A. Leo Oppenheim, writing in the Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography on Man and Nature in Mesopotamian Civilization, makes an interesting (and usually unnoticed) distinction between the two “creation stories” of Genesis.
The relationship between man and nature in the ancient Near East is nowhere as pointedly formulated as in Genesis 1:26, where it is said that God gave man “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.” The parallel version of the Creation story (Genesis 2:19) formulates the same relationship differently, and in a way that is more relevant to the characteristic attitude of those civilizations that relied on writing for the preservation of their intellectual traditions. It says, “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” While it was thus man’s privilege as the lord of creation to give names to the animals, the knowledge of all their names and their individual features and behavior was considered the privilege of the sage. This is illustrated by the passage (I Kings 4:33) that extols the wisdom of Solomon: “And he spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall: he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes.”
