El zoológico del Señor: Los animales en la Biblia (Conferencia)

Fr. Fidel Oñoro cjm With this rarely discussed topic, we open Bible Month and the 2022 "Season of Creation" from the United Bible Societies in the Americas. In this thoughtful Bible study, through a detailed account of significant episodes in which animals play a special role, a journey is constructed that reveals precious and stimulating teachings related to God's revelation and human behavior. A delightful evening of biblical culture, exegesis of significant passages, and spirituality. September 2, 2022 . .-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- Summary Animals also offer us biblical lessons. This conference helps us discover them. It consists of an itinerary, an essential journey, through the pages of the Bible, like a film, pausing to focus on certain animals that Sacred Scripture considers precisely as images of humanity itself. In the biblical tradition, the figure of animals is emphasized, not to make a discourse about animals in and of themselves, but precisely to speak of humanity. Our language, too, is full of proverbs replete with animal imagery. We have an immense number of metaphors that use animals to indicate, above all, vices and virtues. The qualities of human beings are evoked simply through animals. This biblical study maintains that in the Bible, animals are evoked as images of our human characteristics, both the dark and the light aspects of our humanity. From this perspective, biblical fauna plays an important role in the history of salvation and in the formulation of revelation. This begins with an interpretation of the programmatic phrase in Genesis 1:28, concerning “having dominion” over the animals. This dominion does not consist of exterminating, caging, or exploiting animals, but rather of managing our animality, that instinctive and bestial dimension that is part of our being. It is this that must prevail. Here, it is demonstrated how human beings become truly human when they are shepherds of their own animality. Therefore, by focusing on the world of animals, by bringing them to the forefront, the biblical narrative is not giving us a lesson in zoology, but rather elevating it to another, very interesting level: from there, it offers us many possibilities for growth as people. For what purpose? To learn to manage the animality we carry in our hearts and to mature in humanity according to the Lord's plan. An analytical journey in twelve steps from Genesis to Revelation shows how this happens.