An Ethical View of Human-Animal Relations in the Ancient Near East

Abstract

In this new contribution to the Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series, Idan Breier of Bar-Ilan University explores animal ethics using a range of evidence from the Ancient Near East. Breier tackles a huge body of material through seven distinct but related thematic studies dealing with various genres of Near Eastern text and synoptic overviews of the evidence from the Hebrew Bible. His aim is to present an interdisciplinary study examining human-animal relations in two parts: secular literary texts from Mesopotamia (Chapters 2–4) and various portions of the Hebrew Bible (Chapters 5–8). The seven self-contained chapters are referenced with forensic detail, each with its own bibliography, and are thoroughly presented with a plethora of ancient evidence.In his introduction, Breier sets out his understanding of ethics in both its academic and its real-world settings and the history of animal ethics. He includes a short history of Mesopotamia condensed into a little over two pages; such heavy lifting, with its abundance of references and fulsome bibliography, is characteristic of the book's generous scene-setting for newcomers.The first study (Chapter 2) focuses on Sumerian proverbs of the early second millennium BC. It follows a species-by-species structure divided into “Wild” and “Domestic.” After a well-researched zoological overview of a specific species, we are shown its role in the life of a Mesopotamian human followed by a handful of illustrative examples from the Sumerian proverbs and lastly some conclusions on the relevant lessons from the texts. Following the old maxim of animals being “good to think with,” Breier argues that these uncloistered sayings were “designed to instill values that enable a person to prosper and succeed in life on the one hand and ethical principles for living in society on the other” (p. 40) This can lead to some unsurprising outcomes (lions as symbols of strength, goats as hardy survivors), but it is instructive to read some ancient views of domesticated “draft animals”: Not only are “furrows pleasant to a threshing ox,” but “the fettered oxen are stronger than the men who fettered them” (p. 34).Chapter 3 examines faunal fables from Sumer alongside their more famous and accessible Greek descendants conventionally attributed to Aesop. Breier's approach is to find parallels between animal elements within these corpora and to synthesize a set of ethical precepts that he considers a kind of teachable moral code. Breier avoids any discussion of anthropomorphism in this chapter, instead concluding that the fables present features “based on the attributes of each species, the fox being cunning” and so forth (p. 62) and that this facilitated the spread of the fables across the cultures of the Mediterranean.A wide variety of Mesopotamian literary texts are studied and analyzed in Chapter 4. Breier has taken on a large body of diverse material and presented a fascinating selection of pertinent passages for comment, citing numerous examples from across the Near Eastern literary corpus and drawing parallels from the Hebrew Bible. There is no overarching theory here, as Breier lets the ancient evidence do the talking by carefully analyzing the literary material within its context: Stories of Enki and Enlil, Inanna, Dumuzi, and Gilgamesh are examined for their use of animal motifs as we see compassion, cruelty, harmony, hunting, and more all variously depicted in the Mesopotamian literary tradition.A wealth of legal texts from Mesopotamia and the Hebrew Bible are examined in Chapter 5. As may be expected, ancient laws generally treat animals as “property” and many of the laws Breier cites detail the sanctions employed for various harms, but useful and interesting sections of this chapter discuss legal culpability in the cases of humans killing animals and of animals causing death or destruction as well as an overview of the Hebrew “Humane Laws” with discussion on the extent to which they are ethical or merely practical in approach. Maimonides's remarks on the pain felt by animals when their young are killed guides his conclusion that these and similar laws “appear to be designed around human sensitivity towards parent-progeny relations within the animal kingdom” (p. 120). Breier also presents ethical readings of laws such as Deuteronomy 22:10 (forbidding an ox and donkey to be yoked together) and contextualizes Deuteronomy 25:4 (on not muzzling oxen while threshing) in a broader Ancient Near Eastern legal context of recognizing the capacity of “draft animals” to suffer if prevented from feeding when being worked. He seeks to expound upon the differences between Hebraic and Mesopotamian law and draws some firm conclusions between the effectively secular tortious legal codes of the Near East and the “humane” laws presented in the Hebrew Bible originating from a divine creator.The remaining chapters engage more directly with the Hebrew Bible and function almost as a miniature animal-theological Old Testament reader. Biblical passages are quoted and followed by widely researched comments on their animal-ethical dimensions, with focus maintained throughout on understanding the roles and status of humans and animals within God's creation. The division into “Narrative” (Chapter 6), “Prophecy” (Chapter 7), and “Psalms and Wisdom Literature” (Chapter 8) allows him to exercise a range of analytical tools appropriate to each genre, setting each within its context with enormous bibliographies (29 pages for these three chapters alone) and ample apparatus for the newcomer.Chapter 6 deals with biblical narratives. Episodes under scrutiny here include the apparently contradictory introduction of sacrifice in an otherwise vegetarian creation, the ethical motivations of Cain, the role of animals as unwitting victims and even agents in God's punishments of humanity—what to make of Samson's burning jackals by their tails to set alight the Philistines’ grain?—and ethical readings of well-known stories such as Balaam's ass, Elisha and the bears, and Elijah and the ravens, among many others. Breier reserves judgment on overarching ethical messages or precepts, instead discussing animal/human interaction and its effects within each narrative environment.Chapters 7 and 8 are perhaps the most potent, as we see animal imagery in the urgent admonitions of Latter Prophets and in the lyricism of the Psalms and the immediacy of the wisdom literature. The Prophets (Chapter 7) appeal to readily understandable animal tropes in their rebukes, comparing God to a shepherd, with the overarching threat that if God's laws are not observed then humanity's suffering will be as “prey to wild beasts.” Through animal imagery, the prophets present God at His most savage (Jeremiah 25; Hosea 13) and caring (Ezekiel 34; Micah 4), either predator or shepherd according to circumstance. We also see Isaiah 11:6 (the wolf dwelling with the lamb) in a broader context of a return to vegetarian creation, alongside the peaceful vision of Hosea 2:18. Finally, in Chapter 8, we are introduced to the Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes (Qoheleth), and Job and given a colorful anthology of animal-themed excerpts from texts praising God and instructing humanity in the precepts of an ethical life. In the words of Breier, these texts instill “fear of God, mutual fellowship, and interpersonal/special compassion” (p. 233). Chapter 9 forms a summary conclusion to the whole.Throughout the book, Breier's interdisciplinary methods employ theology, ethics, zoology, psychology, and even criminology, and the pictures he leaves us with are fittingly varied and complex, while leaving much room for discussion of the ethical implications of each body of text. To take an image from the Book of Mark, having prepared so much good ground so carefully, Breier is to be commended for sowing these many mustard seeds. The concluding portions of each chapter serve to marshal broad and disparate textual evidence into a series of manageable overviews that may act as fertile starting points for further ethical analysis.