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Bible math

Whydoe

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In the second story of Genesis, we learn that God brings each animal to Adam and he names them all. How long do you think this would take? I forget which day it was, perhaps the 6th. And he rested on the 7th day.
Now, God being who He is, would probably be able to bring the animals to Adam quite quickly. But Adam, being only human, I'm sure would have a difficult time. Let's not forget the animals in the deep abyss. I'm sure they would've needed to be revived by God before He put them back.
I'm not a master of math, but it would be a lot like figuring out how fast Santa would have to travel to get to every house on Xmas Eve.
If this sounds dumb, I blame my flu. :p
 
Whydoe said:
In the second story of Genesis, we learn that God brings each animal to Adam and he names them all. How long do you think this would take?
Click to expand...

It's worse than that. Remember how God only created Eve after Adam couldn't find a suitable "helper" among the animals? According to some interpretations, Adam didn't just name each animal, he, er "knew" it, if you catch my Biblical drift.

Now THAT is going to take a while!

Jeremy
 
Sigh......

Doesn't the thrill of finding impossibilities in the Bible ever wear off? This is high school sleepover stuff. The next question will undoubtedly be, "If God is all powerfull, can he make a thing he can't move?"

Waste of bandwidth, which is now a sin not mentioned in the Bible.

IIRichard
 
IIRichard said:
Doesn't the thrill of finding impossibilities in the Bible ever wear off? This is high school sleepover stuff. The next question will undoubtedly be, "If God is all powerfull, can he make a thing he can't move?"

Waste of bandwidth, which is now a sin not mentioned in the Bible.
Click to expand...

No. I've heard that one before. I find it only interesting looking at what it would possibly take to accomblish something like naming every freakin' animal on the planet (or on the planet when it was created) in one day.

Bandwidth? That's an old one too. And I'm on dial-up. :eek:
 
In the second story of Genesis, we learn that God brings each animal to Adam and he names them all. How long do you think this would take?
Click to expand...
According to Answers in Genesis there were about 8000 animal kinds before the flood. If Adam could come up with a name every minute on average, he would need about 5 1/2 days to name them all.

That's assuming there were as many kinds at the beginning of the flood as there were at the time of Adam. However, if we assume the rate of diversification was as great as it was after the flood, there must have been much fewer kinds in Adam's time. Possibly there were only a few common ancestors, making the task of naming them rather trivial.
 
Two things;

1 if he only took 10 seconds then he could have named the 8000 in a day.
2 I don't think it says what he named them. I suspect the woodpecker may be among the surviving names though.
 
The flow of the verses definitely indicates that naming the animals was part of Adam's search for companionship. The mathematical (and physological and aesthetic, etc.) obstacles to having that take place between Adam's creation and the sin make a literal account nothing less than miraculous - and therefore, shall we say, um, unlikely to be intended as literal by the author(s). OT miracles, as a rule, serve a specific purpose not achievable by natural means. Helping a guy bonk, in necessarily quick succession (talk about stamina! Yowza!) a moose, a cow, an anteater, an iguana...somehow just doesn't strike me as a "must."
 
Whydoe said:
No. I've heard that one before. I find it only interesting looking at what it would possibly take to accomblish something like naming every freakin' animal on the planet (or on the planet when it was created) in one day.

Bandwidth? That's an old one too. And I'm on dial-up. :eek:
Click to expand...

And how could he name them? Is he just generating random, if plausible-sounding, proper nouns for each one? Or does he understand a rudimentary etymology and cobbles together names that are meaningful?

Given there were no previous languages, and no other languages at the time, there would be no way to name something that had any old-school meaning to it, like naming something a kuwh00zit, from Old English, from Latin "kuwh", crazy, and wh00zit, "bird". None of that, now!

Or maybe it's just a clownish, childlike story.
 
Beerina said:
And how could he name them? Is he just generating random, if plausible-sounding, proper nouns for each one? Or does he understand a rudimentary etymology and cobbles together names that are meaningful?
Click to expand...

According to the commentary from a Hebrew version, the names were not generated randomely. The names given to the animals are not simply convenient convention, but reflect the nature of each creature and its role in the universe. Apparently, Adam had the power to recognize the essence of every animal and name it accordingly. Before creating Adam's mate, God brought all the creatures for Adam to name so that Adam could see for himself that none of them corresponded to his essence, socially and intellectually, and so that Adam would ask for a mate and not take her for granted.

The commentary doesn't say how many animals there were, nor how Adam named them all in one day. The commentary also doesn't mention anything at all about Adam "knowing" the animals in any way other than having the capability of understanding their nature and naming them accordingly, but does explain why the animals were named in the same section that talked about Adam's mate.

-Bri
 
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Whydoe said:
In the second story of Genesis, we learn that God brings each animal to Adam and he names them all. How long do you think this would take? I forget which day it was, perhaps the 6th. And he rested on the 7th day.
Now, God being who He is, would probably be able to bring the animals to Adam quite quickly. But Adam, being only human, I'm sure would have a difficult time. Let's not forget the animals in the deep abyss. I'm sure they would've needed to be revived by God before He put them back.
I'm not a master of math, but it would be a lot like figuring out how fast Santa would have to travel to get to every house on Xmas Eve.
If this sounds dumb, I blame my flu. :p
Click to expand...

You haven't been listening have you - God works in mysterious ways. He can also do magic and miracles (some say even better than the Amazing Randi). God simply waved his wand and Adam could hear the whole list in a matter of seconds. Have a lemon and honey drink. My grandmother thinks it will do you good.
 
So did he just memorize the names on the spot, or did he write them down?

If he wrote them down, did he do so as they were being named, or did he wait until a later time? If so, how did he remember them all?

If he wrote them down, what did he write the names on ? What did he write with? (let me just invent paper and a writing system before we get started, ok?)

Did he get to pack up his documents when he and his girlfriend were evicted?

But I digress. This is a thread about math.

For a biblical account of the value of pi, check out I Kings 7 verse 23-

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=11&chapter=7&version=9

And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.
 
Trouble in paradise...

"Not another freakin' beetle! What is it with you and coleoptera? Have you noticed how they all look the same after the first hundred thousand species? And another thing --- why won't you let the serpent help out? What's the point of creating a talking snake if you don't want me to listen to his suggestions? I tell you, this 'woman' thing had better be worth it."
 
What language did he name them in, anyway? This would be not just a language, but the language, directly invented by God.
 
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