What was the role of animals in the Bible – Talking leeches, sea monsters, snakes and other strange reptiles

People usually play the leading role in the Bible. However, there are many amazing and strange animals that we often don’t know about. Among them talking leeches, sea monsters and four-legged insects. The theologians – writers and Simone and Claudia Paganini, in their new book, entitled “Die Biester der Bibel. Warum es in der Heiligen Schrift keine Katzen, aber eine Killer-Kuh gibt’ (Beasts of the Bible: Why there are no cats in the Bible but a killer cow), reveal secrets that are usually overlooked. It is important to understand that the word “beast” does not have today’s negative meaning, but is a translation product of the Latin word bestia, which means wild animal.

Before the serpent appeared in God’s paradise, Adam and Eve lived peacefully and innocently. Lions, wolves and other animals indulged in vegetarianism and did not bother anyone. God gave the firstborn all freedom, except for one express prohibition: not to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge. When the snake convinced Eve to taste one of the apples of this tree then, according to the Bible, God punished them by driving them out of Eden. This was original sin. The snake lost its ability to speak and could only crawl into the world.

A false impression of the nature of woman

For the church, the snake is the embodiment of the devil, while Eve’s seductive behavior is clear evidence of the sins of the female sex. Today, however, some women theologians have the exact opposite view, which is also recorded in Paganini’s book: “Because the woman had more sensitivity and intelligence than the man, the snake went towards her. Adam probably would not have understood why eating from the tree of knowledge could be attractive,” they say.

Despite the expulsion from paradise, God had given the first creatures a mission: to populate the earth and dominate the animals. With some creatures this was not easy, because they were quite scary. Dinosaurs and the Bible arose 65 million years apart. And yet in many psalms the mythical monster “Leviathan” is mentioned, with scales and huge teeth. In the Bible also the cute unicorn that is loved by young and old, is a beast “that can crush the bones of whole peoples” and in its wake the earth shakes.

Especially in the Old Testament the strangest mythical creatures are found including man-eating dragons or a rooster with a snake’s tail. Some of these forms of strange animals may have been created through mistranslations and arbitrary interpretations of Bible texts. Many of these creatures reflect figures from ancient cultures.

Animals as war machines

What all Bible translators agree on, however, is that God uses animals as symbols of sinful humanity. For example, locust attacks, which destroy entire crops, are repeatedly reported. Wolves or lions attack sinners. Corresponding to the Old Testament with Jonah and the whale, the whale is used as the “hand of God” for Jonah to carry out God’s will and preach his word to the Assyrians.

In the Bible, however, there is also the positive image of the donkey, which brought Mary from Egypt and Jesus to Jerusalem. It is an intelligent, hardworking animal and in some psalms it can even speak. On the other hand, the horse for the Israelites is an unrestrained war machine. The biblical goat was also burdened with the sins of the people, which is why it was banished to the wilderness. Later, the concept of the “scapegoat” was established, which is the embodiment of the devil.

Surprisingly, neither the dog nor the cat is mentioned in the Bible. “Dog” is only a swear word, while cat is completely absent. The authors believe this is because, while Israeli semi-nomads were always on the move, cats live permanently in their place.

Finally, we have the killer cow. Formerly animals that caused death were stoned or hanged, because according to biblical law they had the capacity for imputation and full consciousness of the wrongfulness of the act. Centuries of damnation awaited the cow that would trample a man. The same would happen with a sparrow, which with its chirping disturbs the prayer of a monk, or with the worm, which gnaws the wooden throne of a bishop, causing it to fall. These things could only be the work of the devil, they all agreed. In the end the authors conclude that the Bible is clearly not a masterpiece of animal ethics, but “the taken-for-granted exercise of authority by humans over animals should be fundamentally challenged.” Only then can one approach the biblical paradise again, where humans and animals live together in peace.

Read the News today and get the latest news.
Follow Skai.gr on Google News and be the first to know all the news.