JANET E.

SPITTLER

Animals in the Apocryphal Acts of the

Apostles
The Wild Kingdom of Early Christian Literature

[Tiere in den apokryphen Apostelakten. Das wilde Knigreich in der frhchristlichen Literatur.]

Published in English.
Animals play prominent, often peculiar, roles in the highly entertaining ve major apocryphal
acts of the apostles, the Acts of Andrew, Acts of John, Acts of Peter, Acts of Paul and Acts of
Thomas . Lions, bears, dogs, bedbugs, asses and even seals appear in these narratives some
friendly, some vicious, some with the capacity for human speech.
Janet E. Spittler argues that these animal episodes have a greater, more complex signi cance
than has previously been recognized, reading these texts within the broad context of Greco-
Roman literature and presenting new interpretations of each animal-related episode. The
natural characteristics of these animals known to ancient authors and audiences through
natural historical compendia, historiography and biography, current philosophical debates,
fables, and novelistic literature are intentionally and cleverly evoked by the authors of the
apocryphal acts, often serving to underscore key themes of the works. Janet E. Spittler contends
that the often very positive presentation of animals in these texts o ers a counterbalance to
the often negative depiction of animals in other early Christian literature, thus her book has
broad implications for contemporary understandings of early Christian attitudes towards
2008. XI, 264 pages. animals and the natural world.
WUNT II 247

ISBN 978-3-16-149731-5
sewn paper 64,00 Janet E. Spittler Born 1976; 2007 MA, PhD; since 2007 Assistant Professor of Religion at Texas
ISBN 978-3-16-151590-3 Christian University.
eBook PDF 64,00

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