They came in as pairs (Gen. 6:19) or the alternative is that clean ones came in as pairs of 7 (Gen.7:2), probably indicating that there are two base stories for the flood and the salvation of the world. Given that there are numerous flood narratives (a very famous one being the ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’) we don’t have to take every detail as being literal – but as stories to communicate. Maybe there is nothing deeper in the narrative than a story that explains why humanity and the animal world continue after the flood, but perhaps we see something of God’s concern for the animal world (now how many species have disappeared at the hands of those ‘made in the image of God’?).
There are two Scriptures that I know of that show something of God’s care for animals. In the narrative of Jonah and Nineveh we read of the sparing of Nineveh (was Jonah written to challenge the Jewish view of the nations?) and included in God’s sight are the (domestic) animals,
And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left and also many animals? (Jonah 4:11).
A reference, almost hidden, in Mark’s account of the wilderness experience of Jesus includes a reference to animals, this time not to domestic ones but to the wild animals,
He was in the wilderness forty days, tested by Satan, and he was with the wild beasts, and the angels waited on him (Mk. 1:13).
The animal world was divided between the ‘clean’ and the ‘unclean’ and between the ‘domesticated’ and ‘wild’. The wild beasts, the ones that could never be tamed, the ones that spoke loudly of humanity’s inability to ‘subdue’ creation became symbols of the nations that resisted God’s design – hence ‘beasts’ that rise from the sea / land etc. And here they are in the wilderness with Jesus… in the wilderness the place that will blossom once the kingdom comes, and until then the abode of the demons. Jesus having confronted the three powers – shown by the three temptations of economic, political and religious power – subdues not simply domestic animals but even the wild ones.
In the wilderness, there is shalom, an order that eludes us. Heaven is present on earth, remarkably in the wilderness, and that presence brings an order to everything, so much so that the wild beasts act differently, echoing the eschatological passages of ‘wolves with lambs’,
The wolf shall live with the lamb; the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf and the lion will feed together, and a little child shall lead them (Is. 11:6).
Jesus sent out the disciples as ‘lambs among wolves’. Challenging, as there is the absence of self-preservation in the instruction, but if we are to see anything of the eschatological promises breaking in I guess self-preservation has to decrease.
God cares for what has been created and creation is there to teach us both to care for the wider world (Rom. 8) and also to provoke us to ‘subdue’ the ‘wild’ that threatens shalom. As Simon Swift wrote in the previous post:
As we leave the Garden of Eden to head into the wild. We should not hunger for a return to the garden, rather in the wild we should create a garden.
Should we really think that we can see a shift to the powers? Why not… if the cross is far more about cleansing, and keeping clean, the ‘temple’ of God in the earth so that heaven and earth meet not in a specific place on a specific date but in the wilderness of life, perhaps the ‘wild animals’ might just take note.
The gardener in me loves the thought of building a garden in the wilderness. Though the science side of me gets a bit wary of that. So much gardening, especially in the past, has been destructive of the wild and not in a good way. I think of replacing native plants with non natives and invasives, the anti-nature way of organizing many gardens, the emphasis on weeding, constant digging and turning of precious soil, and the removal of nutrients through various practices. It all adds up to a rethink on gardening. If the wilderness is going to be a place of well-being then whatever gardens we produce must add to that rather than detract.
Fortunately, gardening practices are changing. Climate change and the biodiversity crash are pushing that change. Here in Canada we still have way too many lawns. Lawns are seeded mostly with non native invasives and require intensive energy and water inputs. Total waste. We take productive landscape and render it barren and then take a lot of time and energy to maintain it that way. People see gardens as work and effort that they don’t want to have to do. My goal is to become a certified ‘master gardener’ over the next 3 years so that I can help others get rid of those lawns and truly embrace productive and beautiful gardens. We need gardens that serve insects, small creatures, and birds as well as humans. Though I intend to fence out the deer. They are a bit too destructive.
Anyhow, hearty endorsement on the garden. With climate breakdown and the 6th great extinction upon us, we will all have to learn how to garden if only to eat. But it can be and do so much more. And it allows each of us to physically contribute to shalom. And even if we use a community garden or only have a balcony, or maybe just space for a single pot of herbs or even only indoor plants. We can all contribute.