cover image The Bible According to Noah: Theology as If Animals Mattered

The Bible According to Noah: Theology as If Animals Mattered

Gary A. Kowalski. Lantern Books, $12 (122pp) ISBN 978-1-930051-32-4

Although pets.com has buried its last bone, Americans are still as wild as ever about their four-legged furry friends. Several forthcoming titles explore the relationship between spirituality and animals. The Bible According to Noah: Theology As if Animals Mattered takes this potentially fluffy topic to new depths of intellectual inquiry, examining the role of animals in biblical texts and, by extension, contemporary culture. Arguing that ""a new appreciation of animals is desperately needed"" to rescue Western society from its own antienvironmentalism, Gary Kowalski offers new renditions of familiar biblical stories: God tells humans to ""love the earth and preserve it"" instead of dominate it; Abraham cannot, in the end, sacrifice an animal; Jonah is rescued by a dolphin and not swallowed by a whale. ( Mar.)