For the Love of All Creatures

Book excerpt: Fresh biblical take on a transcending, divine grace that embraces all of God's creatures This broad-ranging, groundbreaking book by William Greenway unfolds a biblical spirituality centering on love for all creation and all creatures. Greenway rereads the creation and flood narratives in Genesis from an overtly creature-loving perspective that not only inspires care for creation but also reveals sophisticated understandings of faith, grace, and evil vital for twenty-first-century spirituality. Comparing the ancient Israelite cosmology of Genesis both with the ancient Babylonian cosmology of the Enuma Elish and with the modern Darwinian cosmology of Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan, Greenway shows how the Bible in Genesis extends far beyond those other cosmologies in its discernment of the transcending, gracious love of God. Standing at the intersection of animal rights, "green" biblical studies, and philosophical theology, Greenway's For the Love of All Creatures will interest and inform a wide range of readers.