In the Old Testament book of Genesis, God told humankind to subdue the earth
Genesis 1:28 God blessed [the human beings] and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
But in a later verse, Genesis makes it sound as if it says bye-bye to human dominion over the earth
Genesis 3:17 [The Lord said to Adam,] Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow 19 you will eat your food until you return to the ground.
Recap: Humans haven't ever ruled over all the living creatures. Sometimes we can't subdue the living creatures, such as a plague of locusts. So it hardly seems that we have dominion over the earth. In fact Adam and Eve didn't subdue the earth. And they didn't subdue all of the creatures, either; for example, they didn't subdue the talking snake.
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