The Bible According To Noah: Theology As If Animals Mattered
(Lantern Books, 2001)
Click image for link to Amazon
Rewrite the Bible? This book was inspired partly by my daughter who, when she was in fourth grade, was asked in Sunday School what she might do differently if she were God and in charge of re-creating the human race. "Give people a nice coat of fur and a long tail for keeping balance," she replied. Really, who could argue? If the human race ever learns to co-exist with other species and with the earth, people could use a little more humility, too.
There is much to admire in Holy Writ, but much violence, sexism and fanaticism also. The Bible According To Noah is my attempt to create an animal-friendly, eco-centered version of the Good Book. I examine six central narratives from the Hebrew scriptures--the Creation, the Flood, Abraham's near sacrifice of Isaac, Job, Jonah, and the Tower of Babel--which continue to dominate the modern religious imagination with hidden assumptions of male power and human privilege. Then with the aid of the best current Biblical scholarship, I show how these same stories might be recast, as tales of ecological healing and planetary liberation.
Reverend Gary Kowalski
"A masterpiece, interweaving modern knowledge of animal life and Biblical scholarship with a creative imagination. Kowalski offers religious communities an example, based on both knowledge of scripture and the spirit, of how to treat animals with the dignity they deserve."
Mary Lou Randour, Director of Programs, Psychologists for Ethical Treatment of Animals
There is much to admire in Holy Writ, but much violence, sexism and fanaticism also. The Bible According To Noah is my attempt to create an animal-friendly, eco-centered version of the Good Book. I examine six central narratives from the Hebrew scriptures--the Creation, the Flood, Abraham's near sacrifice of Isaac, Job, Jonah, and the Tower of Babel--which continue to dominate the modern religious imagination with hidden assumptions of male power and human privilege. Then with the aid of the best current Biblical scholarship, I show how these same stories might be recast, as tales of ecological healing and planetary liberation.
Reverend Gary Kowalski
"A masterpiece, interweaving modern knowledge of animal life and Biblical scholarship with a creative imagination. Kowalski offers religious communities an example, based on both knowledge of scripture and the spirit, of how to treat animals with the dignity they deserve."
Mary Lou Randour, Director of Programs, Psychologists for Ethical Treatment of Animals
