Question:  Dear Greg,

            I was looking through your Q/A section and didn’t see an answer to this question, so I was wondering if you could help me out with the question I have.  I was wondering  if there were animals around before Adam was created.  There is plenty of biblical and scientific evidence for animals that were created before Adam.

            How did Adam come up with names for the several distinct species that there were when he was finally created, such as dinosaurs, etc?  When I say species, I don’t mean like the several bug species that scientists name today.  Obviously the Bible says that the birds and water animals produced more of their own kind, so new variations in old species do not need an explanation.  Because dinosaurs were extinct when Adam was around, how did he name them?  Am I just to assume that scientists came up with names for the animals?  Also, how did Adam name all those animals?  Were they around the Garden of Eden or did God bring them from all over the earth or what?

            Mike

Answer:  Dear Mike,

            We agree with you that there is plenty of scientific evidence to suggest that animals—reptiles—dinosaurs—existed before the creation of Adam.  Your question seems to center around Genesis 2:19 about Adam naming the animals and how this specific task was accomplished.  A close reading of this section shows that the major subject was the fact that Adam was alone and that animals could not fill that void.

            The idea of all animals, even ones that Adam had never seen, being paraded before Adam and Adam acting as the sole judge in a “name that animal” contest is a little beyond the text.  Adam’s cooperative effort in naming animals—much like a little child being given the opportunity to name a new family pet—was not a task that God needed or asked Adam to perform.  Adam was not assigned the task of categorizing all the species.  Remember that this section of scripture is poetic, filled with Hebraisms, symbolic and figurative language that is not used with engineering-like precision, but for the overarching import of key themes.  This act of “naming the animals” was an illustration that Adam could not find companionship from animals and that Eve was created as a companion for him.

            In Christ,

            Greg Albrecht