Adam and the Animals

by Henry M. Morris, Ph.D.

"And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof." (Genesis 2:19)

This event occurred on the sixth day of creation week, between the formation of Adam’s body and that of Eve (note Genesis 1:26-31; 2:7, 22), and there is no reason not to take it literally. Nevertheless, modern theistic evolutionists, including many seminary professors, have found two imaginary problems which they argue prevent taking it literally.

The first quibble finds a "contradiction" with Genesis 1:21-25, which says the animals were all made before Adam--not afterward. This supposed problem vanishes when the text verse is translated as follows: "The LORD God had formed every beast of the field." This is a legitimate--in fact, preferable--translation of the Hebrew original.

The other alleged difficulty is the supposed inability of Adam to name all the animals in one day. But in reality, he only had to give names "to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field" (Genesis 2:20)--that is, those nearby birds, cattle, and other mammals that might be seen as potential candidates to be a "help meet" for Adam. No marine animals, reptiles, insects, or "beasts of the earth" (Genesis 1:24; i.e., living far away from Eden) were brought to him. Furthermore, he did not need to name every species, but only each relevant "kind"--possibly each "family" (i.e., dogs, horses, eagles, etc.).

Finally, his divinely created mental abilities were not yet limited by the disease of sin, so that he could appropriately name each kind much more rapidly than we could do. Thus, no sincere Bible student should be tempted to doubt Genesis by any such "difficulties" as these. HMM

This article was originally published September, 2010. "Adam and the Animals", Institute for Creation Research, https://www.icr.org/article/adam-animals (accessed December 20, 2024).