And
God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature
that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open
firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living
creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly,
after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw
that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and
multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in
the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
(Gen
1:20-23)
The
creation of marine life and flying creatures occurred on Day 5. The
verses are self explanatory for the most part but there are a few
points I want to address.
First,
I find it interesting that the order of creation of living things
precisely matches the order of creation of the inanimate things. God
first created water, the the sky, and finally the land. He then
populates these realms with marine life, flying creatures, then
terrestrial animals (on Day 6). I don't want to suggest there's
anything especially significant about this order but the fact that He
created life in the same order He created the primitive elements
suggests it was not merely coincidence.
Another
thing about the order is that the revealed order of created animals
differs from secular theories. Evolutionists, for example, believe
dinosaurs evolved into birds. Here, we see that birds appeared
before dinosaurs. Evolutionists also believe that life began in the
sea and evolved onto land. However, Genesis tells us that
terrestrial plants were created before marine animals. Marine
mammals would be included in the creation event of Day so we also see
that marine mammals were created before terrestrial dinosaurs. So
the creation account in Genesis and the order of creation according
to evolution differ on several points.
An
important concept is also introduced on this day. We know that God
has already created plants. However, in verse 20 we read, “And
God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature
that hath life.”
We
see similar wording on in Genesis 2:7 when God creates man, “And
the Lord
God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life; and
man became a living soul.”
So Day 5 also marks the creation of the first “living” things.”
It's
actually somewhat difficult to define exactly what makes something
alive but most definitions include having metabolic function.
According to modern biology, plants are living. However, the Bible
does not recognize things like plants as living in the same sense as
an animal or person lives. God intended plants to be food for man
and the animals. Yet the Bible also says there was no death before
sin so the plants eaten did not “die” in the Biblical sense.
Living
animals are described with the Hebrew word nepheshנֶפֶש.
Wikipedia
actually has a reasonably accurate (not entirely
accurate) article talking about the biblical concept of nephesh life.
Certainly the Bible draws a clear line between plant and animal life.
However, it's somewhat more difficult to classify other types of
life. The Wiki article seems to suggest that fish and reptiles don't
possess nephesh life but they seem to ignore the very passages they
cite. Fish would be included among the marine animals created on Day
5. Many scholars believe that the “creeping things” created on
Day 6 means reptiles – which are noted for having a sprawling gate.
So the Bible seems to include both of these groups among living
creatures.
Does
the Bible regard insects as being alive? What about microbes? When
we consider the role of things like bacteria in the decomposition of
plants or the digestion of food, it's likely that things like
bacteria, viruses, etc, are not alive in the biblical sense. Some
people neither include insects with animal life since the Bible does
not include them anywhere in the description of living animals on
days 5 or 6.
In
our modern world, I don't see a strong need to be able to rigidly
draw a line between the living and non-living. Death has reigned
since the Fall (Romans 5:17) and now every living creature will die.
What is important to understand is that death is not the tool God
used to create everything (as is suggested by theistic evolution).
Also, we should understand that God will restore His creation to what
it was before the Curse (Revelation 21:3-4), thus there will someday
no longer be death.
And
God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth,
which the waters brought forth abundantly, after
their kind,
and every winged fowl after
his kind:
Moving
on now, we see again that God created “kinds” of creatures. The
use of the word “abundantly” suggests that not only were there
many “kinds” but also a large population of each kind. God
likely didn't create only two (male/female) of the “dolphin-kind,”
for example. Having a large, untainted gene pool of each kind
guarantees the potential for lots of diversity among its descendants.
Of course, during the Flood, each kind suffered a sort of
bottle-neck so the variety we see among kinds today is likely dwarfed
by the variety possible at the creation.
It
should be noted that marine life would include the different classes
– reptiles, fish, and mammals. The same is true of winged animals.
Besides birds, winged creatures would include mammals (bats) and
reptiles (pterosaurs). Again, we see the order of the appearance of
these creatures differs between creation and evolutionary theories.
and
God saw that it was good.
As
God created these kinds of swimming and flying creatures it was
“good” each step of the way. The chronic use of this phrase
seems to reduce the idea of theistic evolution to absurdity.
According to TE, there were millions of years of death and struggle
and death and struggle of creatures evolving until man finally
appeared. Such a theory contradicts the clear words of the Bible
that the creation was “good” every step of the way.
And
the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
Finally,
we see the familiar phrase “evening and morning.” All of the sea
creatures and all of the flying creatures were created in a the span
of a single, ordinary day. An evening and morning can only mean a
single rotation of the earth – not the millions or billions of
years theorized by evolutionists.
3 comments:
As for nephesh life, Creation Ministries International has an article that implicitly (albeit tentatively) denies that insects are "life" in the biblical sense, as they don't have blood ("the blood is the life," etc.). This leaves cephalopods and other organisms with hemocyanin-based blood in an ambiguous status (is it relevant that Leviticus has rules on kosher seafood that have been traditionally interpreted as banning arthropods and molluscs?). On the other hand, I have read commentaries on Genesis that assume that insects are included among the "creeping things."
I've noted before that if you accept the identification of some creationists of the gadolim tanninim (which some have interpreted as "giant reptiles") with dinosaurs, dinosaurs would fit in on day five. In any case, you have the problem of delineating between "dinosaurs" and "birds." There is at least one case of an Archaeopteryx fossil in a museum storage drawer being labeled as a Comsognathus (a non-bird small theropod dinosaur) for years before feather impressions were noticed on the slab. Likewise, the oviraptorid dinosaurs have traditionally not been considered "birds," but we know from Caudipteryx that some of them at least were fully feathered, with arm feathers resembling vestigial wings. If ostriches count as birds, the mere fact of flightlessness in oviraptors and velociraptors would not seem to rule out their status as birds (though currently, taxonomists tend to define "birds" as anything more closely related to a chicken than to Velociraptor, which rules the dromeosaurs and oviraptorids out by definition, but then, you don't believe that all true birds form a single "kind" related by descent, anyway).
As for creation being "good," and the problems this poses for theistic creation, I'd think the whole panoply of life appearing in a single 144-hour period (and fruit trees appearing not merely before fish but before the sun!) would be a bigger problem. There are a lot of things God does in the Old Testament that presumably are "good" because otherwise God wouldn't do them or order them, that don't seem terribly "good" by our modern intuitive understanding of the term; if God can see the extermination of the Canaanites as "good," why not see leopards munching on australopiths as "good?"
Also, biblically, the Earth does not turn. As several passages (e.g. Psalm 104:5) note, the Earth is fixed in place and immobile. And Ecclesiastes 1:5 notes that the sun rises and sets, and then "hurries back to where it rises." The last is not merely a nod to appearances; no human sees the sun moving around the other side of the Earth, and asserts that the sun moves even when we don't see it moving.
Steven J,
You said, “As for nephesh life, Creation Ministries International has an article that implicitly (albeit tentatively) denies that insects are "life" in the biblical sense, as they don't have blood ("the blood is the life," etc.). This leaves cephalopods and other organisms with hemocyanin-based blood in an ambiguous status (is it relevant that Leviticus has rules on kosher seafood that have been traditionally interpreted as banning arthropods and molluscs?). On the other hand, I have read commentaries on Genesis that assume that insects are included among the "creeping things."”
As I mentioned in my post, I'm not sure if there is any compelling importance in the ability to identify which creatures possess nephesh life. Maybe insects do and maybe they don't (I personally lean toward “don't” but it's fine either way). How does it affect anything? What is important is that we understand that death is the consequence of sin and life is available only through faith in Jesus.
You said, “I've noted before that if you accept the identification of some creationists of the gadolim tanninim (which some have interpreted as "giant reptiles") with dinosaurs, dinosaurs would fit in on day five.”
I'm sorry. I'm not familiar with that creature. Does it fly, swim, or walk? If it swims or flies, its kind was created on Day 5. If it walks, its kind was created on Day 6.
You said, “In any case, you have the problem of delineating between "dinosaurs" and "birds." There is at least one case of an Archaeopteryx fossil in a museum storage drawer being labeled as a Comsognathus (a non-bird small theropod dinosaur) for years before feather impressions were noticed on the slab.”
It's my understanding that the feathers of Archaeopteryx are asymmetrical which is a strong indicator that it was a flying bird. If it flew, it was certainly created on Day 5. If I'm wrong, I still don't see a “problem.”
The creation of the animals occurred more along the lines of their mode of locomotion rather than their taxonomical class. God didn't only create “birds” on Day 5 – He created flying creatures. Thus bats would be included on Day 5 while walking mammals were created on Day 6.
One hiccup in my theory is the Hebrew word, oph. It roughly means “winged” but is often translated as “bird” or “fowl.” All non-flying birds still have wings so I can't be certain if birds like the ostrich or penguin were created on Day 5 (because they're winged) or on Day 6 (because they are earth bound).
continued...
You said, “As for creation being "good," and the problems this poses for theistic creation, I'd think the whole panoply of life appearing in a single 144-hour period (and fruit trees appearing not merely before fish but before the sun!) would be a bigger problem.”
The problems in reconciling the days of creation with the secular timelines of evolution are myriad. The millions of years of death before the appearance of man and sin is perhaps the most serious objection but certainly not the only objection.
You said, “There are a lot of things God does in the Old Testament that presumably are "good" because otherwise God wouldn't do them or order them, that don't seem terribly "good" by our modern intuitive understanding of the term; if God can see the extermination of the Canaanites as "good," why not see leopards munching on australopiths as "good?"”
God is good – which also includes His being just. A judge who lets murderers go free because he abhors any kind of punishment would be a bad judge. Not only did the Canaanites (maybe you meant to refer to the Ammonites?) of the OT die but so did the all the Hebrews. So did all the OT patriarchs die like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So did the fathers of the twelve tribes. So did all the prophets. So did all the kings. So did all the apostles. They all died because they were all sinners. God didn't “want” them to die but God is just and the wages of sin is death.
Death is the enemy; it is the curse on a fallen world. It wasn't part of the initial creation and it will not be part of the restored creation. In Genesis, God spoke and things came to life. TE teaches that things die in order to create life. How twisted is that?
You said, “Also, biblically, the Earth does not turn. As several passages (e.g. Psalm 104:5) note, the Earth is fixed in place and immobile. And Ecclesiastes 1:5 notes that the sun rises and sets, and then "hurries back to where it rises." The last is not merely a nod to appearances; no human sees the sun moving around the other side of the Earth, and asserts that the sun moves even when we don't see it moving.”
I thought we had moved past day 4. Really? You know I've never backed down from this subject but enough is enough. I've addressed this at least a half dozen times with you already.
God bless!!
RKBentley
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