duordi said:
Another interesting thought.
I have never considered that it might have been distroyed before the flood.
How would you propose that they got by the flaming sword?
The angel was there to keep man from getting back in, not for keeping animals out.
Well...
Adam went head over heals for Eve.
They were in perfect physical condition.
God commanded them to reproduce.
Not only would this give incentive but it indicates they were able.
Eve does not concieve until she does so with Cain after being evicted.
It doesn't seem like they were in there for her complete cycle.
Can we be certain of this, just because none were mentioned till Cain and Able? I think the record is of Adam and Eve's offsping, and even there, of the males, in particular. What about females? Who says they may not have had 'litters' full -before and after? Then, here is something else to think about. If Eve had daughters, who had little boys, either in or out of the garden (yes, like rabbits, hard to say who fathered what, except for the official record of the males) -they wouldn't be in the record there, just Adam's boys, and their eldest boy after that, on down the line. There are millions of sexy looholes to be fruitful and multiply with there, you could drive a Mac truck through them!
There is no indication that I can see that the animals were driven out of the garden. Do you know anything that would indicate this?
Of course some would wander out by themselves.
If the garden was closed, and animals were made for man, what would they do in that ghost town?
One of the creatures in Eden, God told this.
"
Gen 2:15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. "
Doesn't sound like the serpent was to stay in the garden by itself, really, does it? How could there be bruising, and enmity, etc, unless they were together?
Also, if it is true that all creatures (save trilobites, and some made for the earth
at large) were in Eden, as this seems to indicate ..
"Gen 2:19 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. 20 And Adam gave names to
all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to
every beast of the field;"
Not so hard to do if they were all right there nearby! By the power of deduction, we can see that man needed his creatures, so they must have come out as well. This is evidenced by how we see there were sheep, etc out of the garden, as you pointed out, whebn they were out of the garden. (God also made them a fur coat, Greenpeace, eat your heart out!)
I mean, usually, when we name animals in our yard, it is because we own them, and they are like our pets, or our animals. WE are the masters of the planet, remember. Gen 1:26 "..let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. "
If you had dominion over the animals, and maybe even could talk to them, would you not tell them to follow you as you moved? They gave the milk, coats, wool, cheese, plowed the earth, etc. They were more or less the currency of the time, or the riches man had.
PS Someone raised the question a while ago if we know when Cain and Able did their thing, I said I thought we did not know. Apparently, this bible commentary says we do know!
", let it be observed that the death of Abel took place in the one hundred and twenty-eighth or one hundred and twenty-ninth year of the world. Now, "supposing Adam and Eve to have had no other sons than Cain and Abel in the year of the world one hundred and twenty-eight, yet as they had daughters married to these sons, their descendants would make a considerable figure on the earth. Supposing them to have been married in the
nineteenth year of the world, they might easily have had each eight children, some males and some females, in the twenty-fifth year. In the fiftieth year there might proceed from them in a direct line sixty-four persons; in the seventy-fourth year there would be five hundred and twelve; in the ninety-eighth year, four thousand and ninety-six; in the one hundred and twenty-second they would amount to thirty-two thousand seven hundred and sixty-eight: if to these we add the other children descended from Cain and Abel, their children, and their children's children, we shall have, in the aforesaid
one hundred and twenty-eight years four hundred and twenty-one thousand one hundred and sixty-four men capable of generation"
http://www.studylight.org/com/acc/view.cgi?book=ge&chapter=4&verse=23#Ge4_23
PPS What better way of God driving Adam out of the garden after the fall, then the animals, who were now hostile!? Like living in a zoo with no cages, and snakes that are out to get you!