The Modern Creation Trilogy. Dr. Henry M. Morris

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СКАЧАТЬ noting that there is no distinction in Hebrew between the past tense and the past perfect or pluperfect tense, the context determining which to use. By replacing the past tense (“formed”) by the pluperfect (“had formed”) in Genesis 2:19, one would read the verse as follows: “And out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field.”

      Some commentators have argued against this translation, but its legitimacy is verified by Dr. H. C. Leupold, professor of Old Testament Exegesis at the Capital University Seminary (Lutheran) in Columbus, Ohio, in his masterful two-volume commentary on Genesis.

It would not, in our estimation, be wrong to translate yatsar as a pluperfect in this instance: “He had molded.” The insistence of the critics upon a plain past is partly the result of the attempt to make chapters one and two clash at as many points as possible.5

      The two accounts, therefore, are complementary, not contradictory!

      But then, say the skeptics, it is absurd to think that Adam could name all the animals in part of a single day. This argument is also used by those Christians and Jews who believe the Bible in a general way, but who insist that “science” requires us to believe that the days of creation week were long ages instead of literal days.

      It cannot be “absurd,” however, since God has made it quite plain that the “days” were literal days (note, especially, Gen. 1:5 and Exod. 20:8–11). This particular criticism ignores two very important facts: (1) Adam was much more intelligent than we can even imagine today; and (2) He did not have to name every species of animal, but only the distinct “kinds” of animals that were of immediate interest and access in his daily activities.

      Adam had been created in the very “image” of the omniscient God, and that image had not yet been damaged by sin and the curse. Scientists today recognize that modern man actually uses only a very small part of his brain’s potential, but Adam, with his mental capacity just then created by a purposeful, wise, loving Creator, perhaps could have used it all! He could surely have recognized, almost instantly, the distinctive qualities of each pair of animals as the different kinds passed before him, and then given them appropriate names. For that matter, just as God had created Adam as an already grown man, so He also could have created in Adam’s brain an instinctive and instantaneous awareness of the many different animal kinds.

      And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him (Gen. 2:20).

      Note that the animals herein named included only the cattle, the birds, and the field animals. Not included were the “beasts of the earth,” the “creeping things” and the “fish of the sea” (Gen. 1:24, 26). Thus, the vast multitudes of marine animals and insects, as well as reptiles and amphibians, were excluded. The cattle evidently were the domesticable animals (horses, sheep, cows, etc.), and the “beasts of the field” were animals that would live in the wild in the Garden of Eden and its nearby fields. The “beasts of the earth” were presumably to live throughout the earth and would have only infrequent contact with man, so they were not among those to be viewed by Adam at this time. Nor were the “creeping things,” those animals built low to the ground, which, while necessary to a functioning ecology, were not of direct, personal importance to human life.

      In the context, the purpose of this assignment to Adam by God was both to acquaint him with the animals likely to be associated directly with his normal activities, and also to show him that, while he was to have dominion over them, none were qualified to be a “helper like him.” Only a woman, also made in God’s image, could qualify for this role.

      Furthermore, Adam did not have to name all the species of even this limited number of animals, but only the kinds — which is a much broader term, possibly comparable, in many cases, to our modern taxonomic “family” (for example, there are some 600 “species” of hummingbird, with only slight differences in that “family”). Although we may not be able to determine the actual number of animals involved, it was not inordinately large, and Adam, with his vast innate mental abilities, still unimpaired by sin, could surely have named them all in a reasonable part of one day’s time.

      Creation and Ecology

      It is often charged that the “dominion mandate” given by God to mankind over the animal and plant kingdoms and over the earth as a whole implies man’s right to plunder the earth. Typical of this unwarranted conclusion is that expressed by Prince Charles of England.

The Prince says that one of the underlying reasons why Western man has dominated nature, rather than lived in harmony with it, can be found in Genesis 1, which records that: “God said unto man, 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 that moveth upon the earth.” The prince argues that this passage, accompanied by our Judaeo-Christian heritage, has given us an “overbearing attitude towards God’s creation.” This, he says, has contributed to “a feeling that the world is somehow entirely man’s to dispose of” — as income, rather than a capital asset which needs husbanding. “By contrast,” adds the prince, “the Koran specifically mentions the fact that the natural world is loaned from God.”6

      Prince Charles has quoted Genesis 1:28 correctly, but he has grossly misapplied it. However, his opinion is, sadly, rather typical of those promoting the so-called environmental movement today. The fact is, however, that evolutionary thinking — pantheistic evolutionism in the ancient world and social Darwinism in the modern world — is the real cause of the misuse of the earth’s plant and animal resources! This problem is discussed more fully in Volume 3 of this Trilogy.

      As far as animals are concerned, they were indeed placed under man’s dominion, and they have definite purposes in the divine economy, but they are to be used, not mis-used. God does care for each of them, and so should we.

      The animals were created for various purposes. Some would serve for transportation (e.g., horses), some for labor (e.g., oxen), some as house pets (e.g., dogs), and for various other uses. We can derive various spiritual lessons and analogies from all of them (note Prov. 30:24–31 and Job 12:7–8). God also foresaw the entrance of sin, of course, and therefore the future use of some animals for clothing (e.g., sheep, for their wool). Eventually, after the great Flood, God even allowed men and women to eat “every moving thing that liveth” as long as it was not “flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof” (Gen. 9:3–4; note also 1 Tim. 4:4).

      Initially, however, human beings were to have lived strictly on “every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed,” and land animals were to have lived on “every green herb” (Gen. 1:29–30). Even animals that are now carnivores were originally herbivores (for that matter, they can still survive on a herbivorous diet, if necessary — as can people!). The sharp teeth and other structures that are now used in eating flesh seem to be “horizontal” variants, or mutants, or structures originally used in gnawing bark, tough roots, and the like. It may even be that God performed genetic engineering on the animals to forever remind Adam and Eve of the awful consequences of sin, as suggested also by the introduction of “thorns and thistles” as a part of the curse (Gen. 3:17–18).

      Note that, while people were permitted by God to eat the flesh of animals after the Flood (and thus, by extension, to use them also for clothing or research or other worthwhile purposes in the service of mankind, under God), animals were not given permission to kill people (note e.g., Gen. 9:6; Exod. 21:28). Although animals are objects of God’s loving concern and care (Job 39; Luke 12:6), they are not related to man by evolution, as most present-day animal-rights СКАЧАТЬ