One can argue that by dividing the earth according to ‘man made’ nations, man ‘has’ subdued the earth and taken control of the earth by force from the animals.
Animals do not (cannot be expected to) behave morally. Does that mean you should let them eat your children? Or is it appropriate to use harsh means, up to and including violence, to protect yourself, your family and your society from animals doing exactly as they please?
In today’s civilized societies, we learn to treasure wild bears precisely because they are now rare and don’t eat many children. But before humans filled the earth, it was a much different story.
1 Like
I would say subdue and rule doesn’t require violence. Jesus explained much of the OT to us in ways we can’t or didn’t understand them until He explained them to us, giving us His wisdom. For thousands of years, we used earthly kingdom terminology and thought rule meant, forceful/brute/violent or strategic domination is required. Then Jesus came along said in the Kingdom of God, the highest of highs, became the lowliest of lows, the first, become last. The King of Kings, washes the feet of the peasants! That doesn’t sound like “violent rule” to me? Husbands are to subdue/rule their wives in the same way Jesus ruled His disciples. We were and are to subdue and rule the earth and the animals in the same way, in the terms of the Kingdom of God.
@Mervin_Bitikofer (or the Spirit of God throw him) killed it in the other thread I am quoting below!
This is the epitome of meekness that Jesus told us to have and showed us!
Also like @Mervin_Bitikofer kind of alluded to…the only lexicographers you need is Jesus. He explained was rule meant, by SHOWING us what it was intended to mean, not what it was thought to have meant thousand of years ago.
The Kingdom of God has a different dictionary than we do on earth, a true dictionary that is Jesus, the Word.
1 Like
You can’t park your car on one verse and ignore all others, and ignore Christian tradition.
Reggie,
There are some people who make a big thing out of “dispensations,” or covenants in Genesis. I am not particularly one of them, but it does make sense that God deals with people according to God’s covenant with them, and there are Adamic, Noachic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic, and Christian covenants and God deals with people according to which covenant they fall under.
I do not think dominion means violence. Dominion means rule, and humans are made in the Image of God to rule the earth. God does not rule by violence, although force is at times required. The same goes for humans.
God made humans in God’s own Triune Image in that we have body, mind, and spirit. We need to rule the earth with all three, which means the least use of force possible. When God shoes between Jacob and Esau to be the founding father of Israel, God chose the person of cunning over the person of force.
It was reported that Alexander the Great was able to break his famous steed when no one else could because he observed that it was spooked by its shadow, so he kept his head toward the sun. He used hios head to make a difficult task simple.
Modern e3xperience reveals the limits of “dominion.” Disposal of waste into the air, water, and earth does not make it disappear. Ecology is God’s way for humans to control the earth, but we are vary slow to accept this challenge to our thinking.
God gives us the ability to control and use the resources of the universe. With this ability comes accountability. Climate deniers take note.
My current understanding is this:
God wanted man to rule over his creation
God wanted man to extend his dominion over other beings by force, if need be
God nonetheless made creation as a temple
Whilst we are to have dominion over all else, we are not to desecrate God’s holy temple. We are to use resources, hunt and farm in moderation.
There is no need for any violent subduing in the modern world, since humans have already asserted their dominion over the earth through creating nations.
I think I’m back
I’m glad you’ve come to this realization Reggie. Now if only my wife would get it 
1 Like
What religion are you??? A few days back, you were discussing theistic agnosticism.
I rather think you are looking at some of this from the perspective that has gotten mankind in trouble from the beginning. We cannot make God in our own image. If you are having trouble with the concept of God to begin with, then it is no wonder that all you see in Genesis 1 is “extremely harsh dominion mandate” and "subjugation of earth’s natural resources.
These issues likely never came up too terribly much with the original hearers of this account – or even later ones. There are, after all, regulations in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible about leaving portions of your land fallow every few years. The idea here was to give the land rest so that it could replenish itself.
The mandate was there, but no way in knowing that it was ever followed by those who heard it.
There are all sorts of perspectives on these issues, beyond what you have heard on this site — or in that strange video.
Re-read Proverbs 12:10 again and think more about what it means.
And then re-visit the overaching theme of the early parts of Genesis. Some of that overaching theme is in fact echoed in Proverbs 12:10. The theme of this first book of the Bible does in fact resonate throughout the rest of the Biblical text — which is that the universe was a good thing created by God (rather than the disaster some beliefs have seen) but that humanity’s rebellion against their Creator set loose a whole range of problems for which humanity has never developed a solution. God did that — has offered that solution — in sending His own Son to pay the price for our sins. “There is no other name given among men by which we may be saved…” see Book of Acts.
The whole point of the biblical narrative — from beginning to end — is that the story is not over. We are still somewhere in the midst of it. If all you have is whether or not we will care for the earth’s resources, then you will be endlessly frustrated. You cannot even get your kids to pick up their dirty socks. God has acted, continues to act, and will act again. The problems of the present will not be the end of the story. But ultimately, there is also a judgment coming.
You can agree/disagree with others on YEC. OEC…whether to be vegetarian, vegan, or eat meat seven days a week, play Scrabble on Sunday — and so on. But you get THAT thing wrong (see Acts again), there goes the whole ball game.
So think about the larger story before you get into these other things.
You make a statement that the words are an ‘extremely harsh dominion mandate’ that cannot be explained away. I submit that your interpretation is not the only way to see those words.
The words you take as harsh are in the context of God creating us in the Divine image.
The Divine loves us…and gave us an exquisite earth to live upon, but God expects us to be responsible for it–to take charge of it–in the same way that God’s creative self would do.
Having dominion or charge of something, if you LOVE it completely, you won’t hurt it or pollute it or ruin it. Your taking charge of it would be like a loving Mom would take charge of little tykes–never to hurt them, but to ensure they would grow up to be responsible and caring adults.
God wants us to care for and take charge of things so we can show our love for God by caring for creation. To take charge is to care properly, i.e. one must do the best things for it.
Because I read those words take dominion or take charge over the earth, in the context of being created to be in the Divine image, I don’t see them as harsh or making things worse. I see them as, if we exercise the Divine in us, we will do our best for the earth and manage it well, even as God does what is best for us.
Here’s an alternate translation – Common English Bible
Genesis 1:26-28 Common English Bible (CEB)
26 Then God said, “Let us make humanity in our image to resemble us so that they may take charge of the fish of the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the earth, and all the crawling things on earth.”27 God created humanity in God’s own image,
in the divine image God created them,[a]
male and female God created them.28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and master it. Take charge of the fish of the sea, the birds in the sky, and everything crawling on the ground.”
I was an officer in the US Navy. Sometimes I would be left in charge, when my superior wasn’t there. Now I could choose to be a mean officer to the subordinates or I could have both a sense of compassion for them as well as a firmness in the requirements of fulfilling our duty. Those things don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
Just because we are left in charge and we see things go awry, we look to blame God. But there are many examples of people declaring themselves to be Christians and they abuse the earth, treat the poor shabbily and wreak havoc wherever they are, because they are not doing the will of God. They are not truly following God. They don’t follow the words of Jesus…blessed are the poor/meek etc. They don’t ‘love one another as God has loved us.’ No one who truly loves will deliberately do harm to the one s/he loves.
I hope this helps, because even though I don’t know you, I do know that God loves you even more than we can love the earth. You matter to God and that is a reason to believe in God.
This forum is a place of inquiry and thoughtfulness. I find the people here more representative of God’s love.
2 Likes
I have always felt that the Genesis storries were written from a specific culture , in relation to other surrounding cultural stories. If there is no undestandinh of that is causes all manner of problems.
It is also a matter of translation from the Hebrew.
In the matter of “dominion”, as I have heard and read elsewhere that the translation should not be taken is a controlling sense but rather as a something intrusted, to be loved and cared for.
I’ve decided Karaite Judaism is the best description of my personal views, since I accept the Tanakh and reject everything else.
I accept the violence of the words, yet also accept that since animals cannot wilfully consent to human rule, brute submission is the only way to bring this about. God wanted humans, as the wisest animals, as the ones to have stewardship over the earth. In the modern day human dominion has been established beyond reasonable doubt. We now have a mandate to preserve God’s holy temple, which was probably his priestly function for us to begin with.
I see Solomon’s statement in 1 Kings 8:27 as the clearest cosmic temple imagery in the Tanakh. It suggests that God’s dwelling place is omnipresent.
You should also consider Ezekiel 1. His vision of the glory of God while among the exiles in Babylon conveys the message that God’s glory, his presence, was not confined to the temple in Jerusalem, but accompanied the people even in Babylon. All the emphasis on wheels and wings and mobility make it clear that God’s glory is not limited to one place on earth. This is a crucial development in the theology of Israel.
Interesting. So you do not accept the Mishnah and so forth…only the Tanakh? How did someone with such a (presumably) Irish name get to this point?
I have no Jewish descent (I have English, Irish, Egyptiote Greek and Welsh heritage only), I just don’t accept the resurrection of Christ, yet see the Bible as being a good moral guide (and I’m increasingly seeing evidence that it may have some factual descent as well).
That’s a long way from saying you only accept the Tanach. But thanks for the explanation. Why is the resurrection of Christ your one (apparent) qualified here on how you see the Bible? And yes, Egyptiote Greek — interesting!! Does this refer to the Ptolemaic era??
Just wondering
There have been Greeks in Egyptian from the Ptolemaic era to relatively recently. Euclid, Erastothenes, Cleopatra, PhIlo of Alexandria, Origen, Clement, Plotinus, Hypatia, are a few famous ancient individuals
One of my classmates in medical school was an Egyptian, Coptic, and used Greek in his services for Easter. That’s where I first learned a smattering of Greek, in Detroit.
2 Likes
That’s interesting. My daughter’s boyfriend is Coptic. His parents take the religion pretty seriously, which makes sense–they haven’t survived this long by being wishy washy. I’m pretty sure he told me they use Coptic in their liturgy, down in Long Island, NY.
1 Like
Yes, historically they’ve been amazing people. They often reflect Christ"s forgiveness in many ways, even currently. I’m not sure how all that language Works in. Yes, I’ve also heard that they use Ancient Egyptian, which is Coptic, in their services to. So I don’t know exactly what happens.