Abstract / DOI
God and Human in the Image of Animals: Animal Theology in the Image Archive of Jerusalem. Systematic theology until today produces misjudgements, according to which there is a gap between man and animal in the Hebrew Bible and that it omits the transcendental potential of the animals. On contrary, it is pointed out that there are 79 different names of animals in the Bible and it is shown that especially animals were indispensable when it came to portraying the transcendental majesty of God. In the world in which the Hebrew Bible was written, animals were artistically designed in many ways because of their symbolism. This is illustrated and explained using the example of seal amulet images from the city-state of Jerusalem. It is shown that falcons, dung beetles, snakes and caprids had a particularly high symbolic capital.