[MCN] My take : What would wildlife conservation mean in a Christian nation ?

[Lance Olsen]

Every living thing, keep them alive
Lance Olsen

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Gen. 7. [17] Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee, of all flesh, …. ; that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.

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Preface: Lynn White’s piece in Science argued that Judaeo-Christian religion is at the roots of contemporary ecological crises, and that a new Christianity would have to be invented in order to solve the crisis. 

White’s piece prompted me to see what was actually in the Bible. 

Of several possible versions of the Bible, the one I happened to get was the King James version. Diving into King James, I wasn’t expecting to find much consistency with, let alone support of, contemporary conservation theory. 

LO

Reference: Genesis, Bible, King James Version

Edited below, including with bold emphasis added re 5 topics given repeated emphasis in the 17th Century Bible

1-Life’s physical origins in “the earth” and “the waters”

2-Pre-human species’ diversity, population trends

3-Pre-human species’ role in the “making” of humans

4-Once made, a human population growth trend

5-The task of human dominion defined as conservation for a most-broad diversity of the other species 



1-Life’s physical origins in “the earth” and “the waters”

Gen.1
    3. [11] And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
   4. [12] And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

[[ the wording of 3 and 4 above suggest that the creation of life was subcontracted,  a command performance. The same scenario appears in the first section quoted immediately below, about water’s role in creation, but adds that be “brought forth” in abundance.]]

2-Pre-human species’ diversity, population trends

   7. [20] And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
   8. [22] And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

3-Pre-human species’ role in the “making” of humans

   11. [26] And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…...
  
4-Once made, a human population growth trend

Gen.6 [1. [1] And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,
   2. [4] There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
   3. [5] And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
   4. [6] And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
   5. [7] And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.
   

[[At this point, God doen’t take his word literally, and reversed his decision to destroy all he created, now giving Noah what may have been the first commandments.]]


Gen.7
   1. [3] Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.
   2.
   3. 
   4. [8] Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth,
   5. 
   6. 
   7. [14] They, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort.

Gen.8
   1. [1] And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters asswaged;
  
   7. [17] Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.

Gen.9
   1. [1] And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.

   2. [2] And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.  


[[“Into your hand they are delivered” seems explicit assignment of responsibility, and offers another definition of “dominion.”]]

#

Endnote:  It might be possible to argue that the covenant covering biodiversity was limited to Noah and his sons, with little or no relevance to human responsibility today, but King James makes makes it clear that the imperative for conservation of biodiversity was to be a perpetual covenant, an everlasting one: 

“…the covenant which I make between me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations.”

God then adds that this perpetual obligation is  “…the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.” 

King James explicitly refers to consequences when humans have broken the covenant. 

And there’s also this: “…a man hath no preeminence above a beast; for all is vanity.”Ecclesiastes 3:19 (King James version)


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“One can quibble with with some assumptions or tweak Smil's calculations, but the bottom line will not change, 
only the time it may take humanity to reach a crisis point.”

Stephen Running. “Approaching the Limits” Science 15 March 2013.

Book review. Harvesting the Biosphere: What we have taken from Nature. by Vaclav Smil .  
MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2012. 315 pp. $29, £19.95. ISBN 9780262018562.

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