Eden's Other Residents

The Bible and Animals

Michael Gilmour

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9781610973328
  9781498205573
• eBook ISBN:
  9781630871994
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

The Bible teems with nonhuman life, from its opening pages with God's creation of animals on the same day and out of the same earth as humans to its closing apocalyptic scenes of horses riding out of the sky. Animals are Adam's companions, Noah's shipmates, and Elijah's saviors. They are at the center of ancient Israel's religious life as sacrifices and yet, as Job discovers, beyond human dominion. It is an animal that saves Balaam from certain death by an angel's hand, and an animal that carries Jesus into Jerusalem. The Creator declares all of them good at the beginning, and since the Apostle Paul writes of God's eternal purposes for all things on earth, they are somehow part of a hoped-for eschatological restoration. So why are animals so often ignored in Christian moral discourse? In its theological thinking and faith-motivated praxis, human-centeredness typically results in the complete erasure of the nonhuman. This book argues that this exclusion of animals is problematic for those who see the Bible as authoritative for the religious life. Instead, biblical literature bears witness to a more inclusive understanding of moral duty and faith-motivated largesse that extends also to Eden's other residents.

1

Realizing Animals Matter

Generosity follows gratitude. We see this all the time in the Bible. Israel cares for strangers in the land knowing they too were once strangers, displaced and separated from the protections and comforts of home (Deut 24:17–18, 22). Zacchaeus gives away half his possessions to the poor and offers to restore fourfold anyone he defrauded. This in response to Jesus’s kindness (Luke 19:8) even though it was not required of him, as it was of others (cf. Luke 18:22). Zacchaeus thus enacts that liberality of spirit Jesus encourages elsewhere. “[F]reely ye have received, freely give,” as the KJV puts it.1 Even when it is perfectly within one’s rights to claim certain comforts and privileges, we often find instead self-sacrifice and an almost excessive liberality. The author of Ruth celebrates the heroine’s hesed, kindness, evident in her willingness to leave her own people for Naomi’s sake (1:16–18; 2:11–12, 18, 23). Boaz praises this hesed as well. Far from self-serving, Ruth has her mother-in-law’s best interests in mind when claiming this man as redeemer rather than seeking someone younger to marry (3:10). And notice how often such stories of faith-motivated largesse spill across “boundaries.” Israel’s God-given bounty is not theirs to hoard but rather to share with sojourners in the land, indicating non-Israelites. Wealthy Zacchaeus reaches across the socioeconomic divide to the poor.2 A kind Samaritan ignores racial and religious differences when lending a helping hand to a Jew (Luke 10:25–37). When Ruth puts the wellbeing of another ahead herself, leaving behind her own family, people, and gods to do so, she even resists Naomi’s pleas to do otherwise (Ruth 1:11–15). Freely ye have received, freely give, and in the process defy conventions, and avoid giving to those in a position to return the kindness (Luke 14:12–14). Where is the reward in that?

This book explores the limits of our individual and collective responses to the grace of God. It considers recurring injunctions reminding us to give when we receive, to give joyfully and not reluctantly, and to realize it is not up to us to determine “who is my neighbor.” It asks whether we ought to reach so far across boundaries in showing hesed as to include all creation, not just our own kind (Homo sapiens).

Zacchaeus, Restitution, and Gratitude Unbidden

As noted, Zacchaeus gives away much of his fortune and publically announces his willingness to right wrongs with an almost reckless munificence. In doing so, he offers a compelling model for our purposes here (see the full story, Luke 19:1–9). The Bible does not speak of animals3 and ethical responsibilities owed to them by the people of God in any uniform, systematic sense. There are ambiguities, compounded by millennia of culture-bound interpretations that complicate efforts to articulate a biblically informed animal ethic. But try we must.

What Zacchaeus models is an act of generosity partially rooted in specific biblical teaching and partially derived from broader injunctions to kindness and care for the poor. He does what the Bible tells him explicitly to do and more, and it is in this convergence of the two, this largesse and willingness to go two miles instead of the one demanded, that perhaps we find “space” to include animals in the community of those deserving hospitality and the protection of God’s people. Torah requires returning fourfold what one steals as restitution (Exod 22:1; cf. 2 Sam 12:5–6; both passages, incidentally, refer to theft of animals). Zacchaeus appears to take legislation protecting animal property (fourfold restitution) and extend it to theft in any form, which given his profession presumably includes taking more taxes from people than what is owed.4 The other part of Zacchaeus’s restitution—giving half his possessions to the poor—is not grounded in any specific law and, again, is not something Jesus asked of him. It stems from gratitude. It goes beyond the minimum required by law.5 It involves the disciple freely choosing how best to honor the teacher who shows favor. It gives tangible expression to his newfound joy and shows awareness that what he has, he does not deserve.

Owing to the paucity of explicit instruction about other-than-human animals, and the ambivalences and ambiguities of biblical texts and subsequent Christian tradition concerning them, I offer Zacchaeus’s response to grace as a way forward in thinking about Christian animal ethics.6 Aware of requirements in Torah (Exod 22:1), Zacchaeus adapts its instructions as appropriate for his particular circumstances, thus capturing the spirit of restitution found in this legislation. It may be he never stole actual oxen or sheep but he found here a fitting way to make amends. Zacchaeus also exceeds this injunction, perhaps acknowledging that greed, or lack of trust in God, or lack of respect for his neighbors is at the root of his (at least hypothetical) fraudulent actions. Approaching the subject of the Bible and animals requires a similar consideration of what the text says explicitly and what it implies. We must read the words on the page but also what is between the lines and at the margins, as it were. To push this further yet, we must acknowledge the enormous gap between the worlds of the ancient poets and sages and our own. We cannot reconstruct fully or replicate attitudes toward/relationships with animals in ancient societies, and it would not necessarily address all our concerns or answer all our questions about this topic if we could. Instead, like Zacchaeus, we need to be creative in our approach to biblical teachings if they are to contribute meaningfully to our particular circumstances.

Since the God of the Bible values animals—this much is obvious—what are the implications for people of faith? I argue in the following pages that a believer’s response to God’s grace must be gratitude embodied in a self-sacrificing, exuberant generosity to others, and like behaviors displayed in the stories of Ruth and the Good Samaritan and a hundred others, this generosity ought to transgress boundaries. If reconciliation encompasses “all things” in heaven and earth (see, e.g., Rom 8:18–30; Eph 1:7–10; Col 1:15–20), then it befits the people of God to widen the ambit of care and concern to include “all things.” Jesus does not tell Zacchaeus to give away half his property but the tax collector does. Naomi tells Ruth not to follow but she does anyway. Similarly, the Scriptures are not always clear what extending hospitality and kindness means for the community of God’s people. Like Zacchaeus and Ruth we need to sort out the appropriate response to grace for ourselves, at times moving from general understanding of the tenor of God’s word (in Zacchaeus’s case, showing kindness to the poor) to specific actions (distributing his wealth to them even if not told to do so). Sometimes these choices appear strange (as in Ruth’s case, from Naomi’s perspective). In the following pages, I focus mostly on why we must incorporate animals within our ethical purview though I leave to readers to sort out for themselves what specific behaviors ought to follow.

A Religious Awakening

Animals as a consideration for the religious life? I came to the conviction that Christian compassion must be all-inclusive only gradually. It was a kind of religious awakening. Before this Damascus Road moment, there was no particular sense of moral obligation to animals, n...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Chapter 1: Realizing Animals Matter
• Chapter 2: Reading Animals in the Christian Bible
• Chapter 3: Recognizing the Grace of God in Animal Creation
• Chapter 4: Revisiting Animals in Religious Ritual
• Chapter 5: Responding to the Groaning Creation
• Chapter 6: Returning to the Garden: The Writings of William Bartram
• Bibliography