mind at this phase was not afflicted by either genetic defects or sin. Render to text.
- The chapters for holiness, though flawed in the example of Adam and all of his descendants (the states) because of sin, was perfectly shown in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. Return to text.
(As well bachelor in Romanian.)
Source: https://creation.com/naming-the-animals-all-in-a-day-s-work-for-adam
Posted by: johnstonrobse1937.blogspot.com
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