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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Genesis 1:26... Let them have dominion
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Simon
Editor
# 1
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Posted
Verse nominated by Alison Adcock
"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have 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." (Genesis 1:26, in context)
Alison comments: Because misunderstanding it has caused perhaps more trouble than any other verse. (PS: This is sent on behalf of Ms Adcock, my mother, as she has no computer!)
How much of a problem is this verse? Click "Vote Now" to cast your vote!
[ 31. July 2009, 10:57: Message edited by: Simon ]
Poll information
This poll contains 1 question(s). 41 user(s) have voted.
You can't view the results of this poll without voting.
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Eternal memory
Posts: 3787 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
I'm happy with this verse.
After all its sort of true. We (collectively) are sort of in charge of the other animals on the planet.
And when the Lord comes again and sees how we messed them up he's going to be very cross with us.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
And when the Lord comes again and sees how we messed them up he's going to be very cross with us.
You got it, ken.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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basso
Ship’s Crypt Keeper
# 4228
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
And when the Lord comes again and sees how we messed them up he's going to be very cross with us.
Yeah. I think the parable of the talents is a commentary on just this -- will we hear at the end, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant"?
Posts: 4358 | From: Bay Area, Calif | Registered: Mar 2003
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Anglican_Brat
Shipmate
# 12349
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Posted
I actually find this verse, properly understand, has much to say about the ecological state of our planet.
The tragic thing is that we humans seem to have the power of life and death over other creatures. We were given tremendous gifts of reason, skill and innovation. We can use our gifts to gently care for creation, preserving it for the future, and respecting it for its beauty. Or we can run roughshod over creation, spoiling and using it for our selfish wants.
The environmentalists may see Genesis 1:26 as giving humans license to stomp over the planet. I see it as assigning responsibility to our human race to properly care for our planet earth. And I do think that we will be held account for our actions, whether it be on judgment day, or in the near future when we bear the consequences of our pollution and waste.
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It's Reformation Day! Do your part to promote Christian unity and brotherly love and hug a schismatic.
Posts: 4332 | From: Vancouver | Registered: Feb 2007
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Pre-cambrian
Shipmate
# 2055
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
The environmentalists may see Genesis 1:26 as giving humans license to stomp over the planet. I see it as assigning responsibility to our human race to properly care for our planet earth.
But your interpretation strikes me as being distinctly revisionist. I doubt if it is representative of Christianity for 95% of its existence. I also wonder if it is even representative of the majority of Christians alive today. A quick look at some conservative evangelical websites and web forums would bring home that the "licence to stomp" is widely accepted and vigorously defended.
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"We cannot leave the appointment of Bishops to the Holy Ghost, because no one is confident that the Holy Ghost would understand what makes a good Church of England bishop."
Posts: 2314 | From: Croydon | Registered: Dec 2001
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
This might be a thread for another place, but to what extent are we criticizing the verse and to what extent are we criticizing misunderstandings and abuses of the verse?
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:
But your interpretation strikes me as being distinctly revisionist. I doubt if it is representative of Christianity for 95% of its existence. I also wonder if it is even representative of the majority of Christians alive today. A quick look at some conservative evangelical websites and web forums would bring home that the "licence to stomp" is widely accepted and vigorously defended.
Well we've got the Book of Job on our side, and Genesis (when read properly) and lots of the Psalms. And Hosea and Isaiah (and Genesis again) on God's covenant with all the animals - not just humans.
And a whole load of Desert Fathers and the like - St Anthony & St. Macarius of Egypt, St Pachomius the Great. And St Basil of course.
And Columban and Kevin and maybe Columba himself (who could not bear to see oak trees felled and who nursed a sick crane)
And St Cuthbert, and his less-well-known mates like St Godric.
And Hildegard of Bingen and Francis of Assisi (& indeed Franciscans in generaL) and Julian of Norwich.
And the great John Ray and all the early modern Christian naturalists. Linnaeus himself counts as well. And Gregor Mendel.
And people you won't have heard of like Folliott Sandford Pierpoint (but you might have sung his hymns) and Mrs Alexander (you will have sung her hymns) and loads of others.
So these web forums are?
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
The environmentalists may see Genesis 1:26 as giving humans license to stomp over the planet. I see it as assigning responsibility to our human race to properly care for our planet earth.
But your interpretation strikes me as being distinctly revisionist. I doubt if it is representative of Christianity for 95% of its existence. I also wonder if it is even representative of the majority of Christians alive today. A quick look at some conservative evangelical websites and web forums would bring home that the "licence to stomp" is widely accepted and vigorously defended.
Vigorously, perhaps, but certainly not rigorously.
What ken said.
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
I don't think the "ecological" take is revisionist at all; I think we simply have a new word to apply to an old concept. Think about it: right after God gives humans dominion, what happens next in the story? Humans go the one freaking place they are told not to go in the entire garden.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
I'm around for a couple of days only before another break. This forum is new and seems likely to run and run!
On this thread, and not presented as in any way definitive, here's an online comment on the meaning of dominion ("radah") - a couple of paras down in this commentary - which suggests to me at least that the subjugation usage may indeed have been traditional, but never really captured the sense of the text.
The Creation matters to God
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Johnny S
Shipmate
# 12581
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
...And Hildegard of Bingen and Francis of Assisi (& indeed Franciscans in generaL) and Julian of Norwich.
Don't stop there. What about Martin Luther? (Who hoped that if Christ returned before he died he would be found planting a tree.)
Posts: 6834 | From: London | Registered: Apr 2007
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
Misunderstanding of what "dominion" means has led not only to abuse of the planet but also to bad atonement theology (in which Anselm's vision of God the feudal Lord as responsible for the well-being of the cosmos, so that human sin is a sin against the beauty and order of the cosmos, not just a personal affront to God, becomes an angry tyrant God out for blood when offended).
If we think of "dominion" more in the terms Anselm viewed God's lordship, it becomes ludicrous to think responsible dominion could possibly involve the destruction and degradation of who/whatever one rules over. Can you imagine QE2 exercising her dominion by abusing and killing her subjects, treating them like we humans have treated the earth? Monarchs who have done that have not been favorably judged by history.
Interestingly, this may be what our being made in the "image" of God is about. In antiquity, a king's "image" would be placed in areas over which he had dominion but didn't live (e.g., captured territories), and idols were understood as the gods' images - a sacramental localization of that god's power and presence. People even used images (small statuettes) of themselves as votives, placing them in the temple because they could not sit in the temple all day praying/worshipping. In these cases (with the exception perhaps of kings) the statue/ette didn't even have to look like the god or person it represented - e.g., a god depicted as a winged ox wasn't necessarily thought to be a winged ox; the iconography was a grammar that communicated information about that god or person. (My sources for this are the IVP Bible Background Commentary and an article I once read in Biblical Archeology Review [the bit about personal votives].) This could also mean that the commandment against making images may at least in part be about people shirking their own role/responsibility to be God's image in the world - to be stewards and have dominion on behalf of God.
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
Posts: 7773 | From: Detroit | Registered: Feb 2004
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Carys
Ship's Celticist
# 78
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
This might be a thread for another place, but to what extent are we criticizing the verse and to what extent are we criticizing misunderstandings and abuses of the verse?
Indeed. As with 'The way, the truth and the life' my issue is not with the verse but with the way it has been abused. So as I voted that not a problem at all, I'll do the same with this one.
Carys
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O Lord, you have searched me and know me
You know when I sit and when I rise
Posts: 6896 | From: Bryste mwy na thebyg | Registered: May 2001
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
Agreed.
If a verse can be read in two ways, one of them obiously responsible and right, and one of them obviously selfish and abusive, and there is nothing to favour the abusive reading and much against it, it seems to me that any misinterpretation is, if not wilful, at least culpable. Certainly not the writer's (or inspirer's) fault.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Some people interpret the "dominion" section as meaning that we're meant to be park rangers.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Yerevan
Shipmate
# 10383
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Posted
IMO the verse just reflects reality. We have dominion over the earth and bar a tiny minority of ultra-enviromentalists we aren't going to give it up any time soon. The choice for us is how we exercise that dominion.
Posts: 3758 | From: In the middle | Registered: Sep 2005
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Gill H
Shipmate
# 68
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Posted
I've tried telling those pesky wasps I have dominion over them, but they don't accept my authority. Heretics!
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*sigh* We can’t all be Alan Cresswell.
- Lyda Rose
Posts: 9313 | From: London | Registered: May 2001
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DagonSlaveII
Shipmate
# 15162
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Posted
If the story is to be believed on this one verse, might as well believe the whole thing. Like man is given this commandment to have dominion, but is commanded to only eat plants. (Rescinded post-flood. Debatable whether they ate flesh after the fall until then, although they did sacrifice them. Plus, what did Cain eat when the ground was more cursed for him than the rest of humanity?) They were also naked, so they didn't need clothing to have dominion.
Hebrew word. Greek word
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Posts: 138 | From: Houma | Registered: Sep 2009
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BWSmith
Shipmate
# 2981
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Posted
Any "environmentalist" reading of this verse is highly anachronistic.
Everyone in the original audience knew that nature was largely in control of mankind. There was no hint that eventually man's technology would give us the ability to inflict serious damage.
This verse is an assurance that it is not God's will for "man to be subservient to nature" (which had overtones for contemporary nature-worship as well).
Posts: 722 | From: North Carolina, USA | Registered: Jul 2002
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