On June 18, our five-year-old daughter was diagnosed with amblyopia. The following day we received our new Answers magazine. We were surprised and encouraged to read the article about God’s amazing design for human vision written by an author with amblyopia! God has used Answers to comfort and encourage us personally. All the time, God is good!
Andy and Noelle H., Clinton, Iowa
Your article about bladderworts made me wonder. Doesn’t the Bible differentiate between creatures with “nephesh” and those without? If insects are not alive, then they would not have to “die” when they are eaten any more than plants “die” when they are eaten. If this is the case, couldn’t insect eating have occurred before the Fall?
Sterling M., Email
Editor’s Response: Simply put, the Bible is unclear whether insects are nephesh life. People and some animals are described in Genesis as having, or being, nephesh. The Hebrew word nephesh conveys the basic idea of a “breathing creature,” but some passages indicate that nephesh creatures may only be the ones that have blood. For example, Leviticus 17:11 states that “the life [nephesh] of all flesh is the blood of it.” There is no example in Scripture of “blood” ever being used in reference to invertebrates. In fact, in the biblical and everyday sense, invertebrates do not have blood [Hebrew, dam].
This might seem to imply the possibility of insect death before the Fall. But in Genesis 1:29–30 God specifically gives “every green herb for food” to all animals, including “everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life.” This seems to rule out the possibility that other animals ate insects, and if insects are included in the category “everything that creeps on the earth,” it also rules out the possibility that those insects ate each other.
I just read “How Long Was Adam in the Garden?” Nowhere in the Bible does it say that Cain was the firstborn. Please tell me where I am wrong.
Ed O., Cary, North Carolina
Editor’s Response: While the Bible does not specifically say that Cain was Adam and Eve’s first son, the sequence of the Hebrew text and Eve’s comment about his birth very strongly imply that he was the first.
But the most important reason we know Eve couldn’t have had children, or even have conceived a child, before the Fall is that any such child would be born without sin. In fact, God tells us that in Adam all sinned—we all inherited original sin from him.
I think you may have missed one possibility in explaining the relationship between dogs and wolves [“Suite Dogs”]—that is that there may be no relationship at all from an ancestry perspective.
It is a very real possibility that God created “dogs” on Day 6 different from any other creature to be humans’ unique companion. They are fundamentally different from wolves and also different from any of the other domesticated animals referenced in the article.
Although it is certainly possible that man domesticated animals from the wild, it is also possible that God provided Adam and Eve with a unique companion in a dog.
Andy D., Email
This issue explores the marvelous human immune system. Plus take a look at the Creation Museum's new Allosaurus.
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