Hello all
just some random questions
1. How long did it take Adam to name all the animals God sent him when he in the garden back in the begining . perhaps the scripture meant he only names the animals that were in the garden and not every animal in the whole word. Thoughts any one ?
Gen. 1:
24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind,
cattle, and creeping thing,
and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
25 And God made
the beast of the earth after his kind,
and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over
the cattle, and over all the earth, even over
every creeping/moving thing/soul that moves upon the earth.
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over
the fish of the sea, and over
the fowl of the air, and over
every living thing/soul that moveth upon the earth.
29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
30 And to
every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to
every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
In Gen. 1 There appear to be two classes of "every living soul that moves upon the earth/land": we have "beasts of the earth", and "cattle". "Every living thing/soul that moves upon the face of the earth/land would seem to be all land animalia, with cattle being a subset of these. God made all alns animalia on day six before making man.
Gen. 2:
15 And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
18 And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
19 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/soul, that was the name thereof.
20 And Adam gave names to
all cattle, and to
fowl of the air, and
to every beast of the field/plain; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
21 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
22 And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
In Gen. 2 there appears to be parenthetical narrative that offers more detail about the forming of man. In it we have references to "every beast of the field", "every fowl of the air", "every living soul", "all cattle", "fowl of the air" and every beast of the field/flat land".
Verse 19 seems to describe a set of animals formed out of the ground in the garden to be brought to Adam to name them. The Chapter 1 tern "beasts of the earth" does not appear here. We have beasts of the field or plain being formed. It could be that these are not ecvery beast of the earth, but only beasts of the field/plain, whatever they might be limited to.
Verse 20 mentions Adam naming all cattle, so these must be some of the class mentioned in v. 19, "beasts of the field/flat land". We also hear of Adam naming "fowl of the air". And then is mentioned Adam naming "every beast of the field/flat land).
It is possible that there was only a selection of all beasts of the earth that were originally distributed on the flat land, with other wild animals confined at first to the hilly and mountainous regions. So, all Adam needed to name were "all cattle" and "all beasts of the flat land. This flat land does not seem to have been the low-lying flat land of valleys, since there were four rivers flowing out of the garden. thos means that the garden was a flat piece of land at altitude with a spring that flowed out of it and divided into four rivers. So, it seems like the garden was more likely a flat highland plateau with a spring and God formed versions of animals that he had located elsewhere in flat regions, since they were designed and best suited to this flat Edenic garden environment.
So, I would suggest that it took Adam as much time as it would take to name all cattle, every kind of bird that would fly at the height, of the garden plateau. And every animal that was designed suitable to elevated plateau life. This may be a very small percentage of all the animal life God had created on day six over the entire planet's ecosystems.
