Michael Kruse

Thanks Cheryl. I can see so many avenues to go with this but all would lead far afield of your post here. I will just say that I am an old earth type and do not subscribe to the Answers in Genesis take on the Bible. I wonder if you have ever investigated Hugh Ross’ work. I would especially recommend “The Genesis Question” and “A matter of Days.” He also has an exceptional website Reasons to Believe.

A few observations. First, the early verses do not appear to be giving a chronology of events but rather describing the habitat of the Garden and pointing out God’s care in creating a place for man to live. The story notes in verse 18 that it is not good for man to be alone. I understand verse 19 not to be describing a sequence of events.

“Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, ” NASU

This is stated to emphasize the origin of the animals and God’s provision for man, not the idea God set man down and created the animals in front of him. Remember that his day is a very long day.

Gen 2:4
This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made earth and heaven. NASU

The “day” here is clearly being used in the sense of an era not a 24 hour day for as we just saw, even if you believe in literal 24 hour days, this Chapter two story is creating the whole creation in a “day.” Thus to say God created something present tense could mean anywhere along the six day timeline before bringing them to Adam.

Furthermore, the Gen 1 passage says animals were created were created on the sixth day. God ceased creating on the seventh day. Let us assume these are twenty-four hour days. Here is what has to happen for this to work. God creates the animals. Then God creates man. Then God creates every one of thousands of animals again and brings them to the man. One stat I read estimated that if Adam had named every animal at the rate of about 1 every two seconds he might have completed his task in eight hours! Then God creates woman. Adam meets woman and we have completion.

It seems much more plausible to me that the animals have been created prior Adam and are brought to Adam over an extended time to name them. Also, I don’t know of any teaching in the history of the church that holds that animals were created after Adam or that they were formed first as one sex and then another. That doesn’t mean it can’t be so but I think extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Peace to you!