Green Theology: ADAM AS THE FIRST TAXONOMIST

ADAM AS THE FIRST TAXONOMIST

In Genesis 1 the birds and the animals are created before humanity, but in Genesis 2 it is the other way around – a sure sign that these accounts are not to be read literally. In Genesis 2, as the story goes, God sees that Adam, still the only living creature in God’s world, needs a partner. It is not good for him to be alone.

So, first, God creates every species of animal and every species of bird and brings them to Adam for him to give them names. He does so, but none of them is found suitable to be Adam’s partner (2:18–20). Then God takes one of Adam’s ribs and out of it produces the woman, whom Adam also names. But this time he really has a partner: ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh’ (2:23) – a partner of the same species. Clearly the animals in the story function partly as a foil to Eve.

Their unsuitability to be partners for Adam highlights the fact that only a creature corresponding as closely to him as Eve does can be a suitable partner.

We need not, of course, suppose that God had to try out all the animals on Adam, before realizing that it would need another kind of act of creation to make a creature who would really meet the need. Nor should we suppose that the female human being was an afterthought, created only when it became clear that the male could not manage by himself. These are just features of the way the story makes its point.

While the animals can evidently be no substitute for the very special relationship of man and woman, we need not suppose that they cannot be companions of humans in any way at all. Clearly that is not the case. But what the story says positively about the animals is that Adam gives them names. This has sometimes been understood as an act of authority, an exercise of the dominion over other creatures that God gave to humans in Genesis 1:28.

But the idea that in the Hebrew Bible naming expresses authority is actually not at all well evidenced,[1] and we should not miss the implication that if Adam’s naming of the animals is an assertion of authority over them, so must be his naming of Eve.

Adam is not in this story ruling the animals; he is recognizing them as fellow-creatures and giving them a place in his mental construction of the world. We do not give names to other species so that we can exercise power over them, but in order to recognize their place in the natural world. Adam is the first taxonomist. He appreciates the diversity of the creatures. He recognizes their diversity and writes it into his vision of the world by giving each species its own name.

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[1] See George W. Ramsey, ‘Is Name-Giving an Act of Domination in Genesis 2:23 and Elsewhere?’ CBQ 50 (1988): pp. 24–35.