God and Animals: Mammal as Metaphor

God and Animals: Mammal as Metaphor

Before considering the nature of Jesus in the development of porpoise-driven theology, let us begin by dispelling some likely criticism that this paradigm will receive. How dare I compare God and the Christian life to common animals? Is this not sacrelige? No, I say, far from it. I am not the first to use animals in such a way as to represent divine truths. I’m simply standing on the shoulders of the Biblical writers and the authors of many other sacred texts. The use of all kinds of animals play a crucial role in the messages of both the Hebrew and Chrisitian Scriptures. We only make it to chapter 3 of Genesis before a talking serpent appears, representing Satan and the personification of evil and temptation, or rather the reptilification of evil. The account of Noah in Genesis also highlights the importance of animals in the Biblical text. Noah crams a boat-load of them onto his gopher-wooded dinghy, granting them entrance ahead of his own neighbors and in-laws. We then encounter references to ravens and doves which appear in divine roles throughout the Biblical text, the most significant symbol being the Holy Spirit descending “as a dove” at Jesus’ baptism (Mark 1:10).
God is not confined to just birds and reptiles in herm’s revelation of divine truth. The Bible is loaded with mammalian metaphors. Most importantly you have the “lion of Judah,” and the “lamb of God” who takes away the sin of the world. More incidentally, you have the two angry she-bears that come out of the woods and eat the children who were taunting Elisha for his baldness (II Kings 2:24), and the camel trying to walk through the eye of a needle, symbolizing how difficult it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 19:24). The pharisees and scribes are called “dogs” and a “brood of vipers.” More positive uses for divine animal metaphors accompany Jesus’ teaching as well. In a rare female metaphor for the divine, Jesus’s sadness and compassion for Israel is summed up in his saying that he was like a hen:
Luke 13:34 (NAS)
34"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it!"

Animals play a particularly significant role in the depiction of Jesus near the end of his life. He symbolically rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, referencing both an Elijah prophecy and a symbol of humility. Most significantly, Jesus is led away to be crucified as a silent sheep and as a lamb being “led to the slaughter”(Isaiah 53). Jesus is most frequently portrayed ironically as either a lion or a lamb. These seemingly contradictory metaphors highlight both the strength and majesty of Jesus symbolized by the lion, and the innocence and vulnerability of Jesus, depicted by the “lamb”. Sheep play a prominent role in Jesus description of his disciples and us as well. He speaks of the 99 sheep and the one that went astray (Matthew 18:12). If we are the sheep, then Jesus becomes the shepherd. “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep…. My sheep hear my voice…” (John 10:11,27) While Jesus is described as a lamb largely due to his innocence and his sacrificial role, the use of “sheep” to describe the church and humanity is most likely a result of the fact that sheep are considered to be dumb asses. Speaking of asses, one animal story plays an important role in the interests of small children and adults as well. Upon this morsel we shall nibble tomorrow.