"Explore the God-given gift of animals in these stunning high-contrast pictures. The burst of color on every page and simple words to name each animal are perfect for baby."--Back cover.

This volume brings together a variety of approaches to the different ways in which the role of animals was understood in ancient Greco-Roman myth and religion, across a period of several centuries, from Preclassical Greece to Late Antique Rome. Animals in Greco-Roman antiquity were thought to be intermediaries between men and gods, and they played a pivotal role in sacrificial rituals and divination, the foundations of pagan religion. The studies in the first part of the volume examine the role of the animals in sacrifice and divination. The second part explores the similarities between animals, on the one hand, and men and gods, on the other. Indeed, in antiquity, the behaviour of several animals was perceived to mirror human behaviour, while the selection of the various animals as sacrificial victims to specific deities often was determined on account of some peculiar habit that echoed a special attribute of the particular deity. The last part of this volume is devoted to the study of animal metamorphosis, and to this end a number of myths that associate various animals with transformation are examined from a variety of perspectives.

Reveals man's attitudes toward beasts as evidenced in world mythology and folklore.

Do our relationships with animals bring us closer to God?

"I don't know why you're spending all your time on this. They're only animals--for heaven's sake " That was the reaction of one of Andrew Linzey's fellow students at King's College, London, when he was studying theology in the 1970s. Since then, the now Rev. Dr. Andrew Linzey has been arguing that animals aren't only anything, but rather that they matter to God, and should do so to us. In this collection of essays, Linzey counters with his customary wit, erudition, and insight, some contemporary (and perhaps surprising) challenges to animal rights--from ecotheologians, the Church, and politicians. He contends that far from the sometimes shallow judgments of those who think animals unworthy of theological consideration, the Christian tradition has a wellspring of sources and resources available to taking animals seriously. Instead of being marginal to the Christian experience, Linzey concludes, animals can take their rightful place alongside human beings as creatures of the same God. There is a long forgotten spiritual tradition that two children, both named Jesus, were born in Bethlehem to two sets of parents named Joseph and Mary. This tradition is supported by the different accounts of the nativity and life of Jesus Christ in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. Although the Church chose to ignore this tradition, something of it survived in early Christian art and symbolism. The full tradition was preserved only in the literature of esoteric sects such as Gnosticism, which remained outside the official teachings of institutionalized Christianity.