For today’s post we will tackle the question the Skeptic Annotated Bible asked: Bible Contradiction: From what were the animals created?
Here are the two answers which the skeptic believes indicate a Bible contradiction:
From the waters.
“Then God said, “Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens. God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind; and God saw that it was good.” (Genesis 1:20-21)
From the ground
“Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.” (Genesis 2:19)
(All Scriptural quotation comes from the New American Standard Bible)
Here’s a closer look at whether or not there is a contradiction:
- When dealing with skeptics’ claim of Bible contradictions it seems one can never be reminded enough of what exactly is a contradiction. A contradiction occurs when two or more claims conflict with one another so that they cannot simultaneously be true in the same sense and at the same time. To put it another way, a Bible contradiction exists when there are claims within the Bible that are mutually exclusive in the same sense and at the same time.
- One should be skeptical of whether this is a Bible contradiction given the Skeptic Annotated Bible’s track record of inaccurately handling the Bible. See the many examples of their error which we have responded to in this post: Collection of Posts Responding to Bible Contradictions. Of course that does not take away the need to respond to this claim of a contradiction, which is what the remainder of this post will do. But this observation should caution us to slow down and look more closely at the passages cited by the Skeptic Annotated Bible to see if they interpreted the passages properly to support their conclusion that it is a Bible contradiction.
- This particular contradiction is very similar to the previous we looked at: “Bible Contradiction? From what were the animals created?“
- The skeptic tries to pit Genesis 1:20-21 as affirming the claim “Fowls were created from water” against Genesis 2:19 as affirming “Fowls were created from out of the ground.” Even taken at face value with the skeptic’s interpretation of Genesis 1:20-21 as affirming the claim “Fowls were created from water” we see they don’t contradict with Genesis 2:19 as affirming “Fowls were created from out of the ground.” Hypothetically something could be created from more than one ingredient.
- In order for it to truly be contradictory one of these verses has to say “Fowls were not created from water” or “Fowls were not created from out of the ground” while some other verse teaches “Fowls were created from water” and/or “Fowls were created from out of the ground.” But those verses don’t supply the premise “Fowls were not created from water” or “Fowls were not created from out of the ground.”
- Nor do these verses supply the claims “Fowls were only created from water” or “Fowls were only created from out of the ground.”
- Again even taking the skeptic’s claims in their own words we do not have a contradiction here.
- Examining Genesis 2:19 we see that the verse uses the verbal root יָצַר which has the meaning of “form” or “fashion” with God as the subject. This clearly refers to God’s creation since this is also used in Genesis 2 to refer to God creating man. The verse states “the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky.” When the skeptics asserted that Genesis 2:19 affirmed “fowls were created from out of the ground” it is correct.
- Let’s look at the skeptic assertion that Genesis 1:20-21 as affirming the claim “Fowls were created from water.” It seems the skeptic misinterpreted ““let birds fly above the earth as meaning “fowls were created from water.” The verb translated as “fly” is not “created.”
- The skeptic might have used the verb translated”teem” from the Hebrew verbal root שָׁרַץ to think it refers to fowls being created from water. The Hebrew verb literally means “swarm” or “creeping” as seen in how the verb is used in Genesis 1:21, Genesis 7:21, Exodus 8:3, Leviticus 11:29, 11:41-43, Ezekiel 47:9. Sometimes it can taken with the meaning of multiplied as seen in Genesis 8:17 and Genesis 9:7. The reason why its can be used at times as “multiplied” is because when there’s a lot of something there’s a swarm of them. That is, there’s a lot of them. When there is more than one meaning of the word it is important to determine the best use of the meaning of the word according to its immediate context. In the context of Genesis 1:20 I think it is best to understand it as “swarm” or “creeping” in terms of animals functions and not as the skeptics take it of “producing a lot.” Why do I think the skeptics is wrong in their interpretation of Genesis 1:20?
- In the context of Genesis 1:20 God is describing the functions of creation/creatures and not functions of God Himself. For instance in talking about bird in the second half the verse God says “and let birds fly above the earth.” The parallel here strongly suggest it to be understood as “creeping/swarming.”The contrast with water and sky in the verse suggests its creatures that are swarming in the water just as birds are flying in the air.
- The next verse in Genesis 1:21 unpacks more details stated in Genesis 1:20 and notice it states what happened after God’s declaration in Genesis 1:20. Again notice creatures of the sea were swarming just creatures of the air were flying. The same verb here is translated in all the translations as “which the waters swarmed after their kind.” Once against Genesis 1:20 is describing the functions of animals of the sea.
- Also the object of the verb “teem” is not “birds” but “swarms of living creature” (crawling creatures). Grammatically “birds” is the subject of the next clause “and let birds fly above the earth.” So the skeptic is breaking serious grammatical and syntactical rules to try to claim a contradiction.
- Thus there is no contradiction here. Seems like the skeptics need to learn from our post How to Handle Bible Contradictions.
- We shouldn’t miss that worldviews are at play even with the skeptic’s objection to Christianity. The worldview of the author of the Skeptic Annotated Bible actually doesn’t even allow for such a thing as the law of non-contradiction to be meaningful and intelligible. In other words for him to try to disprove the Bible by pointing out that there’s a Bible contradiction doesn’t even make sense within his own worldview. Check out our post “Skeptic Annotated Bible Author’s Self-Defeating Worldview.”
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Fascinating site !
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Thank you for this response.
As a technical writer who has the fortune to work among a number of Christians of various stripes (and, currently, no aggressive atheists), how often do you get questions like this?
It seems that someone who would ask this would be looking for a reason not to believe. Therefore, it would be likely that no answer would help. Have you found that to be the case?
In personal evangelism (and I’m counting evangelism on college campuses) I’ve never had anyone ask this question. Nor have I been asked this online. I think you are right those who bring this up as an objection might likely not be looking for any answer that’s helpful anyways. Still it seems our blog does get a steady stream of people looking for answers who encounter the listing from the skeptic annotated Bible or someone brought it up to them in conversations and they are looking for answers. Its for those people I write. Here’s a recent comment from a few days ago on one of our other similar posts and I thought it was insightful: https://veritasdomain.wordpress.com/2019/07/30/bible-contradiction-how-long-did-jehoash-reign-2/#comment-100284
I think that you are right to write for that audience. God bless.
Thanks for the great insight as always. Your faithfulness in this great work will be rewarded by our mighty King Jesus.
Blessings.
Goofy Man Bible.:(
He is goofy in his handling of Scripture. It’s embarrassing and he doesn’t blush but promote it! Pray for those who look for answers can find this and that search engines continue to be gracious in having our answers be on the first page of search results!
In prayer.
Ha! Steve/Stephen keeps picking cherries from the same branch! Thanks for your disciplined and thorough approach to his “reaching for straws” arguments for which my fifth-grade parochial school teacher would have impatiently admonished him .
When one just see their list one can go “Wow that’s a lot of contradictions” but when one looks closer one goes “Wow that’s a lot of blatant misinterpretations.” What’s your steps thus far?
Went for an abbreviated morning walk with the dog, but other than that I’ve been pretty sedentary, only 3.6K. How about you?
Reblogged this on Reformed Calvinist..
These alleged “contradictions” continue to get more far-fetched. It never occurred to me that the first verse was saying that birds were created from the water in the first place, but even if it was, you’re right, it doesn’t say ALL birds.
That’s a good point you made. I too never saw it as the way the skeptics interpreted it. Crazy how they twist Scripture. It’s really low quality interpretation by the skeptics to make this an alleged contradiction once you really look into it. Have you seen our master list of our responses? https://veritasdomain.wordpress.com/2016/12/02/collection-of-posts-responding-to-bible-contradictions/
I may have, or I may have saved it. I’ll save it again for future reference. Thanks.
They are far fetched
How did the skeptics got that from Genesis 1;20-21? So whacky.
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I hope in the near future you look more into the alleged contradictions concerning creation. Its not that I think there’s a contradiction but the skeptics always mention it
Reading this article handling the unbeliever’s distortion of the Word is like seeing a finishing drop kick in a fight.
Well the response leaves little room for the skeptics to say this is a contradiction…
If ever a skeptic brings this up I’m going to say “foul!” and bring up your points lol
lol!
[…] From what were the fowls created? […]
It comes down to what you said here: “It seems the skeptic misinterpreted ““let birds fly above the earth as meaning “fowls were created from water.” The verb translated as “fly” is not “created.””
The skeptics annotated Bible’s contradiction list is so foul =)
This is one of the first few on the Bible Contradictions lists from the Skeptic Annotated Bible and already we see they are getting the Bible all wrong.
The atheist online is a circus sometimes
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