Abstract
Genesis 2 contains some powerful imagery germane to the discussion of environmental awareness and responsibility. Both humans and animals are described in Hebrew as nephesh hayya', a “living being,” but in English we translate the words differently to maintain our human superiority. We subsequently disown our oneness with the animal realm by brutalizing species of animals throughout the world. Likewise the human is put into the garden to “keep” or “protect” it, which is not what we have been doing with either the world or the animal kingdom.
My wife and I were on a trip for three weeks. She left her car in the carport to protect it from storms while we were gone. From afar she used her mobile phone to check the security camera in the carport to see if anyone tried to enter the house. What she noticed was that a stray yellow cat was living on top of her Toyota in the carport. The cat would spend up to six hours at a time sleeping and cleaning herself on top of the car. The cat had made the car her bed and her bathtub. Upon returning home, my wife put the car back out in the open about sixty feet from the carport (we have a large back yard). One day upon returning from my morning walk on the levee, I was confronted by a scowling yellow cat in the carport. I called my wife to observe this cat, who simply would not move nor stop scowling at me. (I don't know how I can tell that a cat is scowling, but I am sure that I could tell this cat was scowling.) When Beth came to the door, the cat scowled at her, then looked at the car sixty feet away, then looked at her, then looked at the car, and then looked at her. The cat kept up this behavior for five minutes as we watched. Finally, the cat walked out into our backyard, stopped, looked back at us with one final scowl, and walked out of our yard. It was obvious. The cat was mad that the car was gone, and the cat knew that my wife had moved it. The cat was indignant that her shaded bed and bathroom had been moved. My wife then said, “How many steps of reasoning are necessary for that stray cat to acknowledge that the car has been moved, that I am the owner and that I moved it, and that some form of communication to human beings could express cat indignation at the loss of bed and bath?”
I responded, “And some people say that animals have no real intelligence, but only instinct.” For years I have argued with a Jesuit philosopher in my university, Loyola University New Orleans. He said that animals have no real cognitive function, only instinct, and I said that animals have intelligence, only a little less complicated than ours. He would respond that animals cannot do philosophy; I would respond that half of his freshmen students couldn't do philosophy either. I would say that zoologists prefer not to use the word “instinct” but speak of simple animal intelligence. He would state that zoologists simply project upon the animals their own wishful thinking. (That might have been “philosopher imperialism.”)
We have human imperialism. We do our best to distance ourselves from the “intelligence” of the animal world to justify our mastery over them, perhaps also to justify our horrid treatment of the animal kingdom in general as we destroy their ecosystems. Thus, we do not like to admit their intelligence might be like ours.
I believe the biblical text speaks of the animals as our brothers and sisters, as kindred, and our “rule” over them is the appropriate stewardship of older brothers and sisters over younger brothers and sisters. Sometimes we refuse to translate the text to acknowledge that, as is the case with Genesis 1, and sometimes we simply mis-translate a text, as is the case with Genesis 2.
Living Souls
Genesis 2:7, 19:
… then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. … So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.”
The first thing that immediately needs to be stressed is that God makes the animals out of the dust of the ground in a careful and loving fashion in the same way that the human was crafted. As a small child I was taught that people were special because God took special efforts to make us carefully out of the dust of the ground, while the animals were brought into existence by the singular command of God, “let there be.” This is a horrible scissors and paste job of the biblical texts, taking the creation language from day six of Genesis 1 wherein God is said to bring land animals into existence by the dramatic command, “let there be,” and combining it with the anthropomorphic portrayal of God making human creatures very carefully according to the narrative of Genesis 2. How convenient of us to cobble those two texts together to get justification for our human triumphalism over the animals. What they did not tell me as a child, and apparently we still too often overlook this, is that the text in Genesis 2 speaks of how God carefully and patiently crafted the animals in the same way as the human. Of course, Christians frequently cobble biblical texts together to make them say exactly what Christians want to hear instead of what they need to hear.
But there is another issue deserving of our attention. A serious translation issue emerges with these texts. The animals are referred to with the English expression “living creature” in verse 19. The Hebrew words are nephesh hayya', two words that could be translated as “living soul.” In Genesis 2:7 the Adam is also called a nephesh hayya', but he is called a “living being” or a “living soul.” Both humanity and the animals are described with the very same Hebrew words, but we translate them differently. For example, the King James Version says “living soul” and the New Revised Standard Version says “living being” for humanity with those two words in verse 7. But then those translations use “living creature” to describe the animals. We do not say “living creature” when describing humanity, nor do we say “living being” or “living soul” for the animals. That is so hypocritical.
Our English translations create a significant difference between people and the animals by calling the former a “living soul” and the latter a “living creature” (Hiebert: 62). The reader of the biblical text then unconsciously assumes a vast difference between animals, who are merely “creatures,” and humanity who are said to have a “soul.” As a small child I was taught by educated clergy that animals did not have souls, and that this was the biggest difference between people and animals, and perhaps the existence of a human soul is what gave people the “image of God.” That was a lie! That was a disgusting thing to teach children. I would call this human imperialism in translation; we seek to strongly differentiate ourselves from the animal realm. According to the biblical text we all are “living souls.” Whatever the “soul” is, we have it, I suppose, … and so do the animals, … if we take this text seriously. Christopher Wright boldly says the same, when he forthrightly states, “it is a hoary misunderstanding of Genesis 2:7 to regard it as the origin of the human ‘soul,' in the sense of something that the rest of the animals lack. … So then, we are animals among animals” (Wright: 225). Amen.
That the biblical text uses the same Hebrew words to describe both animals and people really emphasizes the unity of human beings and the animal realm. We share common identity in the life given to us by God, and we share common identity on the planet given to us for a home. One is immediately reminded of the evolutionary theory which describes humanity as evolving out of the animal kingdom, especially the origin of humans among the primate families.
Speaking of the evolutionary theory. … People ask me if I believe in the evolutionary theory, for many Protestants and Roman Catholics in Louisiana do not. (Many believe that Noah's flood drowned the dinosaurs.) I say that I believe that evolution is how God created the world. They then indignantly ask me if I actually think that people are descended from (ugh) monkeys. I often say, “No, we are not descended from monkeys, monkeys are our cousins, we are descended from apes.” Because I am extremely sarcastic, I then say, “Are you ashamed to be descended from primates? Apes and monkeys did not invent mustard and chlorine gas, machine guns, death camps, nuclear weapons, and biological warfare. They can be violent, they are our relatives, after all, but they lack the capacity to create the demonic evil that we have inflicted upon the earth. No wonder they throw their pooh at us in the zoos.” I recall seeing a religious church service on television in which two beautiful young girls sang a song entitled, “My Grandfather was not a monkey.” How dare we be ashamed of our animal brothers and sisters, and particularly our animal ancestry from which God evolved us. What makes us think that we are morally superior to all the little creatures of the earth whom God entrusted to our care? I suspect that really intelligent monkeys and apes live in the jungle with bags over their heads so as not to be confused with their violent relatives, the humans. When asked, they probably say, “No we're not related to humans; they're hairless and ugly, not like us at all. They don't even know how to climb trees.”
The biblical text speaks otherwise about our animal relatives. The Hebrew of Genesis 2 makes people and animals kindred, and appears to stand somewhat in contrast with Genesis 1 and the imperative to rule the animals and plants of the world (Bauckham: 21). But perhaps we best put the two in tension. We “rule” the world by divine grace, but we are one with our animal brothers and sisters. Our “rule” is one of stewardship. It is “rule” governed by concern and care.
Ancient Israelites would have understood the concept of “rule” over the animals differently than do we, for they were simple farmers who had their livestock live on the first floor of their homes with them. They could appreciate more than do we their oneness with the animal realm. Of course, they would kill and eat their livestock, but they respected the blood of those animals when they killed them for food, and thus they drained the blood. But they did not kill them in the wasteful fashion that we have so often done in recent years.
We need to recapture that Hebrew original meaning today. Species of animals are disappearing and becoming endangered at a frightening rate. We need to be reminded of our oneness with the animal realm and our responsibility for stewardship of the animal realm. It is tragic when our English translations fail to provide us with texts that affirm this divinely created unity and responsibility. We and the animals are together the “living souls” or the “living beings” in our world.
God created both human beings and animals out of the dust of the ground, which gives them a common kinship and origin (much in the same way that the evolutionary theory tries to teach us today). We have a relationship, a bond with all life on this planet in the perspective of the biblical text (Bergant: 93). We alone were created with the “breath of life,” whatever that might mean. Perhaps, it means that God has a personal relationship with people, but not with animals (Fritsch: 28; Richardson: 67). But that does not make people superior to the animals; rather, it imbues humanity with a sense of responsibility toward the animal realm. If so, the divine breath within us implies that even more do we have a divine-like responsibility to care for the animals. We have forgotten the reference to our common origin with the animal realm in favor of an attitude of domination. We need to remind ourselves that both we and the animals come from the dust of the ground.
Animals and people are equal, we have equality of “status” according to Bernhard Anderson, but we do not have equality of “position” and “responsibility.” Therein it should be said that humanity has a higher “position” because humanity is “responsible” for caring for the animal realm (Anderson: 161). If the “breath of life” makes us special, it means that it makes us responsible, not dominating. We are the older brothers and sisters.
By calling both animals and people “living souls” the author of Genesis 2 speaks in more specific fashion than the author of Genesis 1. In Genesis 1:29–30 both animals and people are created on the sixth day, and God says that plant life is given for food to both people and animals. In fact, the biblical text has God speak separately of how plant life is food first for people and then for the animals. People and animals live in interdependence upon the earth which provides us with food. We share the same “table” upon which God provides us our daily fare (Anderson: 130).
Humanity has been messing up the dinner table. We have turned much of our planet into vast wastelands by improper farming (the dust bowl in 1930's midwestern America), we have bulldozed and logged the forests of southeast Asia and the Amazon that shelter countless animal species and provide the precious oxygen that we humans need to breathe in order to stay alive, and for how many years did we simply kill animals for sport (birds in America's south and buffalo in the west). We need to be sent away hungry from the table. Oh, maybe that will happen by the mid-twenty-first century when human population is so great that many will starve.
We are one with the animals. We are brothers and sisters with the animals. We need to acknowledge that and do something before the animals are gone. When the animals are gone, we shall not be too long in following them into extinction. We are driving them into extinction, and not only do most people not care, many make jokes about it. I recall the notorious tee shirt, “kill the whales,” and another, “kill the baby seals.” Often when I discuss our killing of so many animal species, educated people will say to me, “well, animals go extinct all the time, new species arise, and that's simply nature's way.” When I point out that we are losing biodiversity, and potentially the loss of knowledge that can produce new drugs, I usually hear, “Are you one of those environmentalist freaks?” (argumentum ad hominem). That response is how you ignore the value of a person's argument. Well, yes I am an environmentalist. Maybe I am, in part, because I read the Bible as well as Scientific American.
What are we doing to the animals? The natural extinction rate is estimated to be about one species per million annually; however, currently we lose about one thousand species per million every year. That means we are killing off species at a thousand times the natural rate. We lose a species on this planet every eight hours (Bouma-Prediger: 29–30; Bauckham: 215). It is estimated that there are 100 million species and about 10,000 to 100,000 go extinct every year. That number will accelerate in the years ahead as certain key species in the chain of life disappear and cause other species to disappear in cascade fashion. About one million species are at risk of extinction in the next few decades. Two thousand species of amphibians are in danger of extinction. Land space is lacking for 500,000 species. We lose about twenty five million acres of tropical forest every year. By 2015 one third of marine fish stocks were overharvested. With the increased global warming, caused by human activity, a rise of 1.5 to 2.5 degrees fahrenheit will kill off an estimated 20% to 30% of the animal species (Houghton: 196–97). The disappearance of species is caused by global warming, overharvesting, pollution, habitant destruction, and over-hunting. The underlying cause behind all of these is human overpopulation (Horrell: 5; “Extinction”; UNESCO). Animals in the wild are disappearing. For example, in Germany there are fewer than 100 wolves in the wild as of 2016, as compared to 5 million domesticated dogs. In the world there are 200,000 wild wolves but more than 400 million domesticated dogs. There are 400,000 wild lions in the world compared to 600 million house cats; 900,000 African buffalo to 1.5 billion domesticated cows; and 50 million penguins to 20 billion chickens. Over 90% of all large animals in the world are domesticated animals (Harari: 83–84). Domesticated animals are a sign of human expansion into the natural environment to the exclusion of the animals who were there before. There are too many of us, we consume too much, we have powerful and destructive technologies, we have bad economic and political systems, and we simply have a bad set of attitudes toward the created realm (Horrell: 5; Martin-Schram & Stivers). Economists rule the world, not scientists; greed drives humanity, not common sense (Bauckham: 230). Our treatment of animals is one of barbaric cruelty. One story will suffice. In Indonesia hunters will kill a nursing mother orangutan in order to obtain the infant orangutan for sale in the marketplace as a pet (Van Dyke: 102).
We love to go to zoos. Sadly we see signs connected to specific animals that declare how this particular animal is endangered in the wild. But we fail to appreciate how extensive this endangerment is in the world of animals. In an assessment made in 2006 by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature it was estimated that the following percentages of animals in the world are threatened with extinction: 12% of bird species, 23% of mammal species, 31% of amphibian species, 40% of fish species, 50% of reptile species, 53% of all invertebrate species, and 70% of all plant species (Bouma-Prediger: 30).
In the evolutionary history of our planet there have been five great extinctions over hundreds of millions of years which have ended significant evolutionary periods of time, for example, the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs sixty five million years ago. We are creating the sixth extinction (Bauckham: 215). We are crowding out our roommates in the apartment of planet earth with our human reproductive capacity.
We must stop killing off the animals by destroying their habitats. We are losing so many species, that we are destroying biodiversity on this planet. Genesis 1 celebrates that biodiversity when the text sings about how living things swarm in the oceans and the skies, and how the animals will reproduce according to their “kinds.” We can see that as a reference not only to simple animal reproduction but also to “speciation,” the evolution of new species in the great process of life. (Bauckham: 219). We need the biodiversity that is found in our world. One third of our medical prescriptions come from plants and fungi in tropical rainforests, and probably many more medicinal products could be derived from species of plants as of yet unknown to us. But we may never discover those remedies as we bulldoze and burn our tropical rainforests into oblivion. In the Amazon the rain forests are bulldozed for wood; in Indonesia the rain forests are bulldozed to make way for oil palm plantations (but the oil palms do not absorb as much carbon dioxide as the rain forests did) (Bauckham: 213, 229–30). Our brothers and sisters in the plant and animal world symbolically reach out to help us with the gifts that God has given them, but we destroy their efforts. We must share the earth, the dirt with them, but we refuse. Our large human population consumes 60 billion tons of non-renewable resources every year. We adversely affect 75% of the land and 60% of marine environments. We are simply too large for the apartment. We must share the earth with our animal brothers and sisters; we were made from the same dirt.
Indeed, we must do more than share the land with the animals. We must protect the land and the animals according to Genesis 2. In Genesis 2:15 God placed the “man” in the garden to “till” it and “keep” it. What a beautiful image. God has placed the new little creature, Mr. Adam, Mr. Dirt Man, into a very special garden, and it is his responsibility to tend the garden. He is to till it, and thus garner food for himself and presumably the family that he will someday have. He is to keep it. He is to guard and protect it. This image helps clarify what Genesis 1 really means when it says that people are to “rule” the animal realm and to “subdue” the earth. They are to tend, to guard, to protect, and to keep the earth and its creatures (Bouma-Prediger: 147–48). An Israelite or Jewish peasant farmer living in the Palestinian highlands anytime from 1000 bce to 70 ce would understand this. This garden is comparable to the peasant's little plot of land on which he works out a subsistence level of living for himself, his wife, and his children. The land is special to him; he takes care of it. For the land is his life. It provides food to eat and pasturage for his animals. The land is his little garden. I am sure that many farmers have felt this same attachment to their land and their farm even to this very day.
The word “keep” is of particular interest. It is a word used in the law codes of Deuteronomy where it most often means “obey.” But it also has the meaning of “to protect” and “to respect limits.” The man is supposed to guard or protect the garden and the land that he tills. In many texts the word for “keep” is paired with “protect” (Deut 33:9; Ps 12:7; 105:45; 119:34, 55–56, 145–46; 140:5; 141:3; Prov 2:8, 11; 4:6; 5:2; 27:18). The verb is used to describe God's protection of a city (Ps 127:1). Thus, the man is to “exercise great care over” the garden (Hamilton: 171). He is to assume great responsibility in protecting as well as using the garden. The modern ear should especially hear the meaning, “to respect limits” (Rossing: 582–83). When combined with the word “serve,” the word “keep” would take on a special meaning for ancient Israelites and later Jews. In Numbers 3:7–8; 8:26; 18:5–6 the Levites are commissioned to serve and keep the Tabernacle in the wilderness (Wenham: 67; Block: 130). The garden with its plant and animal life has the symbolic sacredness of the Tabernacle in the wilderness. Of course, the story of the Tabernacle in the wilderness is really a symbol for the later Temple built by Solomon and rebuilt after the Babylonian Exile in 516 bce. These would be very powerful words for Jews after 500 bce because the words would remind them of the service performed at the Temple. The Temple in those later years was the symbol of Jewish identity and the symbolic center of their universe. To compare the garden to the Temple was an impressive image, and the service to the earth and the animals that lived upon the earth was then compared to the great sacerdotal activity that occurred in the Temple. We, too, must perceive our sojourn here on earth with the plants and the animals as sacred service in the great Temple of God's world.
We need to respect the limits of planet earth. We need to not overuse the soil, as we did in the early twentieth century in the midwest. We need to not overharvest the fish in the sea. We need to not over-hunt so many animals in our world, which we do for mere sport or crass economic gain (like killing an elephant merely for the ivory tusk). It also means that we need to respect the limits that planet earth needs to remain a healthy environment. We should not pass 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere (Rossing: 581, 583). Before the Industrial Age there were 280 parts per million, but by 2013 there were 398 parts per million. Since carbon dioxide captures the sun's heat in the atmosphere, that would explain why the first twelve years of the twenty-first century average the warmest years ever recorded (Blanchard & O'Brien: 110). At 398 parts per million, we are pushing the limit of 400 pretty closely.
The rising level of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is raising the average temperatures worldwide. These rising temperatures, among other things, are melting the Arctic's permafrost which then releases even more carbon and methane into the atmosphere. The corresponding loss of ice in the Arctic means that there is no shiny ice mirror to reflect solar energy back, and thus the ocean becomes a dark heat absorber, further causing temperatures to rise. The melting ices also release additional gases into the atmosphere. Fires in Australia, caused by the hotter temperatures, destroy forests that once absorbed carbon dioxide, throwing even more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It becomes cyclical, and the process keeps adding more carbon dioxide and warming the planet even more (Harvey: 176). We are not “keeping” our atmosphere very well. We are not “keeping” our world very well. We are not “keeping” our garden very well.
Genesis 1–9 tells us how much we are one with the animals, how much we share with them. We were all created together on the sixth day in Genesis 1. We all share the divine blessing to fill the earth (Gen 1:22, 28). Together we eat the vegetation, the food of the earth, according to Genesis 1. We were all made from the dust of the earth according to Genesis 2. We are called “living beings” or “living souls” in the Hebrew (nephesh hayya') with no difference in that regard. Finally, God has made a covenant with all of us in Genesis 9. As often as we tell these stories from Genesis in Bible classes and Sunday schools, as often as these stories have inspired paintings and stories, as often as we have used allusions from these primordial accounts, why have we not heard the message about our oneness with the animal realm and the dignity of the animal realm? Truly, we have failed our animal brothers and sisters.