Into the weeds: What we have in common with animals—and what we don’t

Genesis 1 and 2 teach us that there is a certain amount of commonality between animals and people. Both are nephesh chayyah made from the ground. (All Scripture quotations are from the ESV.)

“God said, ‘Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and birds that fly above the earth …’ ”

“And God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth [i.e. wild animals] according to their kinds.’ ” (Genesis 1:24).

“—then the LORD God formed the man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” (Genesis 2:7)

“So the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.” (Genesis 2:19)

The Hebrew phrase translated “living creature(s)” is nephesh chayyah. Chayyah means living, alive. L’chaim, the Jewish toast (“To life!”), comes from the same root. But nephesh can mean many things: breath; anything that breathes, i.e. an animal; person; soul; life; self; spirit, feelings; inclination, desire. Some translations call Adam a living soul, though never the animals. Both Adam and the animals are living, breathing creatures.

Both Adam and the animals are made from the ground, and God “forms” both. Thus Genesis calls our attention to something scientists know: human being and animals are alike. That’s why medical researchers can test new drugs on rats and new surgical procedures on dogs. That’s why we find the sorts of physical similarities that fuel the theory that man evolved from the apes. God made man and animals from the same raw material and both sets of creatures became nephesh chayyah.

But that’s not enough—and that’s the big joke in Genesis 2. Notice that in Genesis 1, we read that God makes the animals, then man and woman in his own image. But in Genesis 2, God makes the man, and says, “It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:18). Readers of Genesis 1 expect Eve to come next, but that is not what God does. Instead God makes every kind of animal—the cows, the sheep, the lions, the elephants, and so on and so on—as well as every kind of bird and brings them to Adam.

And none of them is suitable for Adam. (See Genesis 2:19-20). Only after Adam has seen all of the animals and named them does God put him into deep sleep and make Eve. None of the animals is suitable to Adam, because out of all God created, only Adam and Eve are made in his own image (Genesis 1:26-27). Humans and animals are alike, but not alike enough.

So perhaps the bigger joke is the one that evolutionary scientists have pulled on many Bible scholars, convincing them that scientific discoveries nullify the word of God. Except this one is not funny. It’s harmful.