approach the biblical text using the concept of “environment” would be party to modern Western dualism, which separates human beings from what surrounds them. This person might thus not be sensitive enough to the strength of the biblical view, which puts the greatest divide between the creator and creation, consequently underlining the ontological proximity of humans, animals, plants, rocks, etc., which all fall under the same theological category of creature. Therefore one should always be open to the possibility that the text might put into question the glasses themselves.
is the biblical narrative of creation. Following the work of the Old Testament scholar Norbert Lohfink,15 the debate focused on verse 28 of the first chapter of the book of Genesis, which seemed to give credit to White’s case: “God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth’.”
Lohfink argued that important elements of this passage had been overlooked or were wrong. In particular, he defended the verse considering that the Hebrew verbs behind the translation “to subdue” and “to have dominion,” respectively kabash and radah, had been misunderstood.
The former actually meant “to put the foot on something, in the sense of claiming ownership,”16 as in the case of the taking of the land of Canaan by the Israelites (Josh 18:1) and that the latter actually had a semantic field implying that it should be understood as “tender, sympathetic rule.”17 This lexicographical argument has since been critiqued and thought to be unfounded, for example by Old Testament scholar Alfred Marx: “The verbs used [in Gen 1:28] are very harsh, they shall not be sweetened.”18 And it is true that a thorough review of the fourteen uses of kabash and twenty-four uses of radah in the Old Testament make such a softening difficult to defend.19 One might wonder whether it is Lohfink’s defensive agenda that made him push an argument that does not hold up—a danger we had spotted above.
But Lohfink also made a remark that led scholars to reconsider the whole narrative from chapter 1 of Genesis to chapter 9, i.e., including the narrative of the flood. Lohfink indeed pointed to the following verse, which seemed to have been forgotten and whose implications had not been considered up to then: “God said, ‘See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food” (Gen 1:29). In other words, according to the first narrative of creation, at the beginning, human beings were commanded to be vegetarians. It is only after the flood, considering that the human heart is inclined to evil, that God gave permission to humans to eat meat, lifeless meat, that is to say, without its blood (Gen 8:21–9:17).
Historical and Theological Perspectives (London: T&T Clark International, 2010), 21–31.
15 Norbert Lohfink, Unsere großen Wörter. Das Alte Testament zu Themen dieser Jahre (Freiburg: Herder, 1977).
16 Rogerson, op. cit. (note 14), 22.
17 Ibid.
18 Alfred Marx, “Assujettir ou veiller sur la création ?,” in Revue Projet 347 (2015), 37.
19 See Rogerson, op. cit (note 14), 25; and for a detailed discussion, Ute Neumann- Gorsolke, Herrschen in den Grenzen der Schöpfung. Ein Beitrag zur alttestamentlichen Anthropologie am Beispiel vom Psalm 8, Genesis 1 und verwandten Texten (Neukirchen- Vluyn: Neukirchener, 2004), 204–29 and 274–300.
Lohfink dismissed as absurd the idea that all human beings should be vegetarians, but underlined that the first creation narrative was prophetic in its vision of a world without violence between humans and animals.
Later studies built on Lohfink’s remarkable insight and went a step further by noting that in verse 30, animals themselves were supposed to be vegetarians: “ ‘And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.’ And it was so.”
Furthermore, they also noted that the narrative of the flood explicitly states that the relationship between humans and animals changed with the change of diet:
The fear and dread of you shall rest on every animal of the earth, and on every bird of the air, on everything that creeps on the ground, and on all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and just as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything (Gen 9:2–3).
Paul Beauchamp’s study20 shows that through diet, it is the relationship between all living beings that is at stake: according to the ideal of the origins, no one was to eat another living being. No one must hunt another.
No one must fear another. The relationship between humans and animals is peaceful. It is quite relevant that this ideal of the origins also appears in texts about the ideal of the end of times. Scholars typically quote Isaiah:
The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea (Isa 11:6–9).
From these considerations, Beauchamp, Rogerson, Marx and others conclude, first, that it is only in this context that what the two verbs kabash and radah entail in the relationship with other creatures can be understood correctly:
they are mastery in a non-violent world. Second, they acknowledge that this is not our world. We live in the world after the flood. But the worlds described in protological and eschatological texts share an ideal vision and put forward values, which Marx identifies as being solidarity between living
20 Paul Beauchamp, “Création et foundation de la loi en Gn 1,1-2,4,” in Fabien Blanquart et al. (eds), La création dans l’orient ancient (Paris: Cerf, 1985), 139-82.
beings, non-violence and respect for life. These provide an orientation or moral compass towards a renewed creation, which will be fully realized in eschatological times.
This interpretative effort, together with taking into consideration the whole biblical testimony, including several key excerpts of the New Testament, allows theologians creatively to construct a legitimate position in the face of climate change. Christians have to take the climate issue seriously and act upon it: to anticipate the coming world and the kingdom of God; to fulfill the well-understood mission of domination of the earth and submission of all living creatures; to till and guard the earth; truly to embody the image of God as followers of the serving Christ; to obey the command of loving the neighbor and follow the example of Jesus in the care for the most vulnerable; and to be seeds of justice and workers of peace.
Climate change is an example of transformative reading of the scrip- tures in three directions: a renewed interpretation of the scriptures in the face of the ecological crisis led to a transformation of our theology with a renewed theology of creation. But, a renewed theology of creation also led to a transformation in the understanding of what it means to be a Christian in the contemporary world. These transformations or renew- als can be described as a metanoia, a conversion, which leads to a third transformation: the transformation of individual and ecclesial behavior towards low-carbon, climate-resilient, sustainable livelihoods. “Choose life so that you and your descendants may live” (Dt 30:19), God advised after the giving of the Law. Although the issue of climate change was clearly not in the mind of the historical author, one cannot escape the resonance of this verse in the face of climate change. It is indeed a matter of life and death and God invites us to choose life, today as in the past.
List of contributors
Adams, Nicholas, Dr, Professor of Philosophical Theology, University of Birmingham, UK
Amos, Clare, Dr, Program Executive for Interreligious Dialogue and Coop- eration, World Council of Churches, Geneva, Switzerland
Baig, Naveed, hospital chaplain in Copenhagen, Denmark
Bektovic, Safet, Dr, Associate Professor of Theological Studies of Islam, Faculty of Theology, University of Oslo, Norway
Drechsler, Katja, researcher at the Academy of World Religions, University of Hamburg, Germany
El Maaroufi-Ulzheimer, Asmaa, doctoral researcher, Center for Islamic Theology, University of Münster, Germany
El Omari, Dina, Dr, postdoctoral research fellow in Islamic theology, Uni- versity of Münster, Germany
Grung, Anne Hege, Dr, Associate Professor of Practical Theology, University of Oslo, Norway
Kartzow, Bjelland, Marianne, Dr, Professor of New Testament, University of Oslo, Norway
Leirvik, Oddbjørn, Dr, Professor of Interreligious Studies, Faculty of Theol- ogy, University of Oslo, Norway
Khorchide, Mouhanad, Dr, Professor for Islamic Religious Education, direc- tor of the Center for Islamic Theology, University of Münster, Germany Knauth, Thorsten, Dr, Professor for Protestant Theology/Religious Education,
Institute for Protestant Theology, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany Kopp, Martin, doctoral researcher at the University of Strasbourg, France
Mtata, Kenneth, Rev. Dr, General Secretary, Zimbabwe Council of Churches, Harare, Zimbabwe
Schreiner, Stefan, Dr Dr h.c., Senior Professor of Comparative Study of Religions and Jewish Studies, University of Tübingen, Germany Sinn, Simone, Rev. Dr, Study Secretary for Public Theology and Interreli-
gious Relations, The Lutheran World Federation, Geneva, Switzerland Syamsuddin, Sahiron, Dr, Professor, Islamic State University, Yogyakarta,
Indonesia.