How Could Adam Have Had Time To Name All The Animals In One Day

Naming the animals: all in a twenty-four hour period'due south work for Adam

Could Adam have named all the animals in 1 solar day?

Posted on homepage: five Jan 2011 (GMT+10)

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Genesis i:24–27 states that God fabricated the country animals, besides as the get-go man and woman, on Day 6 of Creation Calendar week. Genesis ii:18–23 tells u.s. that Adam named the animals before Eve was created. Then how could Adam have named all the animals in one solar day?

The time gene

Day Six of Creation Week began at evening (Genesis i:31), and so consisted of about 12 hours of darkness followed by nearly 12 hours of daylight. In that location is no reason why God could not have made the state animals, and Adam too, during the darkness period of Day Six, then that at first light in that location they all were!

If, however, God used the daylight period, at that place 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 Then either way information technology need not have taken any time at all beyond first low-cal on Twenty-four hours Half dozen for all the country animals and Adam to take come up into existence.

Adam therefore had most of the daylight hours of Twenty-four hour period Vi in which to complete his job. Note that this task did non include his searching out the animal, because Genesis two:19 tells us that God 'brought them unto Adam to run into what he would telephone call them'. Presumably this was in some sort of reasonably orderly procession.

Naming the animals

The post-obit points demand to exist noted:

one. 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 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 nomenclature organisation is not clear, but information technology appears that sometimes the min corresponds to today's 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'southward day than the number of species we count today. [Ed. note: for more than data, see Ligers and wholphins? What next?]

For example, it is more than than likely that there would have been no domestic dogs, coyotes, and wolves as such, but rather 1 ancestral kind containing the genetic information for all of these to appear under natural selection pressures.

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This is non evolution, because no new information is added. In the same manner, the mongrel dog population of a few hundred years back was able to give ascent (under man option) to the various mod breeds of dog—because the information was already in that location in that population, much more than in today's specialized, genetically depleted breeds. That's why y'all can't offset with a chihuahua population, and expect that breeding/selection will somewhen produce Smashing Danes.

2. Today nosotros divide the animals into those we call tame (mostly herbivores), and those we phone call wild (both herbivores and carnivores), but this stardom did non employ before Adam sinned.

Genesis 1:30 says, 'And to every beast … I have given every light-green herb for food', and Genesis ane:31, 'And God saw every matter that He had made, and, behold, it was very adept.' From these we conclude that animals did not kill each other for food pre-Fall, and they had no reason to fear human.

This means that nosotros tin regard them all as being tame at the time Adam named them. It also means that they would not have eaten each other, while taking part in any naming procession!

The animals which Adam named are specifically described in Genesis ii:twenty. They were the 'cattle', 'the fowl of the air' (birds), and 'every fauna of the field'. This classification has no correlation with today's arbitrary arrangement of man-fabricated taxonomy (amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals, insects), but is a more than natural system based on the relation of the animals to man'south interests.

If nosotros compare this naming list with the creation list in Genesis 1:20–25—birds and sea creatures (created on Solar day Five), beasts of the earth, cattle, creeping things—nosotros see there are several very significant differences.ⁱⁱ Adam was not required to name whatever 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, we 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 country animal population of his ain day.

There is no proposition that the naming was meant to be comprehensive. From this it follows that Adam's task was not to provide a scientific taxonomy, but a set of general names of a option of the animals, for the benefit of boilerplate man beings who would come after him.

And so what animals were named?

ane. The cattle (Hebrew: behemah )

The Hebrew term used hither normally refers to animals which lend themselves to domestication—what we might call 'domestic fauna'. Though no creatures were 'wild' in the modern sense, they would not all have been equally suitable for employ by human.

… nearly of the different breeds of what nosotros telephone call cattle today can be traced back to a single basic type.

Information technology is interesting to notation that near of the different breeds of what we call cattle today can be traced dorsum to a single bones type, namely the aurochs, which itself is probably descended from the aforementioned created kind equally the buffalo and bison group.³

Also, all the varieties of domestic dog we accept today have been bred from ane bones dog/wolf blazon. Similar considerations may well use to many other species of animals nosotros use today, such every bit the horse.

All of this gives a total of a few dozen kinds at the well-nigh of behemah for Adam to name.

ii. The fowl of the air

The Bible mentions some fifty unlike birds, whereas mod ornithologists divide the bird class into about 8,600 species. Of these, some 5,100 are in the order Passeriformes (perching birds), divided into suborders, families, and subfamilies; and there are near three,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, so on.⁴ So how many birds did Adam have to 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 general name parrot may be applied.'⁵

We do 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 group them all nether 'parrot'.

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If they were from one created kind, then instead of the 300 we take today, there would take been only one for Adam to name. Fifty-fifty if in that location were, say, three parrot kinds originally, it would have been fully legitimate (but as today) for these all to take been given the full general term 'parrot'. Therefore, only i representative from the three kinds would have been needed in the naming procession for the name 'parrot' (in whatever tongue Adam spoke) to have been given.

By the same reasoning, Adam probably named one 'pigeon', one 'cuckoo', one 'penguin', and so on.

Colliers Encyclopedia lists a total of 163 families of all living, fossil, and extinct birds.^half-dozen This means that if Adam named only i representing each such modern group, to which the same 'general name' could exist applied, then at that place could have been fewer than a couple of hundred birds involved.

3. The beast(s) of the field

The Hebrew word sadeh, translated 'field' in several Bible versions, has the pregnant of a flat open plain. The term 'creature(s) of the field' occurs several times in the Old Attestation. These are all in a post-Fall situation, that is, subsequently sin had entered the earth.

They included animals that move in when humans motility out (Exodus 23:29), 'wild asses' (Psalm 104:11), 'dragons and owls' (Isaiah 43:twenty),⁷ animals that prey on sheep (Ezekiel 34:eight), and a range of carnivores (Ezekiel 39:17). As the status of sin did non apply when Adam named the animals, the almost we can take from these verses is an indication of the variety of animals involved.

It is better to think of sadeh ('field') as referring to the habitat, although not perhaps to the extent of asking 'which field'? or 'was the field the Garden of Eden?'

Taking all these factors into account, 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 human dwelling house. 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 close to human habitation.

On the basis of our before give-and-take apropos birds, it is clear that nowhere near the number of species extant today would accept been involved. Adam presumably needed to proper noun only one 'snake' (or at the most possible a few major anatomical differences, like 'python', 'rattlesnake', 'cobra'). Too for many types of animals.

It is therefore completely inappropriate to talk of his having had to name the half-dozen,000 species of reptiles or the 2,000 species of amphibians known today.^eight Quite autonomously from the fact that many, if not most, of these have been excluded on the basis of habitat anyhow. Thus, even allowing for extinct types, information technology would seem more than generous to allow for counting of a thousand 'beasts of the field'—in reality, the effigy may well have been in the depression hundreds.

Was Adam equal to the task?

We acquire language by association, but Adam, from the moment he was created, had language. Therefore he (and and so Eve) must have already had built in 'programs' in their memory banks, then that when God said, 'Don't …' (Genesis 2:17), they immediately knew exactly what this meant. It seems that they must also have known what it would mean to die, even though they had never seen anything expressionless.

It is therefore reasonable for the states to conclude that, at the 'naming parade', Adam could speak a precise language, using ane or two words in identify of a long clarification, only as our one give-and-take 'elephant' refers to 'a large, large-eared, trunk-nosed, tusked quadruped'.

It also ways that he did not need to ponder each decision. His naming of each different kind of animal could therefore have been both quick and appropriate, and also without confusion, for he would have had the capacity to remember the names he already had allocated with a pre-Fall retentivity that was crystal clear and voluminous.^nine

And so, even in the unlikely effect that there were as many every bit a thousand animals paraded before Adam, how long would it have taken him to proper noun them?

There are 3,600 seconds in an hr, so Adam could take completed his task in under an 60 minutes. If he did it in a more leisurely and contemplative fashion, it would accept taken a few hours at the most (excluding fourth dimension out for 'coffee breaks'!). Surely a pleasant day's work, leaving enough of time for God to create Eve from Adam's side that aforementioned afternoon.

Why?

Adam had been given dominion over the animals (Genesis 1:28), and God at present provided him with the opportunity to practice this responsibleness in a style which established his say-so and supremacy—in ancient times, it was an act of authority to impose names (cf. Daniel ane:vii) and an act of submission to receive them.

… the get-go human was not some stooped, dimwitted, grunting hominid.

This exercise likewise shows that Adam was not an ape-human being, and indeed it was intended past God to show that he had no ape-like siblings among which to detect fellowship or a mate (cf. Genesis 2:20b: 'for Adam there was not found an help meet [i.e. helper suitable] for him').

Contrary to the wishful thinking of evolutionists, the kickoff man was not some stooped, dimwitted, grunting hominid, separated from his ape-like ancestors by a genetic mutation or two. The Bible portrays Adam equally being essentially different from the fauna world, because he had been created 'in the epitome of God' (Genesis 1:27).

This term refers primarily to man's God-consciousness—his capacity for worshipping and loving God, his ability to empathize and cull between right and wrong, and his capacity for holiness.¹⁰

A secondary meaning includes such things as man'southward mental powers, reason, and chapters for articulate, grammatical, symbolic speech. In Adam, before sin, these capacities may have dwarfed anything nosotros know today.

God in His omniscience would have foreknown the rising of humanistic naturalism in the twentieth century. This episode, way dorsum in the Garden of Eden, highlights for those who take an centre to see it, the false and unbiblical nature of the evolutionary theory of human origins!

References and notes

1. Encounter Grigg, R., Creation—how did God do it? Creation 13(ii):36–38, 1991. This shows that God's artistic 'speaking' in Genesis chapter ane was equivalent to God's 'willing' things to happen. Return to text.
2. Some skeptics and liberals have put forward the mistaken criticism that the guild in Gen 2:19–20 is chronological, i.e. that Adam was created earlier the animals, contrary to the order given in Genesis 1:21–26. However, Genesis two is not a 2nd and different creation business relationship. This is shown by the omission of any mention of the formation of the sun, moon, stars, or bounding main. Rather, chapter 2 gives more than details about sure aspects of the creation which particularly concerned Adam. It would be 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 one modern translation of the Bible translates this poetry in this way. In that location is no contradiction. (Run into Genesis contradictions? for more details.) Return to text.
3. Run across Wieland, C., Re-creating the extinct aurochs, Creation xiv(2):25–28, 1992; creation.com/aurochs. Return to text.
4. 'Birds', Encyclopaedia Britannica 15:i–112, 1992. Return to text.
5. Ibid., pp. 68–69. Return to text.
6. Colliers Encyclopedia, p. 210, 1994. Return to text.
7. Several modern translations of the Bible render 'dragons' (Hebrew tannin) every bit 'jackals'. Still, it is possible that 'dragons' (KJV) is a more than right term and refers, at least on occasion, to dinosaurs. If this is so, the number of dinosaurs named by Adam would have been limited, as with the other animals, to the comparative few whose habitat was apartment open plains. Render to text.
8. Especially so, when it is realized that many snakes are classified today according to the presence, absence, or location of various internal parts. Return to text.
9. 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.eastward. without sight of the board and communicating the moves by a recognised chess annotation). Georges Koltanowski was a great expert, and also tackled 56 consecutive opponents blindfolded and won 50 games with 6 drawn, in 9.75 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 stage was not affected by either genetic defects or sin. Return to text.
10. The capacity for holiness, though flawed in the case of Adam and all of his descendants (us) because of sin, was perfectly shown in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. Render to text.

(As well available in Romanian.)

Source: https://creation.com/naming-the-animals-all-in-a-day-s-work-for-adam

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