gengwall

Adam identifies the animals before the woman is created, but he doesn’t name them, or give them names like “Tommy the cat”, “Leo the lion”, or “Sparky the dog.” The woman’s name was never “Woman”. Her name was Eve, not “woman”. There is a difference between naming a creature and identifying or recognizing one.
Adam had rule over the animals only because God himself gave this authority to both the human and the woman. But God gave both the human and the woman authority over the animals and the earth only after he created the woman. So did Adam have authority over the animals and the earth before the woman was created?

This insight by pinklight deserves more play. Was the identification of the animals by Adam even an act of authority?

I think PL is onto something here. Why were the animals brought to Adam in the first place? Was it so he could exercise dominion over them in some way? In what way is authority manifest simply by identifying something? Was it not instead related specifically to his aloneness? Maybe the identification of the animals (really the first taxonomical exercise) was an object lesson to Adam to illustrate to him just how “fish out of water” his situation was. That would account for his identification of Eve along the same lines in the midst of his exclamation – “Finally! Here is one like me”. That makes “she shall be called woman” not an act of authority but a proclamation of great joy.