Unmaking Eden : Genesis and the Domestication of the World

Domestication is not just something that humans impose on animals, but an ancient structure binding both creatures within shared systems of subjugation. Advancing trenchant new ideas, David Carr unpacks Genesis 1–11 to reveal ways in which embedded human–animal, gender, and group hierarchies constitute our world.

Domestication is not just something that humans impose on animals, but an ancient structure binding both creatures within shared systems of subjugation. Advancing trenchant new ideas, David Carr unpacks Genesis 1–11 to reveal ways in which embedded human–animal, gender, and group hierarchies constitute our world. Drawing on animal studies and Indigenous perspectives alike, he treats the Bible's origin stories as an invitation to rethink inter-species flourishing and re-imagine community based on intrinsic worth rather than mere utility. Tracing human rule over creation in Eden to slavery and concentrated human power at Babel, the author exposes an escalating trajectory of domination. Yet these foundational stories also suggest that global subjugation is not inevitable, but instead the consequence of a fall from an earlier relational, reciprocal mode of living. Here is a hopeful framework that recognizes this crisis while offering alternatives rooted in respectful relations and multispecies kinship.