
The Wild Word
Animals in the Gospels
Jaeda Charlotte Calaway(Author)
McGill-Queen's University Press
Published on 17. June 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
264 pages
978-0-2280-2471-2 (ISBN)
Description
Placed in a manger as an infant, Jesus seems to have been born into a world teeming with animal life. Yet read the stories again. Does Mary ride a donkey? Does the centurion ride a horse? Animals are everywhere in the gospels, though not always in the ways we expect. Where animals are visible, their presence means more than we realize.
The Wild Word explores the gospels' well-known, forgotten, and missing portrayals of animals. Jaeda Calaway examines the many interactions between humans and other animals in these biblical texts, first considering forms of consumption, such as eating animals, wearing animal products, working animals, and sacrificing animals. She then turns to symbolic animality: how humans assign animal traits and archetypes to other humans, how divine and demonic powers intersect with wild and domestic animals, and what queer and trans readings of gospel animals can illuminate.
Told and retold for two thousand years, the gospel stories are deeply imprinted on Western culture. The Wild Word reveals how many of their associations with animals, animality, and wildness remain with us today.
The Wild Word explores the gospels' well-known, forgotten, and missing portrayals of animals. Jaeda Calaway examines the many interactions between humans and other animals in these biblical texts, first considering forms of consumption, such as eating animals, wearing animal products, working animals, and sacrificing animals. She then turns to symbolic animality: how humans assign animal traits and archetypes to other humans, how divine and demonic powers intersect with wild and domestic animals, and what queer and trans readings of gospel animals can illuminate.
Told and retold for two thousand years, the gospel stories are deeply imprinted on Western culture. The Wild Word reveals how many of their associations with animals, animality, and wildness remain with us today.
Reviews / Votes
"A timely and important consideration of entanglement as it bears upon human and non-human animals. Readers will be challenged to think about issues at the intersection of theological/philosophical anthropology, animal rights, and ethics." Benjamin Dunning, Harvard Divinity SchoolMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Montreal
Canada
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
340 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-2280-2471-2 (9780228024712)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Jaeda Charlotte Calaway is a faculty librarian at Illinois College and the author of The Christian Moses: Vision, Authority, and the Limits of Humanity in the New Testament and Early Christianity.