Related Papers
Currents in Biblical Research
The Hebrew Bible and the ‘Animal Turn’
2020 •
Phillip Sherman
Animal Studies refers to a set of questions which take seriously the reality of animal lives, past and present, and the ways in which human societies have conceived of those lives, related to them, and utilized them in the production of human cultures. Scholars of the Hebrew Bible are increasingly engaging animals in their interpretive work. Such engagement is often implicit or partial, but increasingly drawing directly on the more critical aspects of Animal Studies. This article proceeds as a tour through the menagerie of the biblical canon by exploring key texts in order to describe and analyze what Animal Studies has brought to the field of Biblical Studies. Biblical texts are grouped into the following categories: animals in the narrative accounts of the Torah, legal and ritual texts concerning animals, animal metaphors in the prophets, and wisdom literature and animal life. The emergence and application of zooarchaeological research and a number of studies focusing on specific ...
The Animal in the New Testament and Graeco Roman World June 15-17, 2023
Justin David Strong
Vetus Testamentum
New Directions for Thinking about the Bible and Nonhuman Animals: A Review of Works by Peter Atkins, Dong Hyeon Jeong, and Saul Olyan
2024 •
Suzanna Millar
Three new monographs have appeared in 2023 that explore the Bible and nonhuman animals: Peter Joshua Atkins, The Animalizing Affliction of Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 4: Reading Across the Human-Animal Boundary (London: T&T Clark, 2023); Dong Hyeon Jeong, Embracing the Nonhuman in the Gospel of Mark (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2023); Saul M. Olyan, Animal Rights and the Hebrew Bible (New York: OUP, 2023). This review brings these books into conversation, suggesting six questions that they grapple with and which might stimulate further research.
Daniel Ullucci, The Christian Rejection of Animal Sacrifice (Review)
Martin Pjecha
Animating the Bible's Animals
Ken Stone
The Animal Rite of Genesis 15 in Comparative and Canonical Perspective
Tyler J Patty
This paper seeks to investigate the narrative of Genesis 15, specifically the animal rite of verses 9-12, 16-17a, in light of comparative and biblical parallels. Contrary to those who understand the animal rites of Genesis 15 as an example of covenant ratification, biblical and comparative parallels suggest these rites are sanctions to ensure the covenant is kept. But unlike the parallel in Jeremiah 34, where the vassal party is promised appropriate punishment for breaking the terms of the covenant, Yahweh is the one submitting himself to a potential curse in Genesis 15.
The Dual Role of Animals in Medieval Hebrew Animal Fables: Animals as a Subject and an Object
Revital Refael-vivante
A Promise is a Promise: God's Covenantal Relationship With Animals
Kris Hiuser
In attempts to provide theological weight to the concern for non-human creatures, there are a variety of ways, and a number of biblical texts chosen which modern Christians have utilized. This essay has chosen Genesis 9 and Hosea 2 to use in making a case for the value of non-human creatures. Gen. 9 may at first glance seem an odd choice to use in making a case for animals as valued as subjects, rather than objects. Genesis 9 is after all, the very place where God gives an allowance (and not a command) for humans to consume animal flesh. However, this is also the first time in scripture where God explicitly covenants with His creatures, and does so with both humans and non-humans . The same action of God covenanting with non-human creatures can also be found in Hosea 2. This paper will make the case that because God covenants with the non-human, they can be understood to have independent value as subjects in their own right. In making this case, this paper will first examine Genesis 9 and Hosea 2 as two scriptural cases where God covenants with non-human creatures. In doing so, a number of biblical commentators and theologians will be shown to have recognized the fact that God does indeed covenant with non-human animals. From here, this paper will then proceed to examine a number of understandings of what it means to covenant, and suggest that to engage in covenant with something is to be in relationship with, and value them. Finally, this paper will suggest that given that God cares for non-human animals enough to covenant with them, this necessarily has implications as to how humans should understand and relate to non-human creatures.
SACRIFICE AND VEGETARIANISM, in Geoffrey Dierckxsens, Rudmer Bijlsma, Michael Begun, Thomas Kiefer (eds.), The Animal Inside. Essays at the Intersection of Philosophical Anthropology and Animal Studies, Rowman and Littlefield, 2016, pp. 11-28.
Giulia Sissa
T&T Clark eBooks
Complex Attitudes towards Animals in the Hebrew Bible
2023 •
Yael Shemesh
