0:03

Hello and welcome to another episode

0:06

of the Enter the Bible podcast, where

0:08

you can get answers or at least reflections

0:10

on everything you wanted to know about the Bible

0:12

but were afraid to ask. I'm Katie

0:14

Langston.

0:15

And I'm Kathryn Schifferdecker. And today,

0:17

again, our very special guest is Ellen

0:20

Davis, who is the Amos

0:22

Ragan Kearns, distinguished professor

0:24

of Bible and Practical Theology

0:26

at Duke University and Duke Divinity

0:28

School and was my own

0:32

beloved teacher in my

0:34

Master of Divinity days at Yale.

0:37

So welcome, Ellen. So delighted

0:40

and grateful that you took the time to be

0:42

with us.

0:43

Thank you. I'm happy to be here.

0:45

Good. Good. Well, the question

0:47

for today is, is

0:49

one that I've

0:52

encountered in

0:54

various church circles. And

0:57

by the way, if our listeners, as

1:00

you know, if you have a question, you can

1:02

go to the Enter the Bible website,

1:05

EntertheBible.org and submit your question.

1:07

But this has to do with

1:09

a big question and one that's really pertinent for

1:12

our time, I think, especially as we

1:15

understand the effects of climate change.

1:18

So the question is, didn't God in

1:20

Genesis give humans

1:22

permission to subdue the Earth and

1:24

basically do whatever we want with

1:26

it? So this question

1:29

is referring, of course, to Genesis one,

1:32

where God, the first creation story,

1:34

where God creates and I

1:36

should probably just read it in the NRSV translation,

1:41

God said, "Let us make humankind in our image

1:43

according to our likeness and let them have dominion

1:45

over the fish of the sea, over the birds

1:47

of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild

1:50

animals of the earth." So God

1:52

created humankind in his image, I'm skipping

1:54

a few lines. God said to them,

1:56

Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue

1:59

it and have dominion over the fish of the

2:01

sea and of the birds of the air. And over every

2:03

living thing that moves upon the earth. That's

2:06

Genesis 1 basically, versus

2:08

26 through 28. Now,

2:10

these verses have been used to

2:13

justify exploitation

2:16

of the earth and

2:18

using of resources in

2:21

a destructive kind of way, which

2:24

I think we would argue is

2:27

a misinterpretation of that blessing

2:29

and command of God. But but

2:32

it's still something we need to talk

2:34

about as Christians and

2:37

and to try to understand. So, Ellen,

2:40

how would you respond to that question?

2:42

Okay. Thank you. The

2:47

first thing I'd say is

2:50

that that interpretation

2:53

of the verse and I hear it too,

2:56

I sort of presuppose in my

2:58

own teaching, as I'm sure you do, that

3:02

this is present in

3:04

every congregation and that my students

3:07

need to be able to respond to that.

3:12

So it is ubiquitous. And

3:15

at the same time, that

3:18

interpretation or that question,

3:20

as you put it, can't we basically do

3:22

whatever we want with the Earth? And

3:26

that would be incomprehensible

3:28

to any ancient reader of the Bible

3:33

or for that matter, to any

3:35

pre-modern reader, that even

3:37

the framing of the question marks

3:42

us as being what

3:45

we are, which is no

3:47

generation, has lived

3:50

so far from the circumstances

3:54

and the understandings of the Bible

3:56

as we do.

3:58

Wow.

3:58

And that's a pretty sobering

4:01

recognition and certainly

4:04

with respect to the

4:07

human relationship to what

4:09

the Bible calls the works of God's

4:11

hands, the created order.

4:14

And no generation

4:16

has lived as far from the way the

4:18

Bible would understand the

4:21

existence of everything on the earth

4:25

as we do.

4:27

Can you unpack that just a little bit on

4:29

like, yeah, I mean, we we

4:32

especially in the West, don't we

4:34

don't live on the land for the most part, right? We're primarily

4:37

urban dwellers.

4:38

We, we think food comes

4:40

from the grocery store.

4:42

Yes.

4:44

99% of

4:46

Israelites, probably, they

4:49

were subsistence farmers. Yeah.

4:51

Almost everything that they had, they

4:53

would raise. Important

4:56

also to

4:59

recognize that

5:01

the Bible comes out

5:04

of a land,

5:06

the land of Canaan, Israel,

5:09

Palestine. That

5:13

is exceedingly difficult to live

5:15

on and to

5:18

farm. And

5:20

so the Israelites

5:23

knew that they

5:25

lived on that land, generation

5:27

to generation, by the grace of

5:29

God, and by

5:32

caring for what had been

5:34

given or entrusted to them

5:38

with taking the most

5:40

exquisite care of that

5:43

fragile land. And

5:45

so the idea that we can

5:47

basically do whatever we want with

5:50

it would have just made no

5:52

sense whatsoever. It would have seemed

5:54

as it is, the height

5:57

of folly.

5:58

Yeah. Well, and kind of a suicide

6:01

pact, right?

6:02

I mean, it's a murder-

6:04

suicide pact. Yeah. Yeah.

6:07

If you. If you don't care for the land,

6:09

you will die.You will not eat. You won't eat.

6:14

And in a sense, the advantage

6:17

that Israelites had over

6:21

North Americans is

6:25

that they had almost no margin

6:27

for error. Israel's

6:31

topsoil on the

6:35

in the uplands of Israel

6:38

Palestine, which is the part that Israel

6:40

controlled and inhabited during

6:42

the biblical period. Topsoil

6:44

is measured in inches. Hmm.

6:46

Not in feet.

6:51

This isn't Iowa. This isn't the Midwest.

6:52

This is not Iowa. This is not

6:55

Egypt. You know, this is not the Nile

6:57

Valley either. And

7:01

so nor is it

7:03

Mesopotamia. Again, all of these

7:05

places where there was a margin

7:08

for error. And so

7:11

all of those places did suffer degradation

7:15

over time, as our

7:18

own continent has done. Israelites

7:21

survived to a great extent the same

7:23

way Europeans have survived

7:26

by taking care

7:28

of their land, generation

7:30

to generation because

7:33

there wasn't anything else to move on

7:35

to.

7:36

Yeah.

7:38

I'd say also. So that's

7:43

the physical geographic

7:46

context. But

7:48

I also want to say something about

7:51

the literary context

7:53

of that phrase. You

7:56

were reading, I think, from the New RSV .

7:59

Yeah.

7:59

Be fruitful and multiply. Subdue the

8:01

earth. Right. The

8:03

Hebrew word is "keifshua". It

8:09

literally conquer it. Okay.

8:12

It's a very it's

8:14

a very strong word, but

8:16

it's also a word that does not occur

8:18

very many times in the Bible and

8:22

everywhere it occurs.

8:26

The conquest refers

8:29

to the imperative to

8:31

conquer, including

8:34

the promised land. But

8:37

in New Testament as well, the

8:40

imperative to conquer refers

8:43

to exercising power. In

8:46

a territory where the authority

8:48

of God is disputed and

8:54

the charge to conquer

8:57

is a charge to exercise

9:01

power under the authority

9:03

of God and

9:05

to exercise power in a way

9:09

that is transparent to

9:11

God's character and

9:14

to God's will for the world. Hmm.

9:17

That's a lot.

9:18

Yeah.

9:19

Um, but. So

9:22

if you look at Genesis

9:24

one, in light of that

9:26

imperative to conquer.

9:30

Then what do we know about God's

9:32

character and will for

9:34

the world in Genesis

9:36

one? We

9:39

know that God, first

9:41

of all, made everything. It

9:43

is all, as I said before,

9:46

the work of God's hands. And

9:50

that God is really pleased with what

9:52

God has made.

9:53

Right? Very good. It's very good.

9:57

And then at the end. After

10:02

humans are humans who are

10:04

created in God's image

10:07

and charged to

10:10

be fruitful and multiply.

10:12

Fill the earth. At the end.

10:15

God says, Look, I

10:18

have given all the creatures enough

10:22

to eat and

10:24

I've given you enough to eat.

10:29

So. God, says, you

10:31

know, look at all of this. That

10:34

implies that we who are created

10:36

in the image of God are given

10:39

the trust to continue

10:42

this work of provision on

10:45

God's behalf. What

10:49

does that sound like? In

10:52

an age of species extinction.

10:55

Massive species extinction

10:59

of habitat destruction. Species

11:02

die because they don't have enough to eat.

11:05

And yet God says, I've given

11:07

you all enough. So

11:11

what it sounds like is,

11:14

that we are not living

11:17

up to who we are. And

11:21

interests. We're not living like the

11:23

image of God. And interestingly.

11:27

The Bible anticipates

11:29

this failure because

11:33

that description of humans being

11:35

created in the image of God that

11:38

disappears after the first

11:40

few chapters of Genesis. Hmm.

11:43

It's as though it were almost too hot

11:45

to handle. And

11:48

it doesn't reappear

11:51

until it is

11:54

used as a description of Jesus.

11:57

Hmm.

12:00

In John one. Is that where you mean? Everything.

12:03

Yeah. Hmm. Yeah. And

12:05

here's the image of the living God.

12:07

Yeah. Hmm.

12:09

So. I

12:12

would say that in

12:15

a in a quite tragic

12:17

sense. I think

12:19

we can. Understand

12:23

Genesis one more deeply

12:26

than previous generations have done.

12:29

Because. The

12:32

extent of

12:35

our failure and the extent

12:38

of the destruction

12:40

which would have been unimaginable

12:44

to the ancients. Um.

12:49

We can see that unfolding in

12:51

real time.

12:52

Yeah. Yeah. So.

12:56

So where. Where do we find

12:58

hope in that? Right.

13:01

I mean, so we've we've we've

13:03

not done a good job of being image of

13:05

God. I certainly agree with you,

13:07

though. So

13:11

there's this repentance, I think I

13:13

mean, to use that theological term in that biblical

13:16

theme. Right. Repentance is called

13:18

for. And turning

13:21

around, well, that's what repentance is, right? Turning

13:23

around, doing something different. Yeah.

13:29

I'm actually teaching a course this coming

13:31

semester. And

13:38

it's on preaching in light

13:40

I won't say light preaching

13:43

in view of the reality

13:45

of climate change.

13:46

Mm hmm.

13:49

And so it's a very

13:51

sobering class.

13:52

I'm sure it is.

13:53

As you'd expect. Yeah. And we

13:55

go all the way through the Bible, Genesis

13:57

to Revelation and preach all

13:59

of the major genres

14:03

of literature and parts

14:05

of the Bible. And the

14:08

name of the class is

14:11

"Hope for Creation?" question mark

14:14

.

14:15

Oh, that's

14:21

right.

14:21

And, you know, we've kind of had to argue with the registrar

14:24

to be sure that the question mark gets

14:26

in there because.

14:30

Because it is an open ended

14:33

question at the

14:35

same time. I

14:40

would say that the class

14:43

generates hope. Because.

14:49

What people find is

14:52

that the Bible speaks

14:56

to our desperate situation.

14:58

Hmm.

14:59

I mean, you know, we've already, in a sense, elaborated that

15:02

in these few minutes of talking about Genesis

15:05

one and what a good reading of Genesis

15:07

one looks like. Well,

15:09

it's. It's

15:11

encouraging us to believe that we

15:13

do have a vocation in this

15:15

world, but it's not

15:17

encouraging us to

15:19

think that we

15:22

can do that on our terms. And

15:26

I would say that

15:28

that kind of chastened

15:31

understanding of

15:33

the human place in the world is

15:35

underscored. Chapter

15:38

after chapter after chapter. Well,

15:40

book after book in the Bible.

15:44

Yeah.

15:44

I love the emphasis on

15:46

vocation. And

15:49

it reminds me, you know, just a few verses later,

15:51

really in Genesis two,

15:54

where God creates Adam

15:56

or Adam and places him in

15:58

the garden to till it

16:00

and to keep it right. Two

16:02

two. Genesis 2:15 I believe that's

16:06

the NRSV translation. But would

16:08

you, would you say a little bit about that verse.

16:10

And I should have written.

16:11

About the verses Genesis

16:14

2:15 and

16:17

till is actually not a

16:20

very good translation because

16:22

the two verbs, the Lord God

16:24

took the human being and placed.

16:28

And it placed

16:30

him or it. At

16:34

this point in Genesis two, you

16:36

don't have yet a separation

16:38

between the man and the woman. Took

16:41

the human being and placed him

16:44

in the Garden of

16:46

Eden, which means Garden of delight. (Hebrew words) .

16:55

Those two verbs exceedingly

16:57

common. And the first

16:59

of the means to serve

17:04

and usually to serve a master,

17:06

either divine or human. And

17:11

so I'm going to render that as

17:14

put him in the Garden of Eden to

17:16

serve it.

17:17

Hmm.

17:19

And the second

17:21

verb (Hebrew) means

17:27

to keep something, to observe

17:29

it, to preserve it. It's

17:32

used most frequently with

17:35

reference to the law of God, the statutes,

17:38

the commandments of God. So

17:41

you might translate that as

17:43

set the human in the Garden of Eden

17:46

to serve it and to preserve it. Mm

17:49

hmm. To serve it and

17:51

to observe it. Hmm.

17:56

To sometimes translate it. To work

17:58

it and to watch it. All

18:01

of that suggests what

18:03

Genesis one suggests. That

18:06

is that the land, in a very real

18:08

sense, comes first.

18:11

Mm hmm. And we

18:13

come out of the land.

18:16

Adam is created from

18:18

Adama Fertile

18:21

soil in Genesis

18:23

two. And so. And

18:26

in any traditional culture, people

18:30

honor their elders.

18:34

And so the land is our

18:37

first ancestor, you might say.

18:40

Hmm. We're taken out of it? Yes.

18:42

The human from the humus

18:44

is often how the English translates

18:46

that Hebrew word into the Adam

18:49

from the Adam. So when

18:52

I. When

18:55

I have students. Many of our students here at

18:57

Luther Seminary, our 20 somethings,

18:59

not all of them, we have people from all

19:02

age groups, but some

19:04

of them, I think are given

19:09

to or tempted to despair.

19:13

And I think I'm sure that's you know

19:15

what? When you mentioned the name

19:17

of the class you're teaching, think

19:19

that's a similar kind of feeling. And

19:22

I and I, I

19:25

wonder or I, I'm

19:27

saddened by that because

19:29

I think what you're saying, too, you know,

19:31

Yes, yes, the

19:34

situation is bad, but

19:36

we are but we don't abdicate

19:38

responsibility for it or we don't

19:40

we don't give up on it. Right. Or

19:42

we don't give in to a kind of despair

19:44

that makes us paralyzed.

19:48

And I'm not saying this is my students, but I

19:51

there is there is a

19:53

I've read recently quite a, you

19:55

know, a mental health issue

19:58

for climate activists.

20:01

Yeah, I think about that fellow,

20:03

an older fellow about my age,

20:05

fifties, who set himself on

20:07

fire on Earth Day on

20:09

the steps of the Supreme Court. This

20:13

is maybe two years ago or something. But there's

20:15

that kind of despair. We can't

20:17

we as as you know, people

20:19

of the book, both Jews and Christians, we

20:22

we we cannot give

20:24

in to that. And part of it is vocation.

20:27

I think I think part of it, too, is

20:29

the is trust

20:32

that God is still at work in

20:35

the midst of this.

20:37

Yes. And I

20:39

think this is why. This

20:42

actually has to be. Well,

20:44

it's why I teach this

20:47

subject. And now. And

20:49

now actually, I've sort of taken

20:51

a vow that every time

20:54

I lecture or preach, when

20:57

there isn't a specific topic

21:00

that I have to talk about,

21:02

I talk about climate change in the Bible,

21:07

and I do it because

21:09

I think my experience

21:11

is the more we talk

21:13

about it in community,

21:17

the more possibilities we

21:19

find to do

21:21

something in response to it. And

21:26

I think about one of my students

21:29

in an earlier iteration of the class

21:32

I've just been describing to you two years

21:34

ago, and he's he's a professional climate

21:36

activist. And

21:38

he said that

21:41

when. Before

21:43

taking the class when

21:45

he would hear. And he is

21:47

a Christian. When he would hear other Christians

21:50

speak about ,

21:55

about hope for

21:57

creation, he would roll his

21:59

eyes because he normally thought

22:02

that meant they they had their

22:04

heads in the sand. You know, they just

22:06

weren't paying any attention to

22:08

it. And he

22:11

was probably right.

22:13

There's probably plenty of that.

22:16

But he said now, having

22:19

studied the Bible

22:22

and preached it through

22:24

a semester in community with

22:26

other Christians, he said, Now I have a different

22:28

understanding of hope and my relationship

22:31

to it, he says. I see that my

22:33

role as a Christian is to

22:35

be an agent of hope, an

22:39

agent of realistic hope. And

22:43

so give people another option

22:45

that many of them don't know that they have.

22:49

They see that they can

22:51

ignore it or

22:54

they can yield to despair. But

22:58

in most cases they haven't been

23:00

given the opportunity to

23:03

get engaged with

23:06

the problem through their faith.

23:09

Hmm.

23:10

Because no one has really shown them

23:13

how to do that. How to use the

23:15

language of Scripture to

23:17

enter into the biblical story.

23:21

And reckon realistically

23:25

with the time in which we live. And

23:29

he said, Now I understand. That's

23:31

my job.

23:34

And so it is a it's a matter

23:37

of the heart. I mean, it's obviously

23:40

we need scientists to

23:43

address this problem. But it's a

23:45

matter of repentance and and

23:48

and change of heart on the part of

23:53

many, many people.

23:55

Yes. And and heart in

23:57

the Bible is

24:00

when we say change of heart, we do mean

24:03

a complete change of mindset.

24:05

Yeah.

24:07

And a change

24:09

in our, our

24:12

whole disposition toward the world. And

24:14

that's what heart means

24:16

in a biblical context.

24:18

And I think about

24:20

Ezekiel, saying

24:23

that is

24:26

Ezekiel is speaking to Israel

24:30

in exile and Babylonian exile.

24:34

And Ezekiel understands

24:37

that Israel has been kicked out

24:39

of the land that God

24:41

entrusted to them for

24:43

disobedience, which should be

24:46

the end of history for this people. And

24:49

yet, Ezekiel, a

24:52

new and Jerusalem is destroyed.

24:55

The temple is destroyed, that the

24:58

kingship is taken

25:02

apart. All of this should mark

25:04

the end of history for Israel

25:06

as it did for every other people in the ancient

25:08

world. But then Ezekiel hears

25:10

a new word from God. That

25:16

the people will be brought back

25:18

into the land. That, as Ezekiel envisions

25:20

it, was God articulated

25:24

through Ezekiel. It's

25:26

only after

25:28

the people have experienced

25:30

destruction that

25:32

then they will be able to

25:34

reckon with what they have done.

25:37

Hmm.

25:37

And they can't repent in

25:40

advance. It's only

25:42

when they see the destruction

25:45

that they can see what they have done. That,

25:48

I think, is where we are right now. I

25:50

think. I think we are

25:52

in exile. Well,

25:56

you know, we're just waking up to

25:59

the unimaginable, previously

26:01

unimaginable destruction

26:04

we have wrought. And

26:06

now it's time

26:09

to repent and get to work.

26:12

Amen. Wow. Trust.

26:15

Trusting that God is a

26:17

God of life and that we need to be about

26:19

God's. We are to at

26:21

least try to be

26:23

God's image, to

26:25

be about God's mission in the world. Right.

26:28

I just want to note and if

26:32

you know, this is a big topic and and

26:35

we've we've just kind of skimmed the surface. But

26:37

for those listeners who are interested

26:40

and if your interest is piqued

26:43

by this episode, Ellen has written

26:45

a beautiful book called Scripture, Culture

26:48

and Agriculture, an

26:50

agrarian reading of the Bible. I use

26:52

it in the class that I teach called Bible

26:54

and Ecology. And it's

26:56

it's a kind of walk through many

26:59

biblical texts, including Genesis,

27:01

including Leviticus, including the prophets,

27:04

that that brings out this

27:07

really fundamental emphasis

27:11

in biblical text on the

27:13

land and on creatures, other living

27:15

creatures, and on humanity's

27:17

relationship with them. So if

27:20

you're interested, please check out

27:22

Ellen's book at Scripture, Culture and Agriculture.

27:25

Well. Well, that was

27:29

that was riveting. So thank you so much

27:31

for sharing your your wisdom and insights

27:34

and so much food for

27:36

thought. I probably going to have to go back and listen

27:38

to that a few times because I

27:41

also feel despairing and afraid

27:44

a lot so that that that

27:47

I'm feeling called to repent. I'm feeling

27:49

called to change my heart and my mind

27:51

and to do something different.

27:54

So thank you so much for that. And thank

27:57

you to our wonderful yeah, thank

27:59

you to our wonderful listeners and

28:01

viewers on YouTube. We're just

28:03

delighted that you're with us. And you

28:06

can get more where this came from

28:08

at EntertheBible.org Please

28:12

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28:19

as always, the best thing

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28:28

insights or

28:30

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28:33

the movement of the Spirit, we would invite you to do that.

28:35

So thank you so much for being with us today

28:37

and catch you next time.