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The Word Became Flesh: An Exploratory Essay On Jesus’S Particularity And Nonhuman Animals, Andy Alexis-Baker

Dissertations (1934 -)

In this exploratory work I argue that Jesus’s particularity as a Jewish, male human is essential for developing Christian theology about nonhuman animals. The Gospel of John says that the Word became “flesh” not that the Word became “human.” By using flesh, John’s Gospel connects the Incarnation to the Jewish notion of all animals. The Gospel almost always uses flesh in a wider sense than meaning human. The Bread of Life discourse makes this explicit when Jesus compares his flesh to “meat,” offending his hearers because they see themselves as above other animals. Other animals are killable and consumable; humans …