“Let us make now Man in our image, Man/In our similitude, and let them rule/Over the Fish and Fowle of Sea and Aire,/ Beast of the Field, and over all the Earth,/ And every creeping thing that creeps the ground” (32).
“God made, and every Herb, before it grew On the green stemm; God saw that it was good. So eev’n and Morn recorded the Third Day” (29).
“And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed ,which is upon the face of all th earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat”(14).
“In those days there was no corn or melons or pepper or sugar-cane, not were there any little huts such as ye have all seen; and the Jungle People knew nothing of Man, but lived in the Jungle together, making one people. But presently they began to dispute over their food, though there was grazing enough for all”
Reading Genesis for the first time was a unique experience, needless to say. I had heard of some of these stories before like the story of Adam and Eve, and God’s creation of earth, but it was interesting to see how they really were depicted in the “original” text. From my understanding, there was an overarching theme that one must remain obedient and faithful to the omnipresent God. With this, Genesis establishes a sort of hierarchal structure. God is represented as the all-powerful being, then humans are his followers, and finally animals of the earth were created so that humans could exist. Of course there are thousands of other interpretations but when it says, “And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all th earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat”, it is clear that God gives man this “duty” of tending and occupying this earth. Additionally it says everything from the plants to animal life was intended for Man’s survival. Several anthropology journals similarly agree that religion tends to assert dominance over animals and nature as a whole. In the 1999 Journal of Religion, an article from Subduing the Earth: Genesis, Early Modern Science and the Exploitation of Nature concludes, “In Christianity we already encounter evidence of attempts at the technological master of nature, and of those incipient exploitative tendencies that come to full flower in scientific and technological revolution of later eras. Christianity bears a huge burden of guilt for environmental deterioration”. Although the exploitation of animals is not unique to the Western doctrine, biblical scholars have conceded that there are some passages that support anthropocentrism.
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| God says to have DOMINION over the animals of the world http://jensenspot.wikispaces.com/file/view/adam-eve-garden-of-eden.jpg/135470481/adam-eve-garden-of-eden.jpg |
As powerful of a text Genesis is, there’s no surprise many writers incorporated the stories into their work. In Paradise Lost, the same man/beast dichotomy is highlighted when it says, “Let us make now Man in our image, Man/In our similitude, and let them rule/Over the Fish and Fowle of Sea and Aire,/ Beast of the Field, and over all the Earth,/ And every creeping thing that creeps the ground” (32). Words like “rule” and “dominion” are emphasized to suggest man’s superiority over earth’s other inhabitants. Genesis suggests that man is superior to animals because that’s how God intended it to be. Furthermore, because God created the earth this way, we must abide. Now, I can’t say I agree with this methodology for a few reasons. I understand that humans have garnered massive utility from other animals in the form of labor, agriculture, food, clothing etc etc. However, their exploitation has been a result of Speciesism. Animals were created just as humans were. Additionally, the excerpts suggest these animal populations are an infinite resource. Nothing suggests that humans must actually sustain animal life on earth in order to bear the gifts of the fish, fowle, and creeping things.
Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book also engages in this debate as they discuss the interactions between humans and animals of the jungle. Kipling explains, “In those days there was no corn or melons or pepper or sugar-cane, not were there any little huts such as ye have all seen; and the Jungle People knew nothing of Man, but lived in the Jungle together, making one people. But presently they began to dispute over their food, though there was grazing enough for all”. As society intervenes on the natural order, or what Kipling calls the “Law”, more and more wildlife begins to suffer.
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| Young Mowgli learns about the dark relationship between humans and the wild. http://www.google.com/images?client=safari&rls=en&q=jungle+book+novel&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=965&bih=664 |
Harrison, Peter. “Subdueing the Earth: Genesis, Early Modern Science and the Exploitation of Nature” http://www.jstor.org/stable/1207043
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