In this episode, Prof. Kathryn Schifferdecker and Katie Langston gather to answer the listener submitted questions. Guest, Ellen F. Davis, is Amos Ragan Kearns Distinguished Professor of Bible and Practical Theology at Duke Divinity School.
Notes: Ellen F. Davis, "Scripture, Culture and Agriculture" (Cambridge University Press, 2012). Link: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/scripture-culture-and-agriculture/641066F1E857A986F8A6D37BC5EF3...
Avery Davis-Lamb, author and founder of https://sojo.net/biography/avery-davis-lamb
Amy Peterson, Episcopal priest and author: http://www.amypeterson.net/writing
This episode was recorded on December 20, 2022 over Zoom.
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Enter the Bible podcast, where you can get answers or at least reflections on everything you wanted to know about the Bible but were afraid to ask. I'm Katie Langston.
And I'm Kathryn Schifferdecker. And today, again, our very special guest is Ellen Davis, who is the Amos Ragan Kearns, distinguished professor of Bible and Practical Theology at Duke University and Duke Divinity School and was my own beloved teacher in my Master of Divinity days at Yale. So welcome, Ellen. So delighted and grateful that you took the time to be with us.
Thank you. I'm happy to be here.
Good. Good. Well, the question for today is, is one that I've encountered in various church circles. And by the way, if our listeners, as you know, if you have a question, you can go to the Enter the Bible website, EntertheBible.org and submit your question. But this has to do with a big question and one that's really pertinent for our time, I think, especially as we understand the effects of climate change. So the question is, didn't God in Genesis give humans permission to subdue the Earth and basically do whatever we want with it? So this question is referring, of course, to Genesis one, where God, the first creation story, where God creates and I should probably just read it in the NRSV translation, God said, "Let us make humankind in our image according to our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth." So God created humankind in his image, I'm skipping a few lines. God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and of the birds of the air. And over every living thing that moves upon the earth. That's Genesis 1 basically, versus 26 through 28. Now, these verses have been used to justify exploitation of the earth and using of resources in a destructive kind of way, which I think we would argue is a misinterpretation of that blessing and command of God. But but it's still something we need to talk about as Christians and and to try to understand. So, Ellen, how would you respond to that question?
Okay. Thank you. The first thing I'd say is that that interpretation of the verse and I hear it too, I sort of presuppose in my own teaching, as I'm sure you do, that this is present in every congregation and that my students need to be able to respond to that. So it is ubiquitous. And at the same time, that interpretation or that question, as you put it, can't we basically do whatever we want with the Earth? And that would be incomprehensible to any ancient reader of the Bible or for that matter, to any pre-modern reader, that even the framing of the question marks us as being what we are, which is no generation, has lived so far from the circumstances and the understandings of the Bible as we do.
Wow.
And that's a pretty sobering recognition and certainly with respect to the human relationship to what the Bible calls the works of God's hands, the created order. And no generation has lived as far from the way the Bible would understand the existence of everything on the earth as we do.
Can you unpack that just a little bit on like, yeah, I mean, we we especially in the West, don't we don't live on the land for the most part, right? We're primarily urban dwellers.
We, we think food comes from the grocery store.
Yes.
99% of Israelites, probably, they were subsistence farmers. Yeah. Almost everything that they had, they would raise. Important also to recognize that the Bible comes out of a land, the land of Canaan, Israel, Palestine. That is exceedingly difficult to live on and to farm. And so the Israelites knew that they lived on that land, generation to generation, by the grace of God, and by caring for what had been given or entrusted to them with taking the most exquisite care of that fragile land. And so the idea that we can basically do whatever we want with it would have just made no sense whatsoever. It would have seemed as it is, the height of folly.
Yeah. Well, and kind of a suicide pact, right?
I mean, it's a murder- suicide pact. Yeah. Yeah.
If you. If you don't care for the land, you will die.You will not eat. You won't eat.
And in a sense, the advantage that Israelites had over North Americans is that they had almost no margin for error. Israel's topsoil on the in the uplands of Israel Palestine, which is the part that Israel controlled and inhabited during the biblical period. Topsoil is measured in inches. Hmm. Not in feet.
This isn't Iowa. This isn't the Midwest.
This is not Iowa. This is not Egypt. You know, this is not the Nile Valley either. And so nor is it Mesopotamia. Again, all of these places where there was a margin for error. And so all of those places did suffer degradation over time, as our own continent has done. Israelites survived to a great extent the same way Europeans have survived by taking care of their land, generation to generation because there wasn't anything else to move on to.
Yeah.
I'd say also. So that's the physical geographic context. But I also want to say something about the literary context of that phrase. You were reading, I think, from the New RSV .
Yeah.
Be fruitful and multiply. Subdue the earth. Right. The Hebrew word is "keifshua". It literally conquer it. Okay. It's a very it's a very strong word, but it's also a word that does not occur very many times in the Bible and everywhere it occurs. The conquest refers to the imperative to conquer, including the promised land. But in New Testament as well, the imperative to conquer refers to exercising power. In a territory where the authority of God is disputed and the charge to conquer is a charge to exercise power under the authority of God and to exercise power in a way that is transparent to God's character and to God's will for the world. Hmm. That's a lot.
Yeah.
Um, but. So if you look at Genesis one, in light of that imperative to conquer. Then what do we know about God's character and will for the world in Genesis one? We know that God, first of all, made everything. It is all, as I said before, the work of God's hands. And that God is really pleased with what God has made.
Right? Very good. It's very good.
And then at the end. After humans are humans who are created in God's image and charged to be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth. At the end. God says, Look, I have given all the creatures enough to eat and I've given you enough to eat. So. God, says, you know, look at all of this. That implies that we who are created in the image of God are given the trust to continue this work of provision on God's behalf. What does that sound like? In an age of species extinction. Massive species extinction of habitat destruction. Species die because they don't have enough to eat. And yet God says, I've given you all enough. So what it sounds like is, that we are not living up to who we are. And interests. We're not living like the image of God. And interestingly. The Bible anticipates this failure because that description of humans being created in the image of God that disappears after the first few chapters of Genesis. Hmm. It's as though it were almost too hot to handle. And it doesn't reappear until it is used as a description of Jesus. Hmm.
In John one. Is that where you mean?
Everything.
Yeah. Hmm. Yeah. And here's the image of the living God.
Yeah. Hmm.
So. I would say that in a in a quite tragic sense. I think we can. Understand Genesis one more deeply than previous generations have done. Because. The extent of our failure and the extent of the destruction which would have been unimaginable to the ancients. Um. We can see that unfolding in real time.
Yeah. Yeah. So. So where. Where do we find hope in that? Right. I mean, so we've we've we've not done a good job of being image of God. I certainly agree with you, though. So there's this repentance, I think I mean, to use that theological term in that biblical theme. Right. Repentance is called for. And turning around, well, that's what repentance is, right? Turning around, doing something different. Yeah.
I'm actually teaching a course this coming semester. And it's on preaching in light I won't say light preaching in view of the reality of climate change.
Mm hmm.
And so it's a very sobering class.
I'm sure it is.
As you'd expect. Yeah. And we go all the way through the Bible, Genesis to Revelation and preach all of the major genres of literature and parts of the Bible. And the name of the class is "Hope for Creation?" question mark .
Oh, that's right.
And, you know, we've kind of had to argue with the registrar to be sure that the question mark gets in there because. Because it is an open ended question at the same time. I would say that the class generates hope. Because. What people find is that the Bible speaks to our desperate situation.
Hmm.
I mean, you know, we've already, in a sense, elaborated that in these few minutes of talking about Genesis one and what a good reading of Genesis one looks like. Well, it's. It's encouraging us to believe that we do have a vocation in this world, but it's not encouraging us to think that we can do that on our terms. And I would say that that kind of chastened understanding of the human place in the world is underscored. Chapter after chapter after chapter. Well, book after book in the Bible. Yeah.
I love the emphasis on vocation. And it reminds me, you know, just a few verses later, really in Genesis two, where God creates Adam or Adam and places him in the garden to till it and to keep it right. Two two. Genesis 2:15 I believe that's the NRSV translation. But would you, would you say a little bit about that verse. And I should have written.
About the verses Genesis 2:15 and till is actually not a very good translation because the two verbs, the Lord God took the human being and placed. And it placed him or it. At this point in Genesis two, you don't have yet a separation between the man and the woman. Took the human being and placed him in the Garden of Eden, which means Garden of delight. (Hebrew words) . Those two verbs exceedingly common. And the first of the means to serve and usually to serve a master, either divine or human. And so I'm going to render that as put him in the Garden of Eden to serve it.
Hmm.
And the second verb (Hebrew) means to keep something, to observe it, to preserve it. It's used most frequently with reference to the law of God, the statutes, the commandments of God. So you might translate that as set the human in the Garden of Eden to serve it and to preserve it. Mm hmm. To serve it and to observe it. Hmm. To sometimes translate it. To work it and to watch it. All of that suggests what Genesis one suggests. That is that the land, in a very real sense, comes first. Mm hmm. And we come out of the land. Adam is created from Adama Fertile soil in Genesis two. And so. And in any traditional culture, people honor their elders. And so the land is our first ancestor, you might say.
Hmm. We're taken out of it? Yes. The human from the humus is often how the English translates that Hebrew word into the Adam from the Adam. So when I. When I have students. Many of our students here at Luther Seminary, our 20 somethings, not all of them, we have people from all age groups, but some of them, I think are given to or tempted to despair. And I think I'm sure that's you know what? When you mentioned the name of the class you're teaching, think that's a similar kind of feeling. And I and I, I wonder or I, I'm saddened by that because I think what you're saying, too, you know, Yes, yes, the situation is bad, but we are but we don't abdicate responsibility for it or we don't we don't give up on it. Right. Or we don't give in to a kind of despair that makes us paralyzed. And I'm not saying this is my students, but I there is there is a I've read recently quite a, you know, a mental health issue for climate activists. Yeah, I think about that fellow, an older fellow about my age, fifties, who set himself on fire on Earth Day on the steps of the Supreme Court. This is maybe two years ago or something. But there's that kind of despair. We can't we as as you know, people of the book, both Jews and Christians, we we we cannot give in to that. And part of it is vocation. I think I think part of it, too, is the is trust that God is still at work in the midst of this.
Yes. And I think this is why. This actually has to be. Well, it's why I teach this subject. And now. And now actually, I've sort of taken a vow that every time I lecture or preach, when there isn't a specific topic that I have to talk about, I talk about climate change in the Bible, and I do it because I think my experience is the more we talk about it in community, the more possibilities we find to do something in response to it. And I think about one of my students in an earlier iteration of the class I've just been describing to you two years ago, and he's he's a professional climate activist. And he said that when. Before taking the class when he would hear. And he is a Christian. When he would hear other Christians speak about , about hope for creation, he would roll his eyes because he normally thought that meant they they had their heads in the sand. You know, they just weren't paying any attention to it. And he was probably right.
There's probably plenty of that.
But he said now, having studied the Bible and preached it through a semester in community with other Christians, he said, Now I have a different understanding of hope and my relationship to it, he says. I see that my role as a Christian is to be an agent of hope, an agent of realistic hope. And so give people another option that many of them don't know that they have. They see that they can ignore it or they can yield to despair. But in most cases they haven't been given the opportunity to get engaged with the problem through their faith.
Hmm.
Because no one has really shown them how to do that. How to use the language of Scripture to enter into the biblical story. And reckon realistically with the time in which we live. And he said, Now I understand. That's my job.
And so it is a it's a matter of the heart. I mean, it's obviously we need scientists to address this problem. But it's a matter of repentance and and and change of heart on the part of many, many people.
Yes. And and heart in the Bible is when we say change of heart, we do mean a complete change of mindset.
Yeah.
And a change in our, our whole disposition toward the world. And that's what heart means in a biblical context. And I think about Ezekiel, saying that is Ezekiel is speaking to Israel in exile and Babylonian exile. And Ezekiel understands that Israel has been kicked out of the land that God entrusted to them for disobedience, which should be the end of history for this people. And yet, Ezekiel, a new and Jerusalem is destroyed. The temple is destroyed, that the kingship is taken apart. All of this should mark the end of history for Israel as it did for every other people in the ancient world. But then Ezekiel hears a new word from God. That the people will be brought back into the land. That, as Ezekiel envisions it, was God articulated through Ezekiel. It's only after the people have experienced destruction that then they will be able to reckon with what they have done.
Hmm.
And they can't repent in advance. It's only when they see the destruction that they can see what they have done. That, I think, is where we are right now. I think. I think we are in exile. Well, you know, we're just waking up to the unimaginable, previously unimaginable destruction we have wrought. And now it's time to repent and get to work.
Amen. Wow. Trust. Trusting that God is a God of life and that we need to be about God's. We are to at least try to be God's image, to be about God's mission in the world. Right. I just want to note and if you know, this is a big topic and and we've we've just kind of skimmed the surface. But for those listeners who are interested and if your interest is piqued by this episode, Ellen has written a beautiful book called Scripture, Culture and Agriculture, an agrarian reading of the Bible. I use it in the class that I teach called Bible and Ecology. And it's it's a kind of walk through many biblical texts, including Genesis, including Leviticus, including the prophets, that that brings out this really fundamental emphasis in biblical text on the land and on creatures, other living creatures, and on humanity's relationship with them. So if you're interested, please check out Ellen's book at Scripture, Culture and Agriculture.
Well. Well, that was that was riveting. So thank you so much for sharing your your wisdom and insights and so much food for thought. I probably going to have to go back and listen to that a few times because I also feel despairing and afraid a lot so that that that I'm feeling called to repent. I'm feeling called to change my heart and my mind and to do something different. So thank you so much for that. And thank you to our wonderful yeah, thank you to our wonderful listeners and viewers on YouTube. We're just delighted that you're with us. And you can get more where this came from at EntertheBible.org Please remember to rate and review us on your favorite podcast app, like and subscribe if you're watching on YouTube. And as always, the best thing you can do is to share the podcast with a friend. If you've enjoyed it, if you've had new insights or thoughts, or even the movement of the Spirit, we would invite you to do that. So thank you so much for being with us today and catch you next time.