Re: Basilosaurus

Bill Hamilton (hamilton@predator.cs.gmr.com)
Mon, 6 Jan 1997 13:07:03 -0500

Jim Bell writes

>Even though the text doesn't indicate fixity explicitly, the question is
>whether it is implied. Two items strike me on this point:
>
>1. "After their kind" does at least indicate a separatism among species at the
>point of creation, and from God's hand [no means are discussed, so it is an
>open question at this point]. One could easily infer that from the point of
>creation, a "kind" is distinct, designed...perhaps even fixed. While one is
>not compelled in this direction, there is certainly nothing in the text
>pointing toward the opposite view.
>
>2. In 1:22, God says "let the fowl multiply in the earth." Fowl were created
>according to a "kind" (v. 21), and now they are told to multiply AS FOWL. This
>indicates a fixity as fowl fill the earth. Their example is evidence of fixity
>elsewhere in creation.
>

In the New American Standard Bible a footnote to Genesis 1:24 says that the
word translated "their" is literally "its" (two instances). If you put
"its" into the text instead of "their" you get

Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures after its kind:
cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after its kind"; and it
was so.

It looks to me as though the antecedent of "its" is the earth. If this is
correct it's saying that all the life forms created in Gen 1:24 are of the
same kind as the earth. If this is a reasonable interpretation, one might
ask "what is the earth's kind?" The answer might be something like: made
of matter.

A bit later on He begins making man in very much the same way -- out of the
earth -- but then He does something He doesn't do in the case of the
animals: He breaths the breath (spirit) of life into the man. It might be
that there are only two or three "kinds": material beings (animals),
spiritual beings (God, angels), and beings in which spirit and matter are
combined (man).

>So what do you think?

See above.

Bill Hamilton
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William E. Hamilton, Jr, Ph.D. | Staff Research Engineer
Chassis and Vehicle Systems | General Motors R&D Center | Warren, MI
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