God's Ultimate Creation

I'm double-dipping again, partly because I'm lazy, partly because I'd like to go to bed before midnight tonight, and partly because I thought that these insights were worth sharing here as well.

DB #2: In literature, there is often more to the text than meets the eye. Much digging, connecting, and reflecting are necessary in order to glean as much from the text as there is to glean. What do you glean about humans/humankind from the order of creation in Genesis Chapter 1 beyond what the text literally says?
I gleaned two conflicting messages about mankind from the order of the creation in Genesis 1.

The first message is that mankind is the ultimate creation. Not only was mankind literally the ultimate creation in that the creation of mankind was the final stage of the creation recorded in Genesis, there is also evidence that mankind is the ultimate creation in that mankind is God’s greatest creation. According to Genesis 1:28, the first thing God did after creating mankind was bless them and give them dominion over all other animals. At various points in the creation, “God saw that it was good,” but it was only after mankind was created that “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (Gen 1:31).

Many people have used this to justify a certain amount of specism. Mankind in general views the lives of animals as being less valuable than lives of humans. Humans regularly slaughter animals for food, clothing, and our own convenience. These acts would be as unconscionable as mass murder if not for the belief that mankind is more important than animals.

Or should I say “than other animals”? The other, contradictory, message I gleaned about mankind from Genesis 1 is that mankind is, in at least one way, on approximately the same level as other animals, or at least other land animals. I said that mankind was created last, and that is true as far as I know, but what I did not know (until I read Genesis 1 more closely) is that [according to the Bible] mankind and other land animals were created on the same day. Mankind may be the ultimate creation, but the ultimate day of creation included other animals as well, and while mankind was given dominion over other animals, that doesn’t necessarily give us free license to abuse and mistreat them.

My belief is that we are stewards of the earth, not the rulers of it. We are to take care of the earth and animals, not do as we please with them. I believe that we are the greatest of God’s creations, but only if we act accordingly.