As Jerry and I were preparing for bed the other night, I asked him if he knew that Adam named all the animals. He stopped dead in his tracks, looked at me like I was crazy, and then said, "What in the world are you talking about?"
I am always surprised when Jerry doesn't know things out of the Bible, especially out of the Old Testament. Furthermore, I don't have a clue as to why I was thinking of that particular part of the Old Testament that evening, but for whatever reason, it popped into my mind. He just hates it when these kinds of things happen right at bedtime, because he knows now he's got to listen to the story.
I of course don't carry my Bible around with me, so I couldn't quote him chapter and verse, but the gist of my explanation was that God told Adam he could name all the animals, and I wondered how he made up the names? And what language he made them up in and were they a direct translation into all the languages? I know, for example, that the English word "Elephant" is "Fil" in Turkish (which has always struck me funny because of having a tiny, three letter word for such a huge animal). But anyway, these are the kinds of things I speculated while poor Jerry was biding his time before he could go to sleep and he just kept saying, "I don't know" and "uh huh."
I never did get to share the exact bible verse with him, so since he always reads my blogs (and hopefully catches my typos) he will now see the verses of Genesis 2:19-20 from the KJV: And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them; and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field...."
So this morning I ran two Google searches: The first was a standard web search using "Adam naming animals." I found the picture above on a very interesting website: http://www.answersingenesis.org/about/first-time
It is a Christian site that offers questions and answers: I loved how they handled the statement: Adam could not have accomplished all that the Bible states in one day (Day 6). He could not have named all the animals, for instance; there was not enough time. The site's answer was: Adam did not have to name all the animals—only those God brought to him. For instance, Adam was commanded to name “every beast of the field” (Genesis 2:20).
The second search was a Google Image Search on the same words.
This image search brought up an amazing view of the various ways artists have interpreted this event. When I see stuff like this, I always think that if one has more than a single shot at life, next time I want to come back as an artist. In this life I am merely an appreciator; and I am always stunned at whatever it is inside them that causes an artist to conceptualize a work to begin with. I would love to be able to inwardly see something and to be able to give it an artistic birth.
I don't expect Jerry to go nosing around this site, and for me, my interest mostly is in the art of the event, not the event itself. But I must admit I found some interesting reading there and think you all should take a look for yourself.
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I don't do this every night, as sometimes I am sleepy at 9 p.m. too. So Jer gets his beauty sleep most of the time. But I did want to use this way to finish up the animal-naming question. We'll just have to wait and see what I hit him with next.
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