How could Adam have named all the animals in a single day?

12 November 2002

Many bibliosceptics and compromising churchians who deny a straightforward reading of Genesis have raised a few canards. One is, if Day Six was an ordinary day, then there would not be enough time for all the tasks mentioned in Genesis 1 and 2 to be completed.  In particular, the naming of all the animals in such a short period of time is supposed to be impossible.

Sceptics ask, ‘How could Adam have named millions of different species in less than twelve hours?’ One important point is that we should not be dogmatic on the actual number of species on Earth. May writes:

‘At the purely factual level, we do not know to within an order of magnitude how many species of plants and animals we share the globe with: fewer than 2 million are currently classified, and estimates of the total number range from under 5 million to more than 50 million.’ [My emphasis]¹

There are several factors, which may not be immediately obvious to the casual reader, that need to be considered. Firstly, Adam did not have to go out and round up or track any of these animals. Genesis 2:19 clearly states that God brought the animals to Adam.  Secondly, although many objectors have claimed that the species Adam had to observe and name would have numbered in the millions, the actual number would almost certainly have been only a small fraction of this.

Note that Scripture explicitly states that Adam named all the ‘livestock’ (Heb. behemah),the ‘birds of the air’ (Heb. op hassamayim) and all the ‘beasts of the field’ (Heb. chayyah hassadeh). There is no indication that Adam named the fish in the sea, or any other marine organisms, nor any of the insects, beetles or arachnids. In fact, of the two million known species, 98% are invertebrates, which include a variety of animals from sponges, worms and jellyfish, to mollusks and insects. The remaining 2% are vertebrates and number approximately 40,000 species.²  This number is further reduced when the 25,000 marine vertebrates³ and four thousand amphibians⁴ are discounted, since they clearly do not fit into any of the categories of animals listed in Genesis 2:20.

In addition, assuming that speciation has been an on-going occurrence since Creation, the eleven thousand vertebrate species in question would have most likely descended from a much smaller number of proto-species.  Each would be the ancestors of animals in the group that taxonomists call a genus⁵ (or possibly the higher taxonomic order known as a family⁶) and what the Genesis account calls a ‘kind’.⁷  Since many genera contain dozens, even hundreds, of species, it is far more likely that Adam had to name only a couple of thousand of these proto-species—a task which could easily have been achieved in a few hours. (Assuming Adam had to name 2,500 proto-species (genera), and he named a single proto-species every five seconds, it would have taken him approximately three hours and forty-five minutes to complete the task if we include a five-minute break every hour.)

It is important to note that God’s purpose in parading all the animals before Adam was not merely so that he would give them names. It was also to reinforce the fact that he was different in kind from the rest of creation, so that none of these animals could ever serve as a physical, emotional, intellectual or spiritual companion.

References

1. May, R.M., How many species are there on Earth? Science 241:1441, 1988. Return to text.
2. David Burnie, ‘Animal’, Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2002, <http://encarta.msn.com>. Return to text.  
3. James W. Orr, ‘Fish’, Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2002, <http://encarta.msn.com>. Return to text. 
4. David Burnie, ‘Vertebrate’, Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2002, <http://encarta.msn.com>. Return to text.
5. Woodmorappe, J, Noah’s Ark: A Feasibility Study, ICR, El Cajon, CA, USA, 1996. This tabulates all the creatures on the Ark by assuming that the kind corresponded to today’s genera. But this is to be as generous to the sceptics as possible, and even then there would be only 16,000 animals on the Ark as obligate passengers. Return to text.
6. Batten, D., Ligers and Wholphins? What next? Creation 22(3):28–33, 2000. This points out several examples of fertile hybrids between members of different genera with a family. This means that they are really a single polytypic species, and supports identification of the kind with today’s families. Return to text. 
7. Williams, P.J., What does min mean?, CEN Tech. J. 11(3): 344-352, 1977. Return to text. 

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