Deuteronomy

Badger – Day 28 of 30 Days [Biblically] Wild

~ Richard Goode ~ Leave a comment

[Rock] Badger/hyrax – שָׁפָן (shaphan)

European Badger (Meles meles). Image: Mark Davison. Source: https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/wildlife-explorer/mammals/european-badger

You might be able to tell by the subtitle that I am having to take a bit of poetic license on today’s topic. Many of you will have probably guessed that our (European) ‘Mr Brock’ type badger (Meles meles) does not appear in the Bible. While it can be found in Israel, as we shall see, it is unlikely to be the animal to which the texts in question refer. Nevertheless, I felt that it was fitting as the badger is the symbol of the Wildlife Trust who are running the 30 Days Wild challenge which this series of posts is supporting.

Wildlife Trust logo featuring a badger.

Badgers have been in the news quite a lot – generally for all the wrong reasons (as far as they are concerned!). Nevertheless, there is something really special about encountering a badger. There is something reassuringly familiar about them. Just think about the number of children’s stories in which they appear – this is something critics of the badger tend to point out! But there is also something strangely different about them. They are sinewy and much faster than you might expect. I can remember one of the first badgers I ever saw. It was at night from a bedroom window. We had been awoken by a noise in the garden. In the gleam of the torchlight we caught the glint of a long, silvery, supple, body wrapped round a bird table – for all the world looking like a podgy, but lithe, snake – before it shot away. After the initial shock we realised that it was a badger who was trying to knock over (once more) our bird table. The ‘biblical’ badger might be different, but it is no less interesting!

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Fish – Day 27 of 30 Days [Biblically] Wild

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Fish – דָּגָה (dagah); דָּג (dag); ἰχθύς (ichthus); ὀψάριον (opsarion)

Brown Trout (Salmo trutta). Image: Eric Engbretson. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Salmo_trutta.jpg

Another image that can capture the delights being outside on a slow summer’s day is sitting beside a flowing stream and catching the flash of light and plop of water as the surface is disturbed by flick of a fish’s tail. It is a great reminder of those completely different, almost alien, and often hidden, habitats populated by life and character that can lie just feet away from us.

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Cormorant – Day 26 of 30 Days [Biblically] Wild

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Cormorant – שָׁלָךְ (shalakh); קָאַת (qaat)?

Cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo) Image: Unaccredited. Source: https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/enjoy-the-waterways/canal-and-river-wildlife/a-spotters-guide-to-waterway-wildlife/cormorant-waterway-wildlife

When you spot a cormorant, and especially a colony of cormorants, you know you’ve spotted something a little unusual.* This is not because they are especially rare, it is because they have a singular character about them. Their black plumage has that iridescent sheen that is associated with oil slicks, and their long necks and hooked bills can give them a rather prehistoric, reptilian feel. It is an incredible swimmer (see video below), resembling underwater more a fish than a bird. One of the great UK conservation success stories of the past few years has been the improvements to the water quality in our rivers and waterways. This has helped to attract cormorants, once again, inland – much to the anger of anglers!

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Bat – Day 18 of 30 Days [Biblically] Wild

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Bat – עֲטַלֵּף (atalleph) 

Daubentons bat (Myotis daubentonii), also known as the water bat. Image: Paul van Hoof. Source: https://www.batconservationireland.org/irish-bats/species/daubentons-bat

In my experience, bats are like Marmite. They tend to divide opinion. Some people detest them while others are enchanted by them. Perhaps this is because they literally flit on the peripheries of our lives. The darting dots, like fireflies in reverse, that fly in the gloaming in such apparently random and unpredictable ways. The bat is a liminal creature in so many ways. Then there is that archive of folktales and family stories. The (always distant) relative for whom a bat got caught up in her (it usually is a ‘her’) hair. As a child I was assured that this could never happen, the bat’s skill at echolocation, as well as at flying, was far too good for that. Although, in later life, I found that the swarms of midges, drawn by my body-heat, just above my head, provides a very rich hunting ground and, on more than one occasion, I have felt the rush of air from the wings of a swooping bat.

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Rain – Day 15 of 30 Days [Biblically] Wild

~ Richard Goode ~ Leave a comment

Rain – מָטַר (matar), גֶּ֫שֶׁם (geshem),
שְׂעִירִים (seirim),  יוֹרֶה (yoreh), מַלְקוֹשׁ (malqosh), רְבִיבִים (revivim), βροχή (brochē), ὑετός (huetos)  

We are now half way through the Wildlife Trusts ‘30 Days Wild‘ challenge and so, to keep things fresh, today we will be exploring something different.

Three or four years ago I would have been tempted to start this post with something like a wry reference to the typical rain-swept summer we’ve been enjoying, which would have made the subject of rain very apt. However, changes in climate and weather systems has meant that the last couple of summers have been uncharacteristically dry and this one seems to follow that new pattern – even in March (2019), in central England,, the water butt we use for the hens’ water, was running perilously close to empty! Since then, the first half of June has proved to extremely wet with some areas receiving more than a month’s worth of rain in a single day!

Nevertheless, rain is a really important part of not just our ecology but our experiences of living in it. As the writer Cynthia Barnett (2015) suggests:

[Rain] is one of the last untamed encounters with nature that we experience routinely, able to turn the suburbs and even the city wild.”

Barnett (2015:12)

Whether you are attempting to avoid it or are scanning the sky for the promise of an overdue shower, rain is as much a part of the modern world as it was in the ancient one. The following post comprises a few short sections from some research that I am currently writing on rain as theology within biblical and post-biblical antiquity.

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Deer – Day 12 of 30 Days [Biblically] Wild

~ Richard Goode ~ Leave a comment

Deer – אַיָּל (ayyal), אַיָּלָה (ayyalah), עֹ֫פֶר (opher), יַחְמוּר (yachmur)

Fallow deer (Dama dama) Image: Tony Hisgett. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fallow_Deer_(5863147572).jpg

There is something special about encountering deer. Increases in population has meant that, in many woodland locations and at certain times of the year, they are fairly easy to spot. Many country parks and estates also keep herds and can allow some very close encounters with them. Despite their antlers, and the rather fierce reputation of stags, deer seem to hold a very special place within the British psyche. This attitude appears also to be reflected by some of the biblical writers.

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Hare – Day 9 of 30 Days [Biblically] Wild

~ Richard Goode ~ Leave a comment

The Hare – אַרְנֶבֶת (arnevet)

Hare (Lepus europaeus) running in the evening (12/11/2013). Image by Mike Rae http://www.mikerae.com/hares-in-the-suffolk-landscape/hare-running-in-the-evening-lepus-europaeus/ More at: http://www.mikerae.com/life-in-the-landscape

I am very fortunate where I live as the neighbouring fields are often frequented by a small population of hares. It is a real joy to watch them about their daily life or, early in the morning, racing down the lanes. As we we see, the hare can evoke a number of different emotional responses in us. Although, in many ways similar to the rabbit – on first sight, our initial reactions are often, ‘is that a hare or a rabbit?’ – the engender an altogether different set of emotional and psychological associations.

It is apt that the hare has an equally emotive, some times poignant, and sometimes enigmatic place within biblical and post-biblical tradition.

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Bee – Day 7 out of 30 Days [Biblically] Wild

~ Richard Goode ~ Leave a comment

The Bee – דְּבוֹרָה (deborah)

Honey Bee (Apis mellifera) collecting pollen. Image: Gustavo Fotoopa

Possibly the most redolent sound of summer is that of the soft, lazy hum of bees among sun-warmed lavender. Out of all flying insects, it could be argued that bees are the most well loved – or at least well tolerated. I’ve known people renowned for distractedly swatting away flies, wasps and all kinds of insects, sit for (what seems like) hours patiently coaxing a grounded bee to with sugar water or honey.

The recent concerns over declining population has also helped to promote a re-assessment of the bee and our attitudes to it. Tracey Thorn’s recent tweet exemplifies this beautifully.

Tweet from Tracey Thorn (screen shot) 23/05/2019
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Wild Goat/Ibex – Day 6 of 30 Days [Biblically] Wild

~ Richard Goode ~ Leave a comment

Wild Goat, Ibex – אַקּוֹ (akko), יָעֵל (ya’el)

Nubian Ibex (Capra ibex nubiana) in Israel. Image: Graphicobsession. Source:
https://www.easyvoyage.co.uk/israel/the-ibex-of-nubia-1807

Today’s post is a little bit of a cheat. But I really like goats (they are one of my research topics) and, although I know we don’t really have any wild goats left in the UK, I feel slightly vindicated by a news report covered by the BBC in March this year announcing that ‘Wild goats flock to Llandudno in bad weather‘!

Goats, along with sheep, have long been a part of human culture and economy and therefore also an intrinsic part of the human landscape (for a brief readable overview see Borowski, 1994 or Sasson, 2014). Encountering their rugged form on some bleak wilderness scarp can give us a very real impression of wildness and freedom, even though they are in fact indicators of the exact opposite. Nevertheless, I have enjoyed many a packed lunch on some windswept Welsh mountainside sharing Marmite sandwiches with a feral goat or two.

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Migrants, Refugees & the search for a Biblical Perspective

~ Richard Goode ~ 4 Comments

This summer has been darkened by the catastrophic events surrounding the thousands of refugees attempting to find asylum in Europe. The release of images of the tiny body of 3 year old Aylan Kurdi lying face down on the shoreline has galvanised opinion and, more than that, helped to put a human face on the events.

Many Christian groups have been responding for some time to this crisis and recently their voices are coming to the fore. A lot of my friends and associates on social media have also been adding their voice and, as one might expect, biblical texts are being widely quoted. But what is the biblical perspective?

Is it possible to make a truly biblical response to the images that we see? Continue reading →