According to Mirriam Webster, dominion means "the right to govern or rule or determine." [1] We usually equate this to mean the "Power to direct, control, use and dispose of at pleasure; right of possession and use without being accountable;" [2] I believe this is short sighted and misses the mark of God's intent completely. With power comes great responsibility.
God taught Abraham that there were levels of intelligences from the least to the greatest, with God, Himself, being the greatest of all. It is He who holds absolute dominion. He does not have to be accountable to anyone, for His motives are always loving and focused on providing what is best for His children and all of His creations. I believe that when the Gods gave mankind "dominion" over the beasts of the earth, it was giving man power and authority to determine and direct, but with accountability. To whom? To God, of course, whose intelligence and power are the greatest of all. God oversees man's dominion because mankind does not always exercise dominion from pure and loving motives. Man has dominion but with a caveat of accountability. Another word for that is stewardship.
Jesus shared many parables regarding the stewardship that accompanies God's gifts (such as the parable of the talents or the Lord of the Vineyard) so it must be an eternal principle from before the world was. How different would be our attitude toward the earth and all that inhabit her (including plants as well as animals, to say nothing of other human beings) if we understood the dominion of Genesis 1 to really mean stewardship.
Both Moses and Abraham spoke of this stewardship of dominion as it relates to the creation. Note that all three versions state that there was more than one God involved. The Book of Moses explains that two of those Gods were the Father and the Son, but all three versions imply it. Abraham tells us that the Gods took counsel one with another in every step of creation. I am not sure how other Jewish, Christian, and Islamic scholars can miss the implication of the plural pronouns in Genesis 1:26.
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. (Genesis 1: 26-27)
And I, God, said unto mine Only Begotten, which was with me from the beginning: Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and it was so. And I, God, said: Let them have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. And I, God, created man in mine own image, in the image of mine Only Begotten created I him; male and female created I them. (Moses 2: 26-27)
And the Gods took counsel among themselves and said: Let us go down and form man in our image, after our likeness; and we will give them dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So the Gods went down to organize man in their own image, in the image of the Gods to form they him, male and female to form they them. (Abraham 4: 26-27)
God trusts us with His every creation. What will we say when we report our stewardship?
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