The article is published in two installments.
Agriculture and the Anthropocene
Earth history has entered a new geological era known as the Anthropocene.[1] The commonly agreed origin of this era was the 1950s with the “Great Acceleration,” a period of rapid economic growth.[2] With its onset, several key elements of the Earth system which represent a “safe operating space for humanity” have been disrupted. This disruption is measured by nine planetary boundaries, which represent conditions present in the preceding era known as the Holocene.[3] Several of these boundaries are associated with agriculture.
Land use changes due to agriculture and other human activities contribute to global warming via carbon dioxide emissions. Croplands represent the largest contribution to this as the cleared forest biomass releases carbon dioxide, as does the soil profile.[4] Land clearing contributes to defaunation – the loss of species and populations – due to habitat loss.[5] Further, land use changes and intensive agriculture are implicated in zoonotic diseases such as COVID19 [6] and Japanese encephalitis.[7]
Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas with anthropogenic sources related to agriculture. Rice is a staple for more than three billion people, accounting for up to 11% anthropogenic of methane emissions.[8] Ruminants – domestic sheep and cattle – are also a significant source of anthropogenic methane emissions.[9] Both nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers result in the deoxygenation of aquatic ecosystems. Nitrogen is also implicated in congenital heart defects in newborns, and some cancers.[10] Nitrogen from fertilisers produces 60–70% of anthropogenic nitrous oxide, a powerful greenhouse gas.[11]
There is an estimated 100,000 novel entities in global commerce today that have “the potential for unwanted geophysical and/or biological effects.”[12] The agricultural pesticides was first implicated in the death of North American birds by Rachel Carson with her book Silent Spring.[13] More recently, neonicotinoid insecticides have been experimentally shown to be implicated in the decline of insects,[14] including wild bees.[15]
The modern Anthropocene did not emerge ex nihilo in the form of the Great Acceleration, but has several historical antecedents, which includes the origins of agricultural society. Simon Lewis and Mark Maslin note that the origins of agriculture have “long-lasting environmental impacts” while not in of itself satisfying a geologically measurable origin to the Anthropocene.[16] Agriculture first occurred at the end of the last ice age, after a brief cold period known as the Younger Dryas.
Its onset has been linked with a shift from semi-sedentary foragers to the first farmers in the Levant.[17] With the onset of agriculture, energy extraction from the biosphere increased from less than 0.01% to about 3%. A return to hunter gathering became difficult due to agricultural surplices, more frequent births, and the increased labor requirements of agriculture.[18]
The Early Anthropocene Hypothesis suggests that human activity has modified the current interglacial cycle, with carbon dioxide emissions associated with the loss of forested land beginning about 8,000 years ago in, and methane emissions associated with increased rice agriculture and an expansion in the populations of sheep and cattle from about 5,000 years ago.[19]
Agricultural changes are also associated with the so-called New–Old World collision which began with the arrival of Europeans in the Caribbean in 1492. Apart from the exchange of food stuffs and feral animals, the invasion of north America by Europeans in resulted in an estimated 48 million deaths due to disease and conflict by 1650.[20] This population collapse resulted in the reversion of over 50 million hectares from farmland to forests, producing a measurable increase in global carbon dioxide levels. Heather Davis and Zoe Todd identify the ideological origins of the Anthropocene in colonization and the origins of capitalism, and like many scholars, prefers the term Capitocene.[21]
Raj Patel and Jason Moore observe that the production of cheap food from agricultural surplices has played a key role in the rise of capitalism. Rather than the earlier land based politically produced surpluses, capitalism focusses on labor and market solutions. Labor becomes more efficient such that fewer people work the land, and food is kept cheap to enable cheap labor. The land is transformed into monocultures designed to bring in profit.[22] Such an agricultural system soon gives rise to exhaustion of the land.
This summary of the impacts of agriculture on the planet would appear to ignore the obvious benefits of providing humans with sufficient nutrition. Zero hunger is one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.[23] Yet the key word here is sustainable. How can humanity continue to pursue agriculture in such a way that continues to support our existence, together with the flourishing of non-human species? This essay examines the Priestly creation story (Gen 1:1–2:3), and the non-Priestly Garden narrative (Gen 2:3–3:24).
Can these accounts provide ‘roots’ for environmental justice in the way in which we relate to soil? I propose that these texts are, among other things, fundamentally agricultural in outlook. It is a fundamental aspect of our humanity to seek our own wellbeing, and agriculture is one such way of doing so. Hence the Imago Dei implies a vocation of the soil, which is our shared origin with all other creatures.
Agriculture and Disorder
The first creation story has traditionally been identified with the Priestly (P) school, with its interest in temple, sacrifice, and Sabbath keeping. The Priestly political imaginary may be the work of more than one generation of scribes, including P in dialogue with older sources.[24] It is possible to divide P further into the Holiness School (H).[25] The bulk of this material is found in the Holiness Code of Leviticus 17–26, while some H-like theology is evident in Gen 1:1-2:3.[26]
There are numerous hints in the P’s creation account to indicate that agriculture was central to their worldview. The first is the use of the Hebrew words tohu and bohu, typically translated as “formless” and “void” respectively. Elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, bohu is only ever found with tohu, in Isa 34:11 and Jer 4:23. Isaiah 34 describes judgment on the nations (vv. 1–4), in particular Edom (vv. 5–10) in vindication of Zion (v. 8). Verses 11 – 15 form a chiasm, where the central focus is on the judgment on the rules of Edom (v. 12) in the form of environmental destruction.[27] This makes better sense than the NRSV, which translates v. 11b as “He shall stretch the line of confusion over it, and the plummet of chaos over its nobles.” The structure is as follows:
- vv. 8–10 introduction. The smoke from the pitch of sulphur shall rise forever and the land will be a waste or dried up (charab)
- v. 11a the land is full of wild animals: hawk, hedgehog, owl, and raven
- v. 11b God stretches out the line of confusion (tohu) and the stones of emptiness (bohu)
- v. 12 the human rulers will be nothing
- v. 13a thorns, nettles, and thistles shall be found in Edom’s strong places
- vv. 13b–15 wild beasts of the desert and demons inhabit the land
The NASB follows the thought that if thorns, etc are found in stronghold and fortresses (v. 13a), that the subject of the tohu and bohu must be the rulers, since it is their places of power that have been abandoned. However, v. 9 curses both the land (erets) and dust (aphar). The extent of judgment is all inclusive. The parallel of wild animals (v. 11a cf. vv. 13b-15) indicates a breakdown in order, with wild beasts of the desert (v. 14) overtaking the land. Likewise, tohu and bohu describes the spread of weeds indicative of a breakdown in agricultural tending of the aphar.
Jeremiah 23 describes invasion of Judah. Language of uncreation is employed, with the formula “I beheld (ra’ah)” and “behold (hinneh)” echoing the language of P’s creation account (Gen 1:31). The earth is tohu and bohu and there are no lights in heaven (Jer 4:23b cf. Gen 1:2). The mountains and hills shook (Jer 4:24 cf. the creation of dry land Gen 1:9–10). There were no people (Jer 4:25a cf. Gen 1:26) or birds (Jer 4:25b cf. Gen 1:20–22). In summation, the fruitful land (karmel) was a desert (midbar) and the cities in ruins. As in Isaiah 34, tohu and bohu is associated with destruction, particularly of agricultural lands.
Agriculture and Order
Hence, in Genesis 1, agricultural order is imposed on the pre-existing agricultural disorder over six days. On day one, time is created by the creation of light and its separation from darkness. On the second day, space is created by the separation of the waters above from the waters below by the firmament. On the third day, food is created by separating the waters into one place and the dry ground in another where vegetation can grow. On day four, the sun, moon, and stars are installed in the firmament to rule the day and night and mark the seasons, necessary for agriculture. Finally, God creates the living creatures (nephesh hayyah), and humans in God’s image, and grants them plants to eat (vv. 29-30).
Ellen Davis identifies agricultural theme running through P’s narrative,[28] stressing the key role seeds play. On day three, the dry land called earth (erets) is created as the waters below the heavens were gathered into one place (Gen 1:9). From the erets comes forth sprout–out sprouts, plants seeding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit. There is an emphasis on selfperpetuation and abundance with greenery of various kinds.[29]
The closing bracket on seeds is in v. 29 as every plant and fruit tree seeding seed is for human consumption. All other greenery is for animals (v. 30). Following Walton, from a functional perspective, soil, water, and the principle of seed bearing are all tied to the production of food. The account of the emergence of dry land mirrors the annual appearance of soil after the flooding of the Nile.[30]
This extended discussion is an awkward and departure from the conciseness of the first two days of creation. This points towards the particularity of place and the genetic diversity of the region at the time.[31] The region of the Fertile Crescent marks one of the locations of the origins of agriculture.[32] Hence “read in this way, the Priestly account of creation seems not far removed from the overtly agrarian character of the Yahwist’s ‘drama of soil.’”[33]
The concept of the imago Dei is linked to our relationship to soil. The Priestly vision for human life is realized in Israel and its holiness as a people (Lev 11:44–45; 19:2 etc). This vision of holiness emphasized the land and covenanted creatures along with the people. Gen 1:26–28 shows us how life in God’s image is meant to conform with other forms of life into a “harmonious whole.”[34] What follows then is the most essential task of securing food along with the other animals (vv. 29–30).
Understanding the text to be exilic, although it is equally compatible with a post-exilic setting, Davis interprets vv. 29–30 in the context of a Mesopotamian temple centerd agricultural system. Hence, the image of God represents a democratization of the priestly and kingly role to all those involved in the agricultural system.[35] This theme is also present in the Garden story as we shall see.
Agriculture and limits
The securing of food is not ultimately determinative. Concern is often shown over the verbs radah and kabash, which are translated as “rule” and “subdue.”[36] Normal Habel concludes that we should abandon Gen 1:26–28 for the “green” text of Gen 2:15.[37] Two responses may be made. First, alternative understands of these concepts are possible. Davis understands the basic means of radah as “the travelling around of the shepherd with his flock.”[38] Hence, it is rendered as “exercise mastery among” rather than “have dominion over,” and hence according to Richard Middleton is an exercise of communal power.[39] Moreover, this communal power must be related to the task of securing food, as the agricultural themes running through the Priestly creation account suggest.
Second, the work of harvesting is ultimately limited by the concept of ceasing or shabat. The “religious life” of the Hebrew laity, and agriculture is noted in a lexical connection between the creation account and the list of festivals in Leviticus 23. Genesis 1:14 reads
Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons (moadim) and for days and years.
Leviticus 23:2 identifies moadim as representing more than a climatological reference
These are the appointed festivals of the Lord (moadi Yhwh) that you shall proclaim as holy convocations, my appointed festivals.
The moadi Yhwh are religious festivals linked to a harvest. Hence for the Hebrews, agriculture was a mnemonic for salvation history. That this list includes the weekly Sabbath, as well as the cessation of work on several of the other festivals, demonstrates another important aspect of a religiously rooted environmental justice principle.
Sabbath is key to H. The seventh day is sanctified (qadesh) because God ceased (shabat) from the work of creation (Gen 2:3). While there is no command to keep the Sabbath, the creation of sacred time after the completion of the work of creation implies that such a command will follow, and that it will encompass all of creation (erets).
This idea is taken up in Leviticus, where the land (erets) is to find its rest from human agricultural activity. The seventh year Sabbath is portrayed as being for theland to take a complete rest (shabat shabaton, Lev 25:4–5). The land must observe a total cessation to Yhwh from its customary vocation (Lev 25:2). That the land is active in Sabbath keeping, rather than the passive recipient of human Sabbath observance, is suggested by comparison with Lev 23:32 where the people are to “celebrate your Sabbath.” The underlying Hebrew is the same.
Furthermore, the land has a relationship with Yhwh that precedes that of Israel, although now they appear to share the same covenant (Lev 26:42). There is a parallel between Leviticus 25 and the creation story: creation of the erets (“earth”) by God precedes that of the adam just as Yhwh has prior relationship with the erets (“land”) before the arrival of Israel. The adam as the divine image bearers are blessed to multiply, to subdue the erets (for agriculture) and have dominion (Gen 1:26–30). The adam is the divine image bearer in God’s creation, with the implied responsibility to allow all the erets to enjoy the Sabbath (Gen 2:2–3).
What can we conclude at this stage for any sense of roots of environmental justice in the Priestly tradition of the Pentateuch? First, any sense of environmental justice is subsumed into the assumption of the priority of agriculture. It is the primary way in which the Israelites knew and experienced what we now refer to as the environment. Environment can be seen as a modern abstraction, and artificial separation between the human and the more than human.
Instead, agriculture represents a concrete relationship between the human and soil. This relationship is tenuous, with fallowing for the land essential without chemical fertilizers.[40] Such fallowing would have to be more frequent than the Sabbath year of Lev 25:3–7, and hence according to Michael LeFebvre, the “septennial land sabbath was an economic practice embodied within a theological institution.”[41]
Second, this theological institution necessarily prescribes lay Israelite holiness, and that includes Sabbath keeping (Lev 19:30; 26:2). Hence, given the land was allowed its Sabbath, and that human Sabbath keeping was to be inclusive of this (Lev 26:35), Israelite holiness included giving rest to the land. In the Anthropocene, where humans affect all areas of the globe from our economic activity,[42] me we might rightly argue that the Holiness tradition instructs us to give the entire planet rest.
Third, while the Priestly tradition accepts a domestic/wild binary, it does not do without including all the earth in this rest. Recall the blessing of the seventh day comes after the completion of the work of creation, and that this includes (Gen 1:24) domestic (behemah) and wild animals or beasts of the earth (chayah haerets). Likewise, the septennial Sabbath (Lev 25:7) allowed domestic (behemah) and wild animals (chay) that are in the land (erets) to eat off the land.
Since urbanization is a key aspect of the Anthropocene,[43] most human beings are separated from the process of agriculture, yet it continues to be the key manner of survival for most of humanity. As we have seen, it is also one of the ways in which we impact the non-domestic world, if such a thing can be said to exist. Hence, this suggests that for humanity to move through the Anthropocene, we must at once become both more deeply connected with the ways in which our food is produced, but also more connected to the principles of Sabbath rest from precisely these ways. While Sabbath is a pragmatic practice, in the Priestly tradition, it is also an act of holiness, and hence the church too should seek to understand our vocation of the soil as a sacred task.
Mick Pope heads up the Australian environmental think tank Ethos. He completed undergraduate theological studies and a PhD in Meteorology at Monash University. He is Professor of Environmental Mission at Missional University and speaks regularly on the interaction with environmental ethics, science and mission. He has a number of published book chapters and journal articles in this area, including A Climate of Hope: Church and Mission in a Warming World, with Claire Dawson (2014), and Climate of Justice (2017).
[1] Paul Crutzen, “Geology of Mankind,” Nature 415 (2002): 23.
[2] Will Steffen, Wendy Broadgate, Lisa Deutsch, Owen Gaffney, and Cornelia Ludwig, “The Trajectory of the Anthropocene: The Great Acceleration,” The Anthropocene Review 2 (2015): 1–18.
[3] Will Steffen, Katherine Richardson, Johan Rockström, Sarah E. Cornell, Ingo Fetzer, Elena M. Bennett, Reinette Biggs, Stephen R. Carpenter, Wim de Vries, Cynthia A. de Wit, Carl Folke, Dieter Gerten, Jens Heinke, Georgina M. Mace, Linn M. Persson, Veerabhadran Ramanathan, Belinda Reyers, and Sverker Sörlin, “Planetary Boundaries: Guiding Human Development on a Changing Planet,” Science 347 (2015): 1–17.
[4] R.A. Houghton, “How Well Do We Know the Flux of CO2 from Landuse Change?” Tellus B: Chemical and Physical Meteorology 62, no. 5 (2010): 337–351.
[5] Rodolfo Dirzo, Hillary S. Young, Mauro Galetti, Gerardo Ceballos, Nick J. B. Isaac, Ben Collen, “Defaunation in the Anthropocene,” Science345, no. 6195 (2014):401–6.
[6] Odette K Lawler et al., “The COVID-19 Pandemic is Intricately Linked to Biodiversity Loss and Ecosystem Health,” The Lancet 5 (2021): 840–850.
[7] Andrew F. van den Hurk, Scott A. Ritchie, Cheryl A. Johansen, John S. Mackenzie, and Greg A. Smith, “Domestic Pigs and Japanese Encephalitis Virus Infection, Australia,” Emerging Infectious Diseases 14:11 (2008): 1736–1738.
[8] Marte Nikolaisen, Jonathan Hillier, Pete Smith, and Dali Nayak, “Modelling CH4 Emission from Rice Ecosystem: A Comparison Between Existing Empirical Models,” Frontiers in Agronomy 4 (2022). doi:10.3389/fagro.2022.1058649.
[9] I. Tapio, T.J. Snelling, F. Strozzi, et al. “The Ruminal Microbiome Associated with Methane Emissions from Ruminant Livestock,” J Animal Sci Biotechnol 8, no. 7 (2017). doi:10.1186/s40104-017-0141-0.
[10] Vaclav Smil, “Global population and the Nitrogen cycle,” Scientific American July 1997: 76-81. L Knobeloch, B. Salna, A. Hogan, J. Postle, and H. Anderson, “Blue Babies and Nitrate-contaminated Well Water,” Environmental Health Perspectives 108, no. 7 (2000): 675-678.
[11] S.Y. Pan, K.H. He, K.T. Lin, et al. “Addressing Nitrogenous Gases from Croplands Toward Low-emission Agriculture,” npj Clim Atmos Sci 5, no. 43 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-022-00265-3.
[12] Steffen et al., Planetary Boundaries, 7.
[13] Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (London: Penguin, 2001).
[14] S.H. Barmentlo, M. Schrama, G.R. de Snoo, PmM. van Bodegom, A. van Nieuwenhuijzen A, and M.G. Vijver, “Experimental Evidence for Neonicotinoid Driven Decline in Aquatic Emerging Insects,” Proc Natl Acad Sci 118, no. 44 (2021):e2105692118. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2105692118.
[15] B. Woodcock, N. Isaac, J. Bullock, et al., “Impacts of Neonicotinoid Use on Long-term Population Changes in Wild Bees in England,” Nature Communications 7 (2016): 12459. Doi:10.1038/ncomms12459.
[16] Simon L. Lewis and Mark A Maslin, “Defining the Anthropocene,” Nature 519 (2015): 171-180.
[17] Ofer Bar-Yosef, “Climatic Fluctuations and Early Farming in West and East Asia,” Current Anthropology 52, no. S4 (2011): S174 – 93.
[18] See Simon L. Lewis and Mark A. Maslin, The Human Planet: How We Created the Anthropocene (London: Pelican Books, 2018), 115–16.
[19] Lewis and Maslin, The Human Planet, 144.
[20] Lewis and Maslin, The Human Planet, 164–68.
[21] Heather Davis and Zoe Todd, “On the Importance of a Date, or Decolonizing the Anthropocene,” ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies 16 (2017): 761–80.
[22] Raj Patel and Jason W. Moore, A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things (Carlton: Black Inc, 2018), 140.
[23] For the Sustainable Development Goals, see https://sdgs.un.org/goals.
[24] Mark G. Brett, Locations of God: Political Theology in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 56–57.
[25] David P. Wright, “Holiness in Leviticus and Beyond: Different Perspectives,” Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology 53, no.4 (1999): 351–64.
[26] For a discussion of why the Priestly creation account is limited to this passage, and evidence for a Holiness redactor, see Mick Pope, From Creation to Canaan: Biblical Hermeneutics for the Anthropocene (Eugene: Pickwick, 2024).
[27] Pope, From Creation to Canaan, 42.
[28] Ellen F. Davis, “Learning Our Place: The Agrarian Perspective of the Bible,” Word & World 29 (2009):109–120. Ellen F. Davis, Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
[29] Davis, Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture, 48.
[30] John Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate (Downers Grove: IVP, 2009), 58.
[31] Davis, Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture, 50.
[32] Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997).
[33] Davis, Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture, 50.
[34] Davis, Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture, 56–7.
[35] Middleton, Liberating the Image, 291.
[36] Norman Habel, An Inconvenient Text: Is a Green Reading of the Bible Possible? (Adelaide: ATF Press, 2009), 2–6. In Numbers, kabash is used in the context of the conquest of Canaan (Num 32:22, 29).
[37] Habel, An Inconvenient Text, 77.
[38] Davis, Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture, 55, quoting Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, vol 2 (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 1190.
[39] Richard Middleton, Liberating the Image: The Imago Dei in Genesis 1 (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2005), 52.
[40] Michael LeFebvre, “Theology and Economics in the Biblical Year of Jubilee,” BET 2, no. 1(2015):33.
[41] LeFebvre, “Theology and Economics in the Biblical Year of Jubilee,” 34.
[42] On the declining place of “wilderness” see Mick Pope, “The Earth is Full of your Creatures: A Theology of Wilderness,” Anglican EcoCare Journal of Ecotheology 1 (2014): 65–78; Mick Pope, “Rediscovering a Spirituality of Creation for the Anthropocene,” in The Nature of Things: Rediscovering the Spiritual in God’s Creation, ed. Graham Buxton and Norm Habel (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2016), 92–102.
[43] Steffen, et al., “The Trajectory of the Anthropocene.”
