How do Christians believe that animals were formed?

Answer 1

The same as man out of the dust of the ground - physical creatures. The difference being God gave all the 'breath of life' (Genesis 1:30) or in the Hebrew 'nephesh' which is commonly translated 'soul' but man was directly given this by God Himself, blowing into the man's mouth (Genesis 2:7). And as mankind has a 'spirit' in him or in the Hebrew 'ruach' which animals do not (Genesis 7:22), it is quite probable that when God directly blew the nephesh into man, He also blew in the spirit or ruach in man (Job 32:8).

Answer 2

Christians who believe the Genesis story of creation believe that Adam alone was made from the dust of the ground (Genesis 2:7), but overlook Genesis Genesis 2:19, which says that the animals were also made from the dust of the ground. For the author of the second creation account (Genesis 2:4b-25), God was not all-powerful and could not make living things out of nothing. Christians typically look to the first creation story (Genesis 1:1-2:4a) for the creation of animals and find that God simply spoke them into existence.

Of course, many Christians now realise that the animals we see today evolved over a period of more than a billion years, from the first basic forms of life.

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