Man & Animals In The Bible

There are many people who present the relationship between man and animals in the Bible in unambiguous terms: man is to be master of animals, and rule over them, they are in no way equals. People who hold this view often claim that animals have no souls as humans do, and that we can do with animals as we wish, barring some extreme forms of cruelty (though they often have trouble justifying this caveat). The defining text for this is Genesis 1:28.

But as I've said elsewhere, there are two creation stories in Genesis, one right after the other. Genesis 2:4b-2:25 is a different creation account, with dramatically different details as to how and why God created the world, and the things that live upon it. In the first creation story, God makes animals before human beings, and humans are made specially in the image of God. Humanity is the crowning achievement of divine creation, and is afforded a special place in the world. He is deliberately given dominance over all other living things.

In the second creation story, animals are made after mankind. And Genesis 2:18-19 gives a very different account of why they are made. Here we are told that God 'brought forth' animals to act as companions to human beings. So on this account, animals are created to be equal to humans. Adam discovers they are not, and his act of naming them would've been symbolic to ancient peoples of his superiority over them (2:20). Here mankind is given no special pre-eminence over animals nor any special dominion over them. Rather, animals are experimental attempts to make a companion and a helper for God's Adam. We are not told that mankind is created through some process different from the one God uses to make the animals. Ecclesiastes, addressing the issue of the afterlife says that animals and humans have the same 'life-breath' (the words 'breath' and 'spirit' are interchangeable in ancient Hebrew), and that for all we know animals go to heaven and we rot in the earth (Ecclesiastes 3:19-22). This is a good passage, by the way, for those who intuitively believe that animals have souls, and go to heaven.

Christian vegetarians can latch onto this alternative view. In point of fact, it was only after the flood that humans were given the right to even eat animals (Genesis 9:1-4). Some could argue that a return to vegetarianism is a return to the perfect relationship between man and the world that existed in Eden (for the record, I am not a vegetarian). The real point I want to make, however, is that like so much in the Bible, the issue of human/animal relationships is one of conversation, and dialectical encounter. You have not one, but a couple of positions on the matter. The Bible offers you options, but you have to choose which seems true to you and why. I think there is truth in both positions, and a middle way is most advisable here. That is usually my way.