Does God Care For Oxen

The doctrine of stewardship is one of the most oft-proclaimed in the church today. On its basis we understand it to be our Christian duty that we exercise stewardship over the planet, God's creation. Yet this doctrine is also among the least-examined. Critically important assumptions are made without any serious attempt to discover whether they are supported by Scripture, and whether they can support the massive superstructure erected upon them. For very serious claims are made on the basis of these assumptions, whereby the church is called to subscribe to a massively intrusive program to rectify offenses to nature, it being the suffering victim of a rapacious human race. Does the Bible call Christians, indeed humanity, to take up the role of planetary stewardship in order to preserve nature from mankind's hurtful intervention? That is the question up for examination in this book.

Many commentators and users of the Bible have, over the centuries and up to the present day, used the Bible to argue that animals have no rights, that they were put on this earth for our use, and that we have no obligations to them. In his cogent, honest, and fully researched and referenced work, The Dominion of Love, Norm Phelps attempts to encourage all who revere the Bible as holy scripture to open their hearts to the suffering that we inflict upon our nonhuman neighbors. He shows that the right of animals not to be imprisoned, harmed, and killed for our benefit flows naturally from the Bible's message of love and compassion and argues that this is the message of the Bible's most important passages dealing with our relationship to animals. He further responds to the defenses of animal exploitation that are often made based on the Bible. Beautifully written, The Dominion of Love is an essential addition to a growing body of literature that argues for a compassionate and non-exploitative reading of Holy Scripture.

Consulting a wide range of key texts and source material, Animals, Gods and Humans covers 800 years and provides a detailed analysis of early Christian attitudes to, and the position of, animals in Greek and Roman life and thought. Both the pagan and Christian conceptions of animals are rich and multilayered, and Ingvild Sælid Gilhus expertly examines the dominant themes and developments in the conception of animals. Including study of: biographies of figures such as Apollonus of Tyana; natural history; the New Testament via Gnostic texts; the church fathers; and from pagan and Christian criticism of animal sacrifice, to the acts of martyrs, the source material and detailed analysis included in this volume make it a veritable feast of information for all classicists.