Creation Made Free: Open Theology Engaging Science

By Pickwick Publications

Open Theology offers an advantageous framework for engaging the sciences. With its emphasis upon creaturely freedom, relationality, realist epistemology, and love, Open Theology makes a fruitful dialogue partner with leading fields and theories in contemporary science.
In Creation Made Free, leading proponents of open theism explore natural and social scientific dimensions of reality as these dimensions both inform and are informed by Open Theology. Important themes addressed include evolution, creation ex nihilo, emergence theory, biblical cosmology, cognitive linguistics, quantum theory, and forgiveness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Release date: Jan 1, 2010
• ISBN: 9781621894926

Book preview

Introducing Open Theology and Science

For some time, scholars of religion and theology have discussed the ideas at the core of Open theology.¹ Many of these ideas are found in ancient Greek philosophers such as Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, and Plato. Most Open theists argue, however, that the themes and stories found in the Bible contain the most authoritative material for their theological work. Open theism is a biblically-oriented theology, and its tenets fit well with central Christian practices and experiences.

Open theologians typically contrast their views with some theological ideas found in Augustine, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Carl F. H. Henry, and their heirs. In these classical or conventional theologies, God is not often regarded as open. Conventional theologies portray deity as wholly transcendent, a predestiner, unrelated to creation, wholly nontemporal as outside time, and an all-controlling king. Open theologians propose ways of thinking about God that they believe are more faithful to central themes from the Bible and Christian experience.

In addition to appealing to scripture, experience, and reason, Open theologians typically draw from less-emphasized theological traditions. These include, for example, the tradition emerging from sixteenth-century theologian James Arminius’ rejection of divine predestination and emphasis upon creaturely freedom. Open theism finds affinity with traditions identified with the eighteenth-century theologian, John Wesley, with his emphasis upon love as God’s primary attribute and emphasis upon free creaturely response to prevenient grace. Some of Open theology’s distinctive claims are found in traditions such

as Methodism/Wesleyanism, Boston Personalism, Process theology,² Feminist and Womanist theologies, Pentecostal theologies, Liberation theologies, and the work of twentieth-century Trinitarian theologians, such as Jürgen Moltmann.

In 1994, a quintet of Evangelical scholars—David Basinger, William Hasker, Clark Pinnock, Richard Rice, and John Sanders—published The Openness of God: A Biblical Challenge to the Traditional Understanding of God.³ This work has caused—and continues to cause—uproar within Evangelical circles. This uproar exposed the reality that many Evangelical Christians are influenced more by the theology of John Calvin and Martin Luther than has been often recognized. The theological voices championed by mainstream Evangelical groups have often explicitly or implicitly identified themselves with a non-open, non-relational view of God. But the uproar also reveals that a large and growing number of Evangelical Christians are looking for a theological alternative that better fits their reading of the Bible and deepest Christian intuitions. Open theology provides a more satisfying alternative.

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Open theology has both expanded and matured since 1994.⁵ It has become a well-spring for both theological renewal and controversy. Many significant biblical, theological, and philosophical scholars now openly embrace Open theology or at least recognize strong affinities between Open theism and their own work.

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While important differences of opinion exist among Open theists, the similarities among them are also striking. Here are core themes affirmed by the majority, if not all, Open theists:

God’s primary characteristic is love.

Theology involves humble speculation about who God truly is and what God really does.

Creatures—at least humans—are genuinely free to make choices pertaining to their salvation.

God experiences others in some way analogous to how creatures experience others.

Both creatures and God are relational beings, which means that both God and creatures are affected by others in give-and-take relationships.

God’s experience changes, yet God’s nature or essence is unchanging.

God created all nondivine things.

God takes calculated risks, because God is not all-controlling.

Creatures are called to act in loving ways that please God and make the world a better place.

The future is open; it is not predetermined or fully known by God.

God’s expectations about the future are often partly dependent upon creaturely actions.

Although everlasting, God experiences time in a way analogous to how creatures experience time.

These are brief statements, of course, and they do not address theological nuances that matter to Open theology scholars. But these statements are sufficiently narrow to distinguish Open theology from alternative theological options. And they are sufficiently broad to allow for differences among those who embrace the Open theology label.

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Along with the theological themes listed above, at least three tendencies exist among Open theists. These tendencies might be formulated in the following way:

Method

While Open theists appreciate and draw from reason, experience, and the Christian tradition, Open theology places primary importance on the Bible for its methodology. Open theists believe that the Bible is the primary source for theological construction and for information about what salvation requires. Scripture is principally authoritative.

Open theists are typically not committed, however, to affirming everything the Bible says about science, history, or culture. Open theists are not biblical inerrantists, if biblical inerrancy is defined as the notion that the Bible is without any error whatsoever. But neither does the typical Open theist accept the label liberal theologian. The primacy of the Bible for theological method steers them away from more liberal theologian traditions. And the Open theist rejection of inerrancy distinguishes Open theism from Fundamentalism.

Social Location

Generally speaking, Open theists identify to a greater or lesser degree with the Evangelical Christian tradition. Virtually all of the contributors to this volume, for instance, either teach at an Evangelically-oriented institution or attend a congregation whose members consider themselves Evangelicals.

Social location undoubtedly affects the way Open theists theologize. The influence of social location on theological construction is one of the most important discoveries in the last century. Of course, the fact that their social location influences their theological work does not mean that Open theists affirm all of the political and social issues normally associated with Evangelicals. In fact, Open theology sometimes advocates positions on political and social issues that do not fit either the typical conservative or liberal labels. But the Evangelical communal moorings typical of most Open theologians should be noted as important for orienting their theological concerns and constructive activity.

Epistemology

Open theists are interested in talking about how things really are or might be. This not only includes talking about the world, it also means talking about God in a realistic way. In terms of epistemology, Open theists tend to be realists or critical realists. They realize that language about God and the world has its limitations. But they affirm that some language better identifies what is true about God and the world than other language. In this constructive epistemology, Open theists are wary of the kind of negative theology that rejects all positive claims about God. And this constructive epistemology leads Open theists away from positions that lead to extreme relativism.

The reference to realism segues nicely to Open theology’s engagement with science. Just as Open theists tend toward realism, most scientists are realists of some sort. Open theists and scientists believe that their work and language identifies something true about the world. Although rarely does the discussion of realism become explicit, the essays in this book at least implicitly affirm some form of epistemic realism.

This book reveals that Open theology is now moving into dialogue with the sciences. Contributors are leading proponents of Open theism, and each contributor explores to a greater or lesser degree scientific dimensions of their theological vision. Readers will come to realize that Open theology represents a particular kind of conversational partner with the sciences. And Open theology seems to be a partner potentially more amenable than other theological partners to what science suggests about the world.

The authors of this book’s essays participated in a three-week summer seminar on Open theology and science at Eastern Nazarene College in 2007. The seminar was funded primarily by the John Templeton Foundation and led by Thomas Jay Oord, Clark Pinnock, and Karl Giberson. A total of twenty scholars met to explore the possible relationships between leading theories in science and Open theology. It was the first time leading lights in the Open theology movement met together for extended discussion among themselves. In addition to the directors, participants included David Basinger, Dean Blevins, Gregory Boyd, Craig Boyd, Anna Case-Winters, Robin Collins, John Culp, William Hasker, Jeffrey Koperski, Michael Lodahl, Brint Montgomery, Alan Padgett, Alan Rhoda, Richard Rice, John Sanders, Karen Winslow, David Woodruff, and Dean Zimmerman.

Scientists and theologians lectured to Open Theology and Science seminar participants daily. Those scholars included Warren Brown, Philip Clayton, William Hasker, John Haught, Richard Higgins, Robert Mann, Ken Miller, Thomas Jay Oord, Clark Pinnock, John Polkinghorne, John Sanders, Jeff Schloss, Ross Stein, Howard van Till, and Everett Worthington. A series of debates between Open theists and their critics were staged. William Hasker debated Thomas Flint; Karen Winslow debated Randall Tan; and John Sanders debated John Jefferson Davis. Ken Miller and Anna Case-Winters presented their analysis of the Intelligent Design movement in one evening session.

The twenty Open Theology and Science seminar scholars met again in April, 2008, at Azusa Pacific University to present their theology-and-science research. Joining them for plenary lectures at that event were Francis Collins and T. Scott Daniels. The 2008 conference demonstrated that interest remains high for what Open theology might contribute to how we best understand God and the world.

A number of people and institutions deserve acknowledgement for their contributions to the events that made this book possible. The John Templeton Foundation provided the majority of the funding for the project. Co-director Karl Giberson and Eastern Nazarene College were kind and efficient hosts for the three-week seminar. Seminar participant Craig Boyd and Azusa Pacific University were wonderful hosts for the follow-up conference.

A number of individuals associated with administering the events deserve acknowledgement. Chief among them is Dan Messier, who played the primary role in following through with details related to the summer seminar and follow-up conference. Dan’s work made the events run smoothly.

In addition to the participants and speakers already identified, others deserving acknowledgment for their contributions include Jay Akkerman, Paul Anderson, Tom Belt, Barry Callen, Heather Ciras, Brian Clark, Denny Clark, Philip Clayton, John Cobb, Marissa Connolly, L’il Copan, Amanda Fish, Josh Fitzpatrick, Chuck Goddard, Jaimie Grover, Richard Higgins, Curtis Holtzen, Jill Jones, Sara Kern, Marianna Krejcipapa, David Larson, Richard Livingston, Mark Maddix, Randy Maddox, Stephen Mapes, T. C. Moore, Amy Moser, Les Muray, Dean Nelson, Roger Olson, John Quiring, Eric Severson, Randall Stephens, Douglas Todd, Ed Vasquez, Paul Wason, Heather Wax, John Wilson, Larry Witham, and Donald Yerxa.

1. The label, openness of God, was first presented in the title of Richard Rice’s Open theism book, The Openness of God (Nashville: Review and Herald, 1980). Donald Wayne Viney has remarked that Charles Hartshorne wrote of God’s openness in several publications prior to Rice’s book, but Hartshorne apparently never used the exact phrase openness of God.

2. For a comparison between Evangelical theology, Open theology, and Process theology, see Thomas Jay Oord, Evangelical Theologies, in Handbook of Process Theology, Jay McDaniel, and Donna Bowman, eds. (St. Louis, MO: Chalice, 2006) and Oord with Bryan P. Stone, eds., Thy Nature and Thy Name is Love: Wesleyan and Process Theologies in Dialogue (Nashville: Kingswood, 2001). John Culp was one of the first Evangelicals to consider positively how Process resources may help Evangelicals, and his work is particularly relevant to Open theology (A Dialogue with the Process Theology of John B. Cobb, Jr., Wesleyan Theological Journal 17 [1980] 33–44, and Is Mutual Transformation Possible? The Dialogue between Process and Evangelical Theology, Process Studies, 37 [2008] 104–13). Lewis S. Ford has written reviews and articles on the Evangelical-Process dialogue in a variety of journals. One of his best is his review of The Openness of God: Evangelical Appraisals of Process Theism, Christian Scholars Review 20 (1990) 149–63.

3. John Sanders was the primarily mover in the effort to write and publish this multi-authored book. It divides into five sections, each written by separate authors. Richard Rice provides the Biblical Support for a New Perspective, John Sanders addresses Christian tradition in Historical Considerations, Clark H. Pinnock addresses the view as Systematic Theology, William Hasker provides A Philosophical Perspective, and David Basinger suggests some Practical Implications (The Openness of God: A Biblical Challenge to the Traditional Understanding of God, Clark H. Pinnock, et al. [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1994]).

4. Among particularly noteworthy Open theology books are the following: Gregory A. Boyd, God of the Possible: A Biblical Introduction to the Open View of God (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), Clark H. Pinnock, Most Moved Mover: A Theology of God’s Openness (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001), Richard Rice, God’s Foreknowledge and Man’s Free Will (Bethany, 1984), and John Sanders, The God Who Risks: A Theology of Providence (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1998).

5. One important development was the establishment in 2003 of the Open and Relational Theologies unit that meets annually at the American Academy of Religion meeting. Thomas Jay Oord founded the group, co-led it for several years with Lynne Lorenzen, and continues to guide its growth.

6. Included in the group of significant voices who recognize that their views are very similar to Open theology are Philip Clayton, Terrence Fretheim, Randy Maddox, Jürgen Moltmann, John Polkinghorne, Richard Swinburne, and Keith Ward.

7. Two especially important conferences involved Open and Process theists in face-to-face dialogue. The first, The Enlightenment in Evangelical and Process Perspectives, was held in 1997, and the second, an Evangelical subsection of the International Whitehead Conference of 1998, produced a variety of fruit. One of the most important fruits is a book collection of five essays: Searching for An Adequate God: A Dialogue Between Process and Free Will Theists, Clark Pinnock and John B. Cobb, Jr., eds. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000).

part one

Creation, Cosmology, and an Open God

Introduction to Part One

God so loved the world . . ." begins one of the best-known verses in the Bible. God expresses love in the giving of the Son and offering abundant life to whomever trusts in God. Open theists argue that God always expresses love. God is love, says John in his first letter, and Open theists emphasize the priority of love for understanding who God is, how God acts, and what God desires of creation.

Open theists also believe that God is creator: God created the heavens and the earth, says the first verse of the Bible. And since the creation of the world, says the apostle Paul, God’s eternal power and divine nature have been understood and seen through the things he has made (Rom 1:20). If God is love, love must be at least part of God’s impulse for creating the universe. Love must be at least part of God’s motive for continuing to create and sustain all that exists. God’s creating is a venture in love.

Open theists are interested in talking well about God’s ongoing relationship with all creatures great and small, creatures near and far, and all who have ever existed. God is both immanent and transcendent, say Open theists: God relates intimately to all creation and yet God is more than and in many ways distinct from creation.

Many Open theists are attracted to the God-world model called panentheism, although they differ among themselves with regard to the fine details of panentheism. Open theists offer careful delineations about how God relates with the universe, including how God affects others and how others affect God. They are careful not to talk about God in ways that render God overly dependent upon creation. But they also want to avoid talking about God in ways that make God seem overly independent, distant, and aloof.

Essays in this first section engage these kinds of issues. Karen Strand Winslow initiates the discussion by a careful reading of the first chapter of Genesis. She makes an important but often overlooked point: the writers of Genesis did not regard the earth as one planet rotating with others in a solar system. They wrote from a flat-earth perspective. Winslow’s work sets the Open theology discussion of creation on solid biblical grounds, while suggesting that the Bible need not be interpreted in ways that make contemporary science superfluous.

Thomas Jay Oord offers an Open theology of creation that conceives of God’s creative power and love in such a way as to solve the theoretical aspect of the problem of evil. Oord offers a creation doctrine by examining recent scientific issues related to fine-tuning and creaturely freedom. He rejects creation out of absolutely nothingness, accepts creation out of chaosmos, and suggests that Open theists would be wise to regard God’s creative activity in ways that cohere with the logic of love.

Michael Lodahl compares Open theology with the Mu’tazila tradition in Islam. Mu’tazilites offer novel positions regarding the nature of divine providence vis-à-vis human agency and the problem of evil. Lodahl shows that the Mu’tazilites, with their views on cosmology, faced opposition not unlike what Christian Open theists experience today. The Mu’tazilite vision of the God-world relation is congenial to Christians who affirm the incarnation of the Logos and the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. Lodahl argues that if God’s Spirit can and does actually enter into human consciousness and human acting, this points toward a model of God as a Creator who, precisely in creating such a temporal world as ours, has entered into real covenantal relation with this creation such as to experience it for the temporal process that it truly is.

Anna Case-Winters explores what it means for God to act in the world. Contemporary science, with its assumed causal closure of the system, seems to stand in opposition to notions of divine activity as external intervention that overrides natural processes. Case-Winters proposes a panentheist understanding of God’s relation to the world. This vision is both more consonant with the scientific picture and more theologically sound. Case-Winters explore what God’s open presence/activity entails for creativity, concursus/accompaniment, and calling.

Brint Montgomery concludes the first segment with a philosophical exploration of divine mind. Montgomery takes Anaxagoras as his conversation partner. Anaxagoras proposed a theory of interrelatedness by speculating that everything in the physical world contains a portion of everything else. Anaxagoras also argues that a Mind initiated and governs the cosmos. Montgomery proposes that the word nouentheism may better describe the Mind-world relationship than panentheism.

1

The Earth Is Not a Planet

Karen Strand Winslow

When we hear the lovely translation of Genesis 1:1—in the beginning God created the heavens and earth—we picture the origin of the atmosphere, space, solar systems, and galaxies. We may even think about the heavens in which God dwells and to which we hope to report when we die. We think of the creation of the planet in our solar system named Earth, whose shape is an oblate spheroid or a rotationally symmetric ellipsoid.

This mental picture of the beginning is to be expected. The worldview of most contemporary readers of the Bible includes a twenty-first century acquaintance with astronomy. Our worldview includes awareness that the English term—Earth—is the name of the planet in this solar system on which humans reside. In nearly every modern dictionary, the definition of earth is the planet third from the sun, having an equatorial diameter of 7,926 miles—the third rock.

Modern dictionaries do include as one definition of earth the word land. Land would have been the first definition listed if pre-modern people had been writing dictionaries. In fact, land is often the first definition listed in Bible dictionaries today, but Scripture-centered communities have difficulty applying this understanding to present controversies over science and the Bible.

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Given that earth is the English translation of the Hebrew eretz or ha-aretz in the Bible (ha is the definite article the in Hebrew), it is natural for present-day readers to visualize the planet Earth when they read Genesis 1:1. If readers understand that Genesis 1 is theology and worship liturgy that glorifies God as creator of everything this is a fair understanding.² But when Genesis 1 is taken to be a detailed scientific explanation for the origin of the planet Earth, unnecessary controversies emerge. We need only to examine the definition of the term ha-aretz or the earth within Genesis 1 itself to understand why ha-aretz earth does not mean the planet Earth. This is also true for heavens, ha-shamayim in Hebrew, and day, yom in Hebrew. Genesis 1 defines the meaning each term. To fail to seek the contextual explanations violates the first and most important step of inductive Bible study: observe what the text itself says, not how it might confirm what we already know.

My purpose in this essay is to make explicit and apply the implications of the fact that ha-aretz meant land and ha-shamayim meant sky to the people producing and transmitting biblical texts. Genesis 1 announces the origin of the land, not the planet Earth and the sky, not the galaxies. It explains that this took place—in the world of the story—on what we call a day, defined by evening and morning, not in epochs or eras of millions of years. We cannot interpret Scripture as if its producers existed in cultural isolation. Recognizing the worldviews of ancient authors and how they contrast to our own worldviews confirms the contextual meanings of earth, heavens, and day.³ Such considerations of biblical interpretation are foundational for discussions about science and theology and have implications for how we use the whole of Scripture, including the Bible’s relevance, reliability, and authority over issues that have emerged since the close of the Jewish and Christian canons.

The Definition of Heavens and Earth in Genesis 1

Genesis is clearly about origins. Genesis, the title in the Greek translation of the Bible, means beginnings or birth accounts. The Hebrew name for the book is similar: At the first or In the beginning. Most people, religious or not, believe that Genesis 1:1—2:3, which is the six day plus day-of-rest creation narrative, is the biblical account of the origin of the entire universe. The text reports the origin of the heavens and earth as recognized in the author’s time and way of thinking. If we suspect that the author of a text written several thousand years ago might have a different worldview than ours, we may wonder to what does ha-shamayim (sky) and ha-aretz (land) of Genesis 1:1 refer. To explain the meanings of these key words, I will use the Hebrew terms. Otherwise, we may fail to see the world through the eyes of the writers and earliest receivers of the text.

Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created ha-shamayim and ha-aretz.

Is this sentence claiming God has already done this, or is it announcing what God is about to do? To find an answer, we should note that the sentence comes at the head of the passage. That is a clue. We then read,

Gen 1:2a Ha-aretz was without form and void.

At the start—before God began speaking and acting—ha-aretz had no structure and no contents. It was without inhabitants, trees, plants, or herbs. There were no creeping things, no beasts, and no humans. The start was empty, no earth (defined below) or its contents existed. Ha-aretz is not describing an earth that God had already created in verse one. No earth existed before God set out to call something into being and to fill that something.

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Gen 1:2b And darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the wind of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

Both parts of verse two provide the setting for what God will do next. Before God speaks there is no earth. But there is darkness, water, and the hovering wind of God. Now God acts!

Gen 1:3 And God said, ‘Let there be light’ and there was light.

This is the first thing that God does in the process of creating ha-shamayim and ha-aretz. Genesis 1.1 is a heading for what is to follow. Here in verse three, we have God acting as Creator. And immediately God acts again:

Gen 1:4 And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

God acts by naming the light and the darkness. God speaks light into the darkness and names that light day. God calls the darkness that is already there night. And God continues to act.

Gen 1:6–7 And God said, "Let there be the firmament [raqia] in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." And God made the firmament and separated the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. And it was so. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.

The raqia is creation’s firmament or dome. This "raqia is firm enough to separate the water from water. In modern Hebrew, this is the word for sky."

Gen 1:8 And God called the firmament heavens [shamayim].

The raqia and the shamayim are identified with one another. They separate water from water—one set of waters is below them, one is above them. The heavens are the sky. The firmament that God created to separate the waters is what God calls ha-shamayim "sky." Ha-shamayim is not outer space or the galaxies. It is the observable sky, the firmament that God created to divide the waters. This dome (raqia) rises above and around the land and is sealed at the edges. It restrains the external pre-creation waters from overwhelming what God has created.

Because of the identity of ha-shamayim within the text itself, we must rethink our picture of heavens in Genesis 1 as referring to galaxies and the spaces between them. The writer was not thinking of what he had never seen or heard. To respect the text, we must understand that for the writers and receivers of this tradition, the sky was the home for flyers. The sky was also home to the sun, moon, and stars that are assigned to rule the days, years, and seasons. Without the help of sophisticated astronomical instruments, what Genesis describes about the skies and what they contain would be the description just about anyone would offer standing on the land and looking upward. Humans see the sky as the setting for the stars, moon, and sun—and birds. In fact, some Bible translations actually say sky in Genesis 1:8. Unfortunately, translators are not always consistent in translating ha-shamayim as sky. In Genesis 1:1, many translators use the English word heavens instead of sky for ha-shamayim.

The next verse in Genesis explains what ha-aretz means.

Gen 1:9 And God said, "Let the waters under the sky [ha-shamayim] be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land [ha-yabbashah] appear." And it was so. 10 God called the dry land eretz [English: earth] and the waters that were gathered together he called seas. . . . 11 And God said, "Let ha-aretz [the earth] put forth vegetation. . . ." 13 And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

Ha-aretz is dry land (Hebrew: ha-yabbashah). When the waters below are gathered into one place, the dry land appears. And God calls this dry land ha-aretz. To the biblical writer, this land is not a planet or a globe spinning on its axis. It does not orbit the sun along with other planets. Rather, God has created dry ground from which seed bearing plants and fruit trees will emerge and on which the creepers will creep.⁵ God calls the gathered water—the water inside the vault of the sky from which the dry ground emerges—seas (ha-mayim), and this is the habitation for swimmers and swarmers. The seas (ha-mayim) are different from the darkness-covered deep (tehom) of Genesis 1:1. The great deep, the tehom, is restrained outside this vaulted area of sky, fruitful land, and seas.

Gen 1 explains the origins of the land on which people live, farm, and travel. This is the land we know through touch, observation, and traversing. In fact, ha-aretz is often a synonym for ground in the Bible. Other appearances of ha-aretz bear out its meaning. For example, the creation of creepers upon or across ha-aretz refers to insects and low walkers who move close to the land or ground.

Let’s finish out the Genesis passage:

Gen 1:25 God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon ha-aretz [here translated by the NRSV as ground] of every kind. And God saw that it was good. 26Then God said, "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon ha-aretz [here translated by the NRSV as ‘the earth’]. 27So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. 28God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill ha-aretz [here translated by the NRSV as ‘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 [here translated by the NRSV as ‘earth’). 29God said, See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all ha-aretz [here translated by the NRSV as the earth], and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. 30And to every beast of ha-aretz [‘the earth’], and to every bird of ha-shamayim [NRSV, ‘air’],⁶ and to everything that creeps on ha-aretz [here translated by the NRSV as ‘the earth’],