Monday, March 5, 2007

Ancient, Biblical Concern for Animals

Today in lecture we talked about how it took Americans until the 1800s to get organized about animal welfare.

The following was written probably between 1400 and 1500 BC:
Deuteronomy 22:6:
"If you come across a bird's nest beside the road, either in a tree or on the ground, and the mother is sitting on the young or on the eggs, do not take the mother with the young."

And this was written around 10th century BC:
Proverbs 12:10:
"A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal,
but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel."

1 comment:

Stephen Zelno said...

On the topic of the history of human treatment of animals (and since this class is a humanities class), check out William Blake's Auguries of Innocence:

http://www.artofeurope.com/blake/bla3.htm

Its long. It has a mix of care about animals as well as religion.