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 ²⁴ And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. ²⁵ God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

Now remember that the Geocrationist perspective here is that, as I write about in “Let” (borrowed from Glenn Morton’s Days of Proclamation Theory), that God removed an insurmountable hindrance to the animals mentioned in the verses above.  But, what was preventing the land from producing livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals?  Well, that depends first of all, on when we’re talking about.  Next, it depends on what livestock is, what constitutes “creatures that move along the ground”, and what constitutes wild animals?

Let’s consider livestock first, because that is the easiest.  Basically, livestock refers mostly to domesticated animals, raised for the their meat.  Usually, this would refer to cattle, but it can include other animals as well, such as sheep and pigs.  However, I don’t see livestock in my Strong’s concordance.  Okay, let’s look at the New King James (that’s the version of my concordance):

²⁴ Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind”; and it was so. ²⁵ And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

Okay, it’s cattle, creeping things, and beasts.

The Hebrew word used for cattle is behemah, which is generally a “dumb” beast, especially any large quadruped or animal.  Looking at the evolutionary tree at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_mammals, this description would seem to fit the following species and periods:

• Artiodactyla (early Eocene; 54 million years ago): pigs, hippos, camels, giraffes, cattle, deer
• Perissodactyla (late Paleocene; 55 to 65 million years ago): horses, rhinos, tapirs
• Proboscidea (early Eocene; 54 million years ago): elephants

And I’m sure there are more, but we can see that these animals mostly appeared by 54 million years ago.

Now, part of the difficulty of dating God’s pronouncement of Day 6 is that whales are, evolutionarily speaking, descendants of cattle.  Cattle were “created” on Day 6; whales on Day 5.  Thankfully, we only need to figure out when God “Let” the fish teem, or “Let” the land produce mammals; we do not have to worry about when the process completed, because God was letting “it” happen!

So let’s revisit whales for moment.

The easiest insurmountable hindrance I can think of for whales are mammals!  However, that cannot be what Day 5 refers to, because wouldn’t Day 5 and Day 6 then overlap?  Let’s not answer to hastily.

Another insurmountable hindrance for whales is food… without plenty of fish, you cannot have whales, and fish started teeming 65 million years ago.  Could that be how Day 5 could happen before Day 6?  But wait. Birds are also a problem, because they didn’t fill the skies until about 53 million years ago! On the other hand, birds were allowed to start recovering before large mammals!  Still.  This is too close for my comfort.  Thankfully, there is a solution!  Let us look back again at the scripture!

 ²⁴ And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds…”

For God to produce living creatures “according to their kinds”, he needed a “kind” to product them “according” to.  Now, for Day 5, it was clear that God was producing a lot of fish from a few fish; a lot of birds from a few birds. Whales were a product of the plentiful fish.  However, God didn’t tell the land animals to “fill” the land, but He told the land to produce animals according to their kind.  This implies God “let” the land produce new cattle from old cattle… but not more of them.  After all, God went to the to the trouble of saying more fish, more birds.  But He didn’t say more mammals.  So, this wasn’t simply a pronouncement to make more.  Well, making more of the same would be rather anti-climactic, wouldn’t it? Okay then, how about having the land make new varieties of cattle according the kinds already in existence?  In other words, make more hoofed animals (that’s the kind), but different varieties within that kind than previously existed!  It’s evolution, commanded by God! “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds…”!

So, when did the land produce new varieties of land mammals from old?  Well, it happened during something called the Grand Coupure:

The Grande Coupure marks a break between endemic European faunas before the break and mixed faunas with a strong Asian component afterwards. J. J. Hooker and his team summarized the break:

“Pre-Grande Coupure faunas are dominated by the perissodact family Palaeotheriidae (distant horse relatives), six families of artiodactyls (cloven-hoofed mammals) (Anoplotheriidae, Xiphodontidae, Choeropotamidae, Cebochoeridae, Dichobunidae and Amphimerycidae), the rodent family Pseudosciuridae, the primate families Omomyidae and Adapidae, and the archontan family Nyctitheriidae.

“Post-Grande Coupure faunas include the true rhinoceros (family Rhinocerotidae), three artiodactyl families (Entelodontidae, Anthracotheriidae and Gelocidae) related respectively to pigs, hippos and ruminants, the rodent families Eomyidae, Cricetidae (hamsters) and Castoridae (beavers), and the lipotyphlan family Erinaceidae (hedgehogs). The speciose genus Palaeotherium plus Anoplotherium and the families Xiphodontidae and Amphimerycidae were observed to disappear completely.

“Only the marsupial family Herpetotheriidae, the artiodactyl family Cainotheriidae, and the rodent families Theridomyidae and Gliridae (dormice) crossed the faunal divide undiminished.”

And look at what this included: cattle, creeping things, and beasts!  Exactly what science says happened, the scripture are consistent with it!

Now, the Grande Coupure happened 33.5 mya… fully 20 million years after fish teemed, the birds were filling the sky, and whales appeared in the ocean!

According to science, Day 6 and Day 5 do not overlap.  Scripture is once again correct.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 28th, 2010 at 9:40 pm and is filed under The Science, Evolution, Day 5, Day 6. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.