Full Description
This volume explores the ubiquity of animals and the remarkable density of animal language in the New Testament and its contemporary world. By situating the New Testament amid ancient discourses and incorporating understanding from the emerging field of Animal Studies, the contributors explore the insights that emerge when non-human animals and notions of animality take centre stage.
By analysing the Classical contexts of the New Testament, the gospels, the writings of Peter, Paul and John and extra-canonical Christian contexts, the volume identifies and explores the myriad ways in which humans find themselves and others to be like animals, addressing basic notions of human and animal nature and highlighting traits such as sentience, subjectivity, and intentionality. Ranging from the intense discussions regarding animal souls and their place in contemporary narratives to their various roles in the teachings of Jesus, their depictions in the writing of the apostles and their symbolic and ethical significance in early Christianity, this highly original and methodologically diverse collection introduces an unfamiliar paradigm that offers new perspectives and insights into the New Testament and its contemporary world.
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Part I: Introduction and Orientation
Introduction
The Animal Turn and the New Testament Crossroads
Justin David Strong
Chapter 1
Reacclimating to the Environment: Where Are the New Testament Animals and Why Do They Matter?
Justin David Strong
Part II: Classical Contexts
Chapter 2
Do Non-Human Animals Have Perspectives from the New Testament and Late Stoicism in Comparison
Hedwig Schmalzgruber
Chapter 3
Animal Emotions in Graeco-Roman "Popular" Science and Philosophy and Imaginative Genres
Stephen T. Newmyer
Chapter 4
Sed ille qui oculos centum habet, si venerit: On Anthropomorphization, Focalization, and Morals in Ancient Fables and the New Testament
Ursula Gärtner
Part III: The New Testament
Chapter 5
A Poultry Prophet: The Chicken Wings of Jesus in Matthew 23:37b / Luke 13:34b
J. Andrew Doole
Chapter 6
How Are the Children Before the Dogs? Reading Jesus' Encounter with the Greek Syrophoenician Woman within Ancient Child-Dog Symbolism
John Van Maaren
Chapter 7
The Choice to Untie a Donkey, Ox, or "Daughter of Abraham" in Luke 13:10-17
Emma Swai
Chapter 8
Sheep and Their Keepers: A Survey of Their Real-World and Metaphorical Value in the New Testament
Ursula Ulrike Kaiser
Chapter 9
The Lamb Must Die, but Why? The Johannine Humanimal and the Soteriological Slaughterhouse
Stephen D. Moore
Chapter 10
"Animal Liberation" in John? How Jesus Set Free the Enslaved Sacri?cial Sheep
Ruben Zimmermann
Chapter 11
"Is God Concerned with Oxen?" (1 Corinthians 9:9-10): Why Paul Is Right That Deuteronomy 25:4 Is Not About the Ethical Treatment of Animals
Joel White
Chapter 12
Of Men, Dogs, and "Mutilated Monsters": Paul's Use of Dehumanizing Terminology in Philippians 3:2 and Beyond
Gregory E. Lamb
Chapter 13
Straight from the Horse's Mouth? Mute Horses in the New Testament from a Human-Animal Studies Perspective
Susanne Luther
Chapter 14
The Diabolical Lion in 1 Peter 5:8 and Early Jewish and Christian Literature
Noel Cheong
Chapter 15
Where Are the Animals in the End? Making Sheep Impact on the Apocalypse
Michelle Fletcher
Part IV: Early Christian Contexts
Chapter 16
Jesus the Serpent and Other Animals in the Epistle of Barnabas
Travis Proctor
Chapter 17
The Transmigration of Souls, and the Impediment of the Body: An Early Christian Debate About Whether Animals Can See God (Justin Martyr, Dialogue With Trypho 3.7-4.7)
Jonathan H. Young
Chapter 18
Roaming with Antelopes, Suckling Hyenas: Animals in Egyptian Ascetic and Monastic Texts
Ingvild Sælid Gilhus
Bibliography
Index
