[...]... While animals and humans share a flesh -and- blood reality, gods and animals have in common the fact that they are not human They also have it in common that humans relate to them and define themselves in relation to them Furthermore, both gods and animals are usually described as if they were human, with human attributes and consciousness The mysteries of Mithras, Cybele and Attis, Isis and Osiris are... mediators In this trinity, animals and humans share a flesh -and- blood reality, while gods are creatures of human imagination and tradition This does not necessarily mean that gods are seen as less real than humans and animals – usually they are thought of as more real Rituals function above all to establish and confirm the reality of the gods Killing animals in honour of them and offering them part of the... making the relationship between humans and animals extremely complex (Midgley 1988) How kinship and otherness, closeness and distance between humans and animals are experienced and expressed varies in different types of discourse, and different cultural interpretations may be made of the same animal In religions, animals appear as the third party in the interaction between gods and human beings, often as...INTR ODUCTION Animals, gods and humans Animals are beings with which we may have social relations We feel sympathy and affection for them, but we also exploit them for our own benefit, for company, sport or nourishment They are persons and things, friends and food We communicate with animals, but we also kill, cook and eat them Animals are similar to us as well as... see one The challenge is to understand when and to what extent representations of animals make comments on animals, and what they say about them In relation to animals and cultural expressions of contempt in relation to animals, Baker points out that “it may be that the practice somehow accounts for the rhetoric; it may be that the rhetoric sustains and substantiates and consolidates the practice, leading... racism and equates human and animal suffering (Singer 1975, cf also Regan 1983) A more moderate stand on “speciesism” is taken by Mary Midgley in her Beast and Man: The Roots of Human Nature (1995), where she persuasively attempts to set humans within their animal context These authors are alike in their call for respect for non-human animals, their claim that suffering of sentient beings matters and. .. appeared Alexander of Abonouteichos had his sacred serpent, and in the temples of Asclepius serpents and dogs were present Animals appeared in magic, and in several other systems of expertise such as divination and astrology How and in what ways were animals associated with the divine world in antiquity? In Chapters 6 and 7, animal sacrifice as the old religious key symbol will be analysed and compared... contexts for animal concepts, such as arenas, sacrifices and philosophical debates; Jewish contexts, such as the Genesis account of creation and the dietary laws based on purity and impurity; and Christian contexts, for instance, martyrdom, asceticism and the Christian interpretations of paganism and heresies – contexts in which animals appear as symbols and metaphors One aim is to show how animals were contextualized... given and what changes Christianity made In the Graeco-Roman world, animals were described in an anthropomorphic language and often in moralizing ways Similarities and differences were always emphasized in this language: animals were similar to humans but at the same time radically different from them How, in what ways, and 8 I N T RO D U C T I O N by what means the interplay between similarities and. .. differences between animals and humans was construed varied with context and purpose Such variations are closely connected to the fact that when texts mention animals they are often referring to humans in a sort of code However, this code is only comprehensible if the evaluation of animals that it is dependent upon is known and shared When texts are talking about humans by means of animals, what is the specific . record for this book has been requested ISBN10: 0-4 1 5-3 864 9-7 (hbk) ISBN10: 0-4 1 5-3 865 0-0 (pbk) ISBN13: 97 8-0 -4 1 5-3 864 9-4 (hbk) ISBN13: 97 8-0 -4 1 5-3 865 0-0 (pbk) Taylor & Francis Group is the Academic. include Laughing Gods, Weeping Virgins (Routledge 1997). ANIMALS, GODS AND HUMANS Ingvild Sælid Gilhus ANIMALS, GODS AND HUMANS Changing Attitudes to Animals in Greek, Roman and Early Christian. interaction between gods and human beings, often as mediators. In this trinity, animals and humans share a flesh -and- blood reality, while gods are creatures of human imagination and tradition. This