Chaos monster?
You need a bit more context to very many duties, but there is âBe fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.â Which, as many have pointed out, is a command to rule well over creation, not to destroy it.
A common feature of the surrounding mythologies was having the sea being or being the dwelling of a (sometimes primordial, sometimes not) monster that challenged the gods. Examples include Typhon, Rahab, and Tiamat.
Ah, well done, you fulfilled the requirement, but I see nothing of good stewardship, just conquest. This wasnât a culture - 500 BCE - that could see any danger in that.
They could probably figure out (if they had reason to think about it) that destroying everything would produce problems, like a lack of food for them. The ârule wellâ has to be inferred from other passages, though. One can also infer that from care of neighbors, and we can tell that doing so requires some level of care for the rest of creation.
Thatâs an anachronism projected back.
Itâs an âapply both passagesâ, to arrive at âwe are to rule over creation, but we are also elsewhere commanded to care for other humans, which we can tell requires care for the rest of creation.â
Not something that would have occurred to them.
Morning and evening is a common expression for an entire day. But when the order is flipped, it typically refers to a night instead (e.g. Exodus 27:21; Leviticus 24:3; Numbers 9:15; Deuteronomy 16:4). In Genesis 1, the repeated phrase âand there was evening, and there was morningâ seems to show that all Godâs work happens between morning and evening. After God finishes working each day, evening comes, and then morning comes, with no activity between.
Agreed. The days are normal days just as the breath of the next chapter is normal breath. But both the days and breath are ways to make Godâs incomprehensible work understandable to us. Both chapters personify God in their own way, whether as a king giving decrees and evaluating their accomplishment as he holds court each day, or as a potter sculpting and firing dirt vessels. We should get what the metaphors communicate without pressing them to literally describe Godâs timetable or body.
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