Adam's Busy Day

Have you ever had a really busy day? Few of us would ever experience the busyness of Adam on the first day of his creation as he named the animals. For those like our Lesson Study guide for this quarter who take the account of the first chapters of Genesis literally, consider Adam's first day as according to our lesson study guide Genesis chapter 2 expands upon the events of chapter 1.

(Gen 2:18-22 NIV) The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

Remember the Lesson Study guide said:

October 7:
The Bible, of course—particularly the first two chapters of Genesis—gives a completely different account of our origins: We're here only because a loving, benevolent Creator-God purposely created life on earth in a process that took six literal contiguous 24-hour days.

There are about 4260 species of mammals known on this planet at the moment, though taxonomists are still arguing. Mammals are not the most speciose animal group on the planet, three other groups of vertebrates out-number them at the moment, Reptiles 6787 species, Birds 9703 species and Fishes with approximately 28000 species. Invertebrates, of course, have groups with huge numbers of species that outnumber all the vertebrates put together; Molluscs 80 000 and Insects 1 000 000; while Arachnids with a mere 44 000 species still outnumber any 3 groups of vertebrates put together. Mammals however are big. You can see them easily, and perhaps most importantly you are one.-- http://www.earthlife.net/mammals/welcome.html

4,629 Mammals according to Earthrends.wri.org http://earthtrends.

Lets use the lower number for our purposes today. 4260 separate species of mammals to name in one day. Since the Lesson guide has told us that this was accomplished in a 24 hour day. 1 day = 1,440 minutes, so if Adam was to name all the mammals he could get through about ¼ of them in a 24 hour period if he named each one in one minute. In a 24 hour day if he spent 15 seconds per animal he could just get through the day without taking any breaks.

However since we are literalists according to our lesson study guide he also had to name the birds. 9703 species of birds are still left to be named. Now there are twice as many birds as there are mammals so together they equal 13,963 which gives Adam about 6 seconds per animal and bird using his entire 24 hour day.

Now that is a busy day. But wait most scientists think that only 10% of the animals that have lived are still in existence. 90% of all animals are extinct. Which gives us a theoretical number of 139,630, Adam would have less then one second per name 1 day = 86,400 seconds. No doubt he would be ready for a rest after that. But of course now he has to meet the first woman. A big job for anyone's first day on the job, even bigger if it is your very first day of life!