Page 26 - ADAM IN GENESIS

As Creation Day 5 closes the seas are abounding with life, the land is full of plants, and
the skies are filled with birds. The plant life helped to make an expanse suitable to sustain
life on land. By the end of Day 6 we will see that everything God had made, including the
expanse, is seen as very good. Certainly by the beginning of Day 6, the atmosphere was
virtually the same as it is today. Theories such as the Canopy Theory which are attempts
to explain the abundance of water necessary to cover the globe during Noah's Flood are
not only unfounded biblically, but scientifically impossible. The expanse is called very
good by the end of Day 6. This means that birds are able to fly (as seen during Day 5) and
land animals and humans are able to live and breathe normally. Based on the size and
albido of the earth, it should have an average surface temperature of -2 degrees
Fahrenheit, but because the atmosphere is opaque to most of the infrared waves reflecting
off the Earths surface, the average surface temperature is 59 degrees. This is due to the
greenhouse gases in our atmosphere (mostly water vapor-1% and carbon
dioxide-0.038%). Since water vapor accounts for about 2/3 of the greenhouse effect on
earth, an atmosphere that once contained abundantly more water vapor would make
conditions too hot to sustain any life on earth. Surely this would not be considered very
good by God after He creates human beings.
Day 6 begins with another wayyomer elohim, this time with God calling to the earth to
bring forth living creatures according to their kinds. In contrast to Day 5 where the living
beings (nephesh chayyah) are created (bara), here the nephesh chayyah are brought forth
(Heb. yatsa). This is similar to the word in the parallel passage in 2:19 where the land
creatures are formed (yatsar) out of the ground. In verse 25 it says that they were made
(asa) by God. This does not imply that they were created at all, but that they were made
from existing materials namely the ground (Heb. adamah). There is nothing new in the
land creatures. They are living creatures (nephesh chayyah), but the quality that makes
something a living creature (i.e. its lifeblood - Lev. 17:11) was created on Day 5.
Therefore the author is not able to say that any soulish land creatures are created (bara),
but rather they are the land equivalents of the sea and air creatures made on Day 5.
It is said here that three land-based kinds of living creatures were formed by God on Day
6: the behemah (mostly larger domesticated four-footed animals; LXX-tetrapodo), the
remes (mostly smaller four-footed mammals and reptiles; LXX-herpedo-reptile), and the
chaytho erets (beasts of the earth, wild beasts; LXX-therion). One can immediately
notice that this is not a global list of every land animal. For example, where is mention of
insects (most likely the sherets of Leviticus 11:20-23)? And where do aquatic mammals
(whales, dolphins), flying mammals (bats) and aquatic reptiles (plesiosaurs) fit in the
creation account? Day 5? Day 6? It is true that God's taxonomy is different than the one
man invented, but the dilemmas in cataloguing every created creature into the Genesis 1
Creation account seem insurmountable. The questions that need to be addressed are Is it
the intent of the author to fully mention every category of living creature in Genesis 1?
and Would the original Hebrew listener have been aware of such creatures as bacteria,
dinosaurs and kangaroos based on his experience in the Mesopotamian region? My
answer to both questions is 'NO.' There is no biblical or extra-biblical evidence that the
Israelites knew about dinosaurs or microorganisms. In my opinion, most global-extent
YECs are in the unenviable position of having to explain on which Day most of these
difficult creatures were made and the reason for Moses telling about creatures with which
neither he nor his audience had any experiential knowledge.