Mouth of the Donkey: Re-imagining Biblical Animals by Laura Duhan-Kaplan (review)

Abstract

The result stresses a more creation-friendly and creature-friendly understanding of the Godhead (p. 151). While holding to a traditional/orthodox understanding of the Trinity, this presentation of the Father as Gentleness, the Son as Solidarity, and the Holy Spirit as Fraternity “highlight[s] the different ways in which we experience God’s love” (p. 151). Further, inspired by Boff and the biblical witness, it helps us “glimpse something of the divine in relation to all creation” (p. 153; see further pp. 151–153, 159, 167). Second, her efforts to distinguish the connected but disparate concerns and priorities of ecological and animal theology—a discussion emerging largely from her critique of Boff’s Ecology and Liberation: A New Paradigm (1993; English translation 1995)—is welcome. As she explains in various places, the former’s attention to sustaining holistic systems as opposed to consideration of individual animals within them is more consequential in its implications than many realize (p. 34; cf. pp. 10, 174). She devotes a full chapter (pp. 85–117) to questions stemming from these different disciplines. Third, her attention to region-specific concerns in her theological work on Boff and animals is an instructive model (see, e.g., the series of interviews in the appendices, pp. 170–194). Boff is a contextual theologian (pp. 35, 77, 99–100, etc.), and Linzey introduces readers to the Brazilian setting that informs his writing (pp. 35–38). This illustration of contextually sensitive animal thought is helpful, serving to remind readers that regional/national cultural, political, and social issues shape animal welfare efforts. This thoroughly researched and innovative study is a valuable contribution to the field and is sure to (or at least ought to) prompt further attention to the place of animals in Catholic and liberation theological discourses in the years to come. Highly recommended. Mouth of the Donkey: Re-imagining Biblical Animals. By Laura Duhan-Kaplan. (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2021. 84 + ix pp. Paperback. $15.00. ISBN: 978-1-7252-5905-8.)