The boys and I were examining ants as part of a unit study on cooperation. As I did my research I discovered that there are over 10,000 species of ants in the world. Over 10,000 different species of ants alone! Well, that got me to thinking about Adam, Eve and original sin and taxonomy; logical association, right?
The boys and I were examining ants as part of a unit study on cooperation. As I did my research I discovered that there are over 10,000 species of ants in the world. Over 10,000 different species of ants alone! Well, that got me to thinking about Adam, Eve and original sin and taxonomy; logical association, right?
Adam's God given job was to name all the different species of life on Earth. This job should have taken him all eternity but because Adam's life was cut to a brief 900 give-or-take years the task has been handed from generation to generation and, to this day, scientists are still discovering and naming new life-forms.
What a daunting task this must have seemed to Adam. In fact, he even needed a helper so God gave him Eve. Put yourself in their fig-leafs: have you ever taken on a task that just never seems to end? Housekeeping pops to the top of my mind. And laundry. And filing papers. Oh, and dishwashing. How frustrating it is to get to the end of a load of dishes, the brown dish water dreggy and greasy from the pots and pans, then someone brings you one last dirty glass that he found under his bed.
I can imagine how Adam must have felt after he had just named 9,999 different kinds of ants when in walks Eve, holding yet another:
"Oy, vei,” sighs Adam, “another ant? Let’s see…I'll call this one Eciton burchelli,".
"Um, honey, you already used that name," reminds Eve.
"No I didn't," replies Adam.
"Yes, you did, it’s number 4,467," asserts Eve. "I told you, you should have written it down!"
"Yeah, yeah!" responds Adam. "I'm tired, I'm hungry and I'm bored!"
"I know," smiles Eve. "Here, have a bite of this apple."
And the rest is history.