Evolution or Creation? (#12 in a series)

I will be blunt.  Creationism is a fact in the Biblical Worldview.  There is no room for debate on this.

In the beginning, God created...

And when it comes to the pets-in-heaven question, no mechanism in evolution is capable of assuring that your pet gets into heaven. Because—

In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth.

Do you see the problem? The Bible indicates two distinct direct objects of creation, (a) heavens, and (b) earth, moreover, heavens is plural.  Strictly speaking, if it is true that the heavens are distinct from the earth, and if evolution were also true, then heaven and earth would have necessarily evolved separately.  Of course, the evolutionists believe that earth evolved within or inside the astronomical heavens-construct, so for them, that solves the problem with nothing more to discuss: the phrase "heavens and earth" is used to indicate the whole universe, and that is that.

The evolutionists are half-right; heavens and earth can indicate the whole universe. But if God's throne is in a spirit-realm heaven and our pets are in a physical-realm earth, then we have to go further if we are going to make sense of this spiritual/physical interface.

In #5 of this series, we used Paul's letter to the Corinthians to identify three heavens, (a) one with God's throne room, (b) an interstellar/outer-space heaven, and (c) our atmospheric sky. In the footnotes today, I've added some Old Testament references which correspond with that view.¹ The usual Hebrew word for heavens, however, and the one used in Genesis 1:1 is shamayim, a plural form meaning heights and/or elevations. This is good news for those who hope to see their pets in the afterlife because historically, Earth's geographical 'high places' and 'heights' have a connection to the unseen spiritual realm. Moses had his "portal experience" connecting with the supernatural on Mount Sinai, Exodus 33:22; and Jesus has his on the Mount of Transfiguration, Mark 9:2-3.  Additionally, the earliest written histories of any culture record traditions of 'high places' as the location for communication between mortal man and immortal God or gods.

Unfortunately, my next-best examples for "heights" being a place where the physical meets with the spiritual describe events on "the dark side." Yes, there are plenty of other "light side" examples—
   The LORD has established His throne in the heavens. Psalm 103:19
   Who is like the LORD our God, the One who sits enthroned on high? Psalm 113:5
   He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth. Isaiah 40:22
—but unless you are very new to Christianity and can approach these verses without preconceived ideas, these examples tend to get varnished over (or perhaps clouded?) by the notion that the psalmist or prophet was "just praising God," (more on that later). It is easy to be blind to the idea that the psalmist was engaging in intimate contact with his Creator. 

But the dark side examples make this natural-to-supernatural communication plain.
♦ The history of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 has the people plotting to build themselves a city with a high tower that communicates with the heavens. Having rejected the true God's directive to replenish the earth, they banned together to contact the small-g gods and make pacts with fallen angels.
♦ In Numbers 33:52, before the Israelites ever entered into the Promised Land, Moses had instructed them to tear down all the high places. The Canaanites had a pantheon of over two dozen lower-case-g gods that were worshiped at open-air altars on hills and high knolls outside their towns. The Canaanites were trying to connect with evil spiritual entities for 'blessings' on their fertility, good weather, abundant food crops, and so forth, even to the point of appeasing them with child sacrifice. These gods required perverse sacrifices that they knew would be an affront to Yahweh-God.
♦ In Luke 10:18, Jesus tells 72 of his followers that He saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. This is God breaking off access and communication that Satan had in the heights of heaven. 

What these have in common is the the making or breaking of communication between the physical and the spiritual. And it is this last example with Satan that is the only place evolution is hinted at in scripture.

Isaiah 14:13-14 has Satan saying, "I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, And I will sit on the mount of assembly In the recesses of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High." He is a created being who believes he can evolve to the level of the Most High. 
Cross-referenced to the New Testament, there is 2 Thessalonians 2:4, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.  This is Satan attempting to progress, essentially evolve, to a level above his created station. This is evolution, and it does not work.


It is the Creation account, not evolution, that provides your pet with a soul that can connect the natural with the supernatural.  Evolution leads only to death. It is evident in the core of Darwin's theory that it required death to function, and Carl Sagan, pop-scientist of the 1990s said, "the secrets of evolution are time and death."²  Evolutionary theory requires billions of years of mutations and false starts ending in death; the idea that God might have used evolution to create is insulting and anathema.  Jehovah God, Life Himself, would never create by death. He resurrects from death, but He does not use death to create. Death is an enemy, for cryin' out loud!

Praise and Worship — Have these terms become religious jargon that obscures?  (And, yes, I am still on-topic.) Five paragraphs ago, I said that people who are 'churched' can become so familiar with using words such as praise and worship in the context of an arranged religious practice, such as a song service, that a blindness can set in. Praise and Worship are actually two forms of communication between the physical and the spiritual realms, and this is significant because a better understanding can give us insight to our pets-in-heaven question. I will develop this more deeply in a future post, but for now I am asking you to accept that praise happens in the body and can be guided by one's soul, while worship functions in the spirit, but can also be guided by the soul. In regard to evolution, we have only a single focus:  Can the evolution mechanism evolve the capacity for praise, which requires a soul as well as a body?  Or the capacity to worship, which requires spirit?

The short answer is no.  Darwinian evolution applies only to the physical.  You can find 'evolution of the soul' articles, but for the most part they devolve into psychobabble.  Evolution cannot account for developing a spirit of life without acknowledging God, who is Life. And once it is acknowledged that God is the source of the spirit of life, there is no need for evolution anymore. Those who want to believe in evolution are limited to a theory of biological life with physicality, not a Creator who has made provision for pets in heaven.
 



🚫 God did not Choose Cloning as His Go-To Method for a Sustainable Earth.
He could have; but He did not. Why does this matter? Because we are looking for ways to support the premise that our uniquely individual pet, personality quirks and all, has the capacity to make the jump from this mortal earth-life to a heavenly one.

Trying to recreate an exact copy with no mutation is practically the opposite of evolution, which would require change, but I'm tacking this on here because it is too short for a separate post. God choose male/female reproduction to fill the Earth. He wanted a controlled mixing of the DNA to produce unique individuals after their own kinds!  Our individuality is a part of His plan. No one person can ever replace another as a clone could. Everyone has a distinctive and irreplaceable position in God's creation.

This is true for our pets as well. They are individual procreations. It would flow against God's creativity to make a duplicate copy³ of our pets for heaven. Original artwork is always of a higher value than the copies, and heaven should have the best.

Beginning at conception, the one-of-a-kind animal embryo is capable of containing the spirit of life⁴ in a physical body designed for life on earth.  This is procreation of an individual being because God's Creation ended on the Sixth Day and was judged 'very good.' Genesis 1:24 tells us that these physical bodies are produced from elements found in soil, and yet they are animated with life.  Obviously, there is more to our pets than elements extracted and reassembled from the dirt, and we will explore that aspect in a future post.

To summarize today's post: The evolution model does not address the formation of a spiritual realm.   Only the Creation model has a Creator who cares and provides for His creation. He created both the heavens and the Earth to be inhabited by uniquely individualized beings. He is the God of Life in both realms. These facts, although only a tiny sliver of a much larger issue, are consistent with a Creator who would want life begun on Earth to continue in Heaven.

This blog will never have a single slam-dunk answer about pets being in heaven, but by adding a few bricks at a time, we can build a sizable edifice of support for them being there.





Footnotes

¹ Old Testament view of the heavens — Psalms 8:8 the birds in the sky, Jeremiah 8:2 sun and the moon and all the stars of the heavens, Psalm 115:16 The highest heavens belong to the LORD, but the earth he has given to mankind.

² C. Sagan, Cosmos Part 2: One Voice in the Cosmic Fugue, PBS series

³ The Bible is largely silent on cloning. When we do get a few nuggets on manipulated genetics, they show up as either (a) a curse, referencing the seed of Satan, (b) a forbidden act such as the breeding of Nephilim, or (c) at least involving scheming and trickery, such as when Jacob 'put something in the water' (Genesis 30) to boost the fertility of his flocks. Amongst all the stranger-than-fiction cyborg technology and transhumanism that one hears about these days, cloning is often a men-trying-to-be-gods pursuit.  Even though the Bible does not say a lot, it says enough for us to know that cloning is a counterfeit of God's design, and therefore it would be out-of-character for God to give us a cloned reproduction of our pet for our heavenly mansion. 

⁴ The the breath of the spirit of life or the breath of life of ALL flesh is mentioned three times in Genesis, in 6:17, in 7:15, and finally in 7:21-22,  All flesh that moved on the earth perished, birds and cattle and beasts and every swarming thing that swarms upon the earth, and all mankind; of all that was on the dry land, all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life.  All these animals are capable of containing the spirit of life. This lends support to the premise that these kinds of animals could live in a spiritual dimension as well as the physical one. 

The Mass Brainwashing of Germany

Covenant Critters (#11 in a series)

When we studied the life of Noah, we discovered that the animals were included in the Rainbow Covenant in the aftermath of the flood. That is found in Genesis 9:9-10

I'm establishing my covenant with you and with your descendants after you,
and with every living creature that is with you—the flying creatures, the livestock, and all the wildlife of the earth that are with you—all the earth's animals that came out of the ark. 

Today, I want to briefly connect a couple more dots so that we can reinforce this display of "compassionate justice" as being characteristic of God's motivation over time. God does not change; He was not making a one-time-only exception in reaction to cataclysmic conditions. His concern for animals is everlasting. 


Jonah 4:11

Delivering God's love to Ninevah

   Most people are somewhat aware of the basics of Jonah's story.  God wanted him to go take a message of impending judgment to the city of Nineveh.  Jonah balked and got on a ship headed in the other direction. The ship was caught in a hurricane of unusual duration, and eventually, in desperation, a reluctant crew threw Jonah overboard to appease God. The storm ceased and a great fish swallowed Jonah, taking three days to swim back to shore and spit him out. 
   What you may not know is that from the standpoint of human-reasoning, Jonah had a pretty good excuse for his actions. Jonah knew that if he prophesied destruction like God told him to and it did not happen, which he also knew was likely, then under the law he should have been put to death for being a false prophet. More was going on than garden-variety stubbornness; God had asked Jonah to put his life on the line.
   As we will see, God was concerned not only for Jonah's life and the citizenry of Ninevah, but also about SAVING THE ANIMALS!

"Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?"
Jonah 4:11

'Not knowing the difference between the right and left hand' does not mean there were 120K stupid people living in Ninevah; it is a metaphor for not knowing right from wrong. Many Bible scholars see this as a reference to the number of children¹ who were not old enough to understand moral differences.  God's thoughts were toward the sparing of animals and children. This character trait of God valuing the innocence of children and animals is consistent with what we find Jesus teaching in Matthew 18:3, "Truly I tell you," He said, "unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."
 
Hosea 2:18
Hosea prophesied about a future covenant that He will make for the Israelites with the animals. In an earlier post about Noah, we saw that God made a covenant with animals in the past. With the addition of Hosea's prophecy to our growing list of evidence, this pattern of God's intent that humans live in relationship with animals is strengthened still further.  This is an everlasting objective in God's plan for creation.

On that day I will make a covenant for them with the wild animals, the birds of the sky, and the creatures that crawl on the ground.
Hosea 2:18

It is becoming clear that our "natural love" for our pets isn't just something that we thought up, but it is an affection that the Lord designed for us and placed into us. God's intended state-of-nature is for humans to have a fondness for animals. This innate regard for animals is part of God's equipping humans to carry out their instructions to "have dominion" over animals. We were designed for loving command, not to become tyrants over them. 

God has a loving concern for animals, and as we are created in his image, so do we. It was His plan when man was in Eden; it was His plan in the post-flood world, and it will still be God's plan on the New Earth. It was God's considered and premeditated aim in creating mankind that their rule over animals would reflect God's loving rule over men.



And what is one way God demonstrates His loving authority over man? He provided a way of salvation so that man could be with Him forever!  Humans as under-rulers over animals is a very strong pattern and indication that there is provision to have our pets in Heaven.


One thing that does need to be pointed out: not all animals were created equal. In Jonah's biography, the animals were domesticated livestock, whereas Hosea's prophecy includes wild beasts, birds of prey, and "creeping" things. These are not the warm fuzzy pet animals but are the feral animals that could become dangerous.  In our current fallen world, the practical application of our authority over a wild animal is fairly rare. God hasn't scrapped mankind entirely, neither in the days of Noah nor in the time of Moses;² so our assignment has not changed, even though the environment has turned against us.

The specifics of how scripture differentiates between wild and domestic animals is something that you may wish to go study further on your own. For the purpose of answering the pets-in-heaven question, the pets are counted as domesticated animals, so it is a moot point. All the strongest evidence for pets-in-heaven is for animals that have been domesticated under man's rule. Going forward, especially when we discuss the topics of Naming, Justice, and ultimately Love, an animal's submission to human authority will play into the evidence that I am presenting.

But for today, the main takeaways are:
1. We showed animals, in this case a great fish, can play important roles in accomplishing God's will.
2. We strengthened the evidence that God makes covenants animals.
3. We showed that God's willingness to make covenants with animals is not limited to only one instance or time period.
4. We laid more groundwork from which we will be able to expand on the significance of  relational patterns:  God → human being reflected in our human → pet relationships.   







Footnotes

¹ If that is the case, then population models would have made Ninevah a city of just over a half-million at that time. Jonah's statement that it was a 3-day walk to go around it would have included the "suburbs" or small farming villages that provided food supplies that do not store well. It is likely that many of the animals were in these villages, being kept to be butchered as needed. Ninevah is in Assyria on the banks of the Tigris River.  Unlike pictures in my Sunday School book, Jonah could not see it from the beach; Ninevah is about 550 miles ENE from the coast of Israel.  

²  In Exodus 32, right after the Israelites made a golden calf while Moses was up on the mountain getting instructions, we read of a time where God told Moses, "Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation." Verses 11-13 record Moses' prayer to spare the people, and in verse 14 we read, "And the LORD relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people."  

Noah, the Ark, and the Covenant as a template - Part 2 (#10 in a series)

Because Noah's life story reveals so much about what God ___ of mankind and how He regards animals, studying it will give us some insights that apply to our pets today.

In Part One we covered how the Earth, although mankind had fallen and largely abandoned God on his own, had also had that wickedness turbo-charged by a class of angelic beings who took human wives and taught them knowledge of occult subjects. The Earth was ripe for judgment, but Noah was born for such a time as this.

Genesis 6:8  — But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.
It can also be translated  as "But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD." This is the first occurrence of "grace" in Scripture.

Genesis 6:12 — God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth.
"All flesh" is an accurate translation of the Hebrew. Some of the more modern language versions say "everyone" but "all flesh" is probably better because it would include the fallen angelic beings and their giant offspring. The "all flesh had corrupted" could also include, in a quite literal sense, animals suffering diseases or viruses spread by bestiality or occult rituals.  

In verses 13- 18, Noah is told that the earth will be destroyed and is given instructions on how to build an ark for him, his wife, sons, and daughters-in-law.  Noteworthy in verse 17 is that God would "destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life, from under heaven." Since the word for "all flesh" in verse 17 is the same as in verse 12, we need to be thinking in terms broader than "all people on earth." And if you still aren't convinced, well, there is verse 19.

Genesis 6:19-20 — 
And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female.
Of the birds after their kind, and of the animals after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive.
It is worth noting that even though Noah had to bring the animals into the ark, he did not have to find them. God would cause the ones with suitable genetic pools to come to him. 

You can look up other instructions if you wish while we skip ahead from Genesis 6:21 through 7:1. 

Genesis 7:2-3
"You shall take with you of every clean animal by sevens, a male and his female; and of the animals that are not clean two, a male and his female;
also of the birds of the sky, by sevens, male and female, to keep offspring alive on the face of all the earth."
This is a bit off-topic as regards the pets-in-heaven question, but it is also important to settle the reliability of scripture.  Some have said that Genesis 6:19-20 conflicts with Genesis 7:2-3 because the number changes to "sevens."  Remember that Genesis 6 is the information Noah was first given before the ark was built, so it emphasizes that the stalls or crates or cages or whatever living arrangements were made for keeping the animals would accommodate pairs. Chapter 7 tells of the actual boarding plans 120 years later, so it deals with the actual logistic count. Both can be true without conflict. 
Another complaint about the Genesis 7 passage asks how Noah knew which animals were clean or unclean since Levitical laws given by Moses were still several centuries into the future.  At its core, this is basically the same kind of question as how did Able know to bring a sacrifice? The simplest answer, of course, is that these men had a relationship with the Lord such that they would have known His voice. Another perfectly legitimate explanation is that Adam would have known this when he first named the animals in Eden, and so it was passed down through the generations of his family; the reason then that clean and unclean had to be redefined in the law was that this knowledge had been forgotten during the years in Egypt, in other words, the concept of clean and unclean were not first introduced in the law of Moses' time, but were reintroduced.  

For our study, the most important takeaway from these two passages is that God's heart was to deliver the animals into the new post-flood world. This is a pattern that would support the idea that God's heart would also be inclined to deliver our pets into the next world. 

Genesis 7:8-9
Of clean animals and animals that are not clean and birds and everything that creeps on the ground,
there went into the ark to Noah by twos, male and female, as God had commanded Noah.
This is another pattern. Here, the animals had not only had provision made for them, but they actually entered into the ark, which is in typology a heaven floating above the world.  

Genesis 7:13-15
On the very same day Noah and Shem and Ham and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife and the three wives of his sons with them, entered the ark,
they and every beast after its kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind, all sorts of birds.
So they went into the ark to Noah, by twos of all flesh in which was the breath of life.
they and every beast after its kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind, all sorts of birds.
Although this chiefly reiterates the previous passage in verses 8 and 9, we do have the additional detail that the animals entered on the "very same day" that Noah's family did. On one level, this probably indicates that the family was living and sleeping on the ark during the week leading up to when God would shut the door. As a pattern and type, happening on the same day would support the idea that our pets would be with us in the present heaven, and that we do not have to wait for the restoration of all things.
The second part that I highlighted, "they went into the ark to Noah" has different interpretations among the different commentators. I do not know Hebrew and cannot sort it out, but basically there are two views: (a) Noah went in first and the animals came to him, or (b) they went in with each other, as if both Noah and his family members assisted in the boarding. Following patterns and types, the difference this makes for the pets-in-heaven question is that if a is the case, then we would call our pets to us on the day  we enter Heaven.  Either way, they get there "on the same day."
Again, the phrase "the breath of life" makes an appearance, which alludes to animals having spirit. 

Genesis 7:21-23 tells of all who had breath and were left behind on the dry land dying. I am not of the mind to quote that; this is a blog, not a book, but you can look it up.  The takeaway for our pets-in-heaven exploration is that only the animals who were attached to Noah, a 'righteous man,' found deliverance with their spirit breath-of-life intact. 
In following the pattern, I do not really know what to make of this. To our human sensibilities it does not seem fair that a loyal pet which was dutifully serving its owner would miss heaven because it had the misfortune to belong to an unbeliever; for now, the best I can do is speculate that there may be pet adoptions in heaven... That would solve the problem of believers who always wanted a pet while on Earth but circumstances prevented it, and it is an idea that is consonant with the character of the God I know, but I am not aware of any scripture that would help make the case other than a loosely applied "with God all things are possible."

Genesis 8:1
But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark; and God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water subsided.
"Remembered" seems like an odd word to use here. God has just wiped out all land life on Earth and He "remembered" Noah and the animals tossing about like a cork? I am probably missing something significant, and if you know what that is, there is a comment section below. Meanwhile, I found three translations that appeal to my human mind:  God kept Noah in mind, God thought of Noah, and God was mindful of Noah. So whatever I may be missing in parsing the "remembered," what is significant to the pets-in-heaven is that God remembered Noah and the animals in a parallel construction; that is, as far as the English grammar goes, both have equal weight for being remembered. At this point, both man and the animals he'd been given dominion over were "remembered" as a unit.

The remainder of Chapter 8 details the receding of the flood. Two animals, both birds, aid in Noah's assessment of when the land becomes livable again, a raven and a dove. If animals had been vegetarians before, apparently the raven had turned to other appetites by the close of his cruise because it was able to survive on carrion and did not return to Noah. The dove, however, did return twice, the last time with an olive branch in its beak. There is a great deal of multi-level symbolism going on here, but for our use the chief thing is that animals served a role in helping Noah. When our pets serve a useful purpose, be it a physical task, an emotional buffer, or something else, they are also serving God's purpose and He is aware of that.

Genesis 8:17
"Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you, birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, that they may breed abundantly on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth."
This is a verse that I have read an unknown dozens of times in my life, but when going over it for this study, it struck me— except for that one raven, of course, all flesh would be with Noah; the flood has finally receded and they are all still aboard the ark.  So the thing I'd like to point out here is that as animals had helped Noah do his job earlier in the chapter, now Noah was going to help them on their way to do their job of restocking the Earth with animal life. Man's association with animals goes both ways, even though he is the one with higher authority.  The link that the LORD created between mankind and animals is so intimately intertwined that it is hard to imagine a world where there is man without animals. If the pattern holds, and it would be hard to argue that it wouldn't, then man and animals will still have interaction in heaven.

After the animals came out of the ark grouped according to their families/species, Noah built an altar and the LORD accepted his sacrifice. If your main recollection of Noah's story dates back to campfire songs of your childhood, then you are in for some surprises in Chapter Nine! (By the way, although the Arky-Arky song credits the sun with drying out the land, to be biblically accurate it should be the windy-windy!)

The Covenant of the Rainbow

The Covenant in its entirety is copied below using the King James Version.  For clarity, I have chosen more recent translations to use in the body of this blog.

Genesis 9:2  HCSB
 The fear and terror of you will be in every living creature on the earth, every bird of the sky, every creature that crawls on the ground, and all the fish of the sea. They are placed under your authority.
If there was ever any question that the dominion mandate was ever rescinded, it is reinstated in this verse. This is covered extensively in earlier posts, so I will not belabor the point here. We have God-ordained authority over our pets, and we can exercise it.

Genesis 9:5  ESV
And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.
This is the verse that explains why animal sacrifices "worked" up until the death of Jesus Christ. It is because "beasts" have a lifeblood. Ellicott's Commentary translates the verse this way:  And surely your blood, which is for your souls, will I require (i.e., avenge); from every beast will I require it. 
So, yes, this establishes a death penalty, both for men who kill men and for animals that kill men, but more than that, it explains the reason why:  the lifeblood, the blood of your lives, connects the physical with the soul. Since certain animal sacrifices are accepted by God, it means that "beasts" have at least a rudimentary soul. This means that the "beasts" have the potential to exist in the spiritual realm. 

Back in post #3 we covered two Hebrew words transliterated as chay and nephesh. Both of them show up in this verse. The life in lifeblood is nephesh and beast that has breath is chay.  

As a child, it was very hard for me to understand animal sacrifice. I still don't fully understand why God chose this method to cover sin, but the fact that it does means that the chay-beasts have enough nephesh-life to exist as a soul in the supernatural realm. If our pets are capable of making the dimensional leap to the heavenly realm, this would have to be the case; and it is.

Genesis 9:9-10  NASB
"Now behold, I Myself do establish My covenant with you, and with your descendants after you;
and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you; of all that comes out of the ark, even every beast of the earth."
"I establish My covenant with you; and all flesh shall never again be cut off by the water of the flood, neither shall there again be a flood to destroy the earth."
God's covenant wasn't just with Noah and his descendants. It was established with EVERY LIVING CREATURE that was WITH HIM!  Did you realize that animals have a covenant with God? That is what it says. And yes, this covenant is specific to a flood to destroy the earth, but the pattern is that God was willing to include animals in a covenant to protect them from destruction.  
These were animals that were with Noah; they were under Noah's dominion authority.  But if you were worried that this covered only the animals that were with Noah, look at the next verse: 

Genesis 9:11-12  ESV
I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.
And God said, This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations:
Every living creature for all future generations—that would include your pet—is covered by a covenant of protection. It has been prophesied that at the end of time the Earth will be destroyed by fire, however, we are not there yet and the covenant that is still in place shows that the heart of God is not one of destruction.  The sign in verse 12 is the rainbow—

Genesis 9:13-14, 16  NASB
I set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth.
It shall come about, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow will be seen in the cloud.
When the bow is in the cloud, then I will look upon it, to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.
Three times in three verses "cloud" is set in contrast to "earth." The triple repetition is significant in that it strengthens the relationship between the cloud and the earth. Several lexicons that I checked said that the cloud is a covering or a veiling of heaven. Symbolically then, the rainbow connects Earth to Heaven. And it seals a covenant between God and the descendants of the animals that came off the ark, as well as between God and men.


None of this explicitly says that your pets can go to heaven, no statement in the Bible does. But it does say a lot about the character of God. He is a God who is willing to provide deliverance for animals that brings them into a new world and then make a covenant of protection with them. If we are looking for types and patterns in history that reveal God's thought toward animals, then Noah's story is one that demonstrates a God who designed a world where men and animals have a symbiotic relationship with man in authority. We see a God who values the lifeblood of each, although at different levels. And we see a God who will pledge His word in a covenant to have life continue. 

 

Genesis 9:1-17  KJV

1And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. 2And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. 3Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things. 4But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. 5And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man.

6Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.

7And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.

8And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying, 9And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you; 10And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth. 11And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. 12And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: 13I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. 14And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: 15And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. 17And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.

Noah, the Ark, and the Covenant as a template - Part 1 (#9 in a series)

The Genesis account of Noah's life leaves no debate that God makes provision for "every living creature of all flesh," even as He is hitting the Creation-Reset Button by flooding the planet.
Noah's story does not directly promise that a believer's unique and specific pet goes to heaven, but it reveals so much of God's character, demonstrates His regard for animals, and even establishes such an inclusive covenant that I am going to make this prediction:
   — Once you are familiar enough with Noah's story that you can get a glimpse of God the way Noah knew God,  it will be far easier to have faith that pets can be in Heaven than it would be to believe God thinks an animal's life is disposable.

I'd encourage you to read Genesis chapters 6 through 9 to get a feel for the full sweep of the story.  Admittedly, I am going to be cherry-picking the parts of the story that show either (a) how God's treatment of animals demonstrates that animals are an important element in God's plan for Mankind, or (b) that the parabolic theme of surviving a physical flood points toward God plan for survival of souls.

But before I go there, two New Testament writers will help point us to what we are looking for—

2 Peter 2
Again, I'd encourage you to read the entire chapter. After an initial warning to be on guard for false teachers, Peter says the godly will be delivered, using Noah as an example. The chapter concludes with one of the most detailed analyses of the profane who choose to reject God in the entire Bible.

Here is a list of some of the verses from 2 Peter 2 germane to our study:

4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment;
5 and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly;
6-8 (more examples of Lot, Sodom, and Gomorrah)
9 then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment,

Here is a good insight into the immutable, unchanging character of God: "did not spare, but preserved"
Here is a second: "the Lord knows how to rescue"

Here is a list of some verses from 2 Peter 2 that are problematic to our study:

12 But these (the self-willed), like unreasoning animals, born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed, reviling where they have no knowledge, will in the destruction of those creatures also be destroyed,
22 What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit."

A superficial reading of those verses could make it seem like animals are born to be captured and killed. But in context with the earlier verses, it is clear from the use of the words freedom, slaves, enslaved, and entangled in verses 19 and 20 that the "captured and killed" refers only to those who are in rebellion against God. Indeed, verse 12 puts a qualifier on "what kind" of animals; unthinking, unreasoning, irrational, or brute beasts, depending on the translation. 

Now this is why it is so important that we correctly discern the "Dominion Mandate" covered in #8 of this series. If man's dominion over animals was made null at the fall, then when a pet overcomes its natural instincts and recognizes a human as one who has authority over it, all it counts for is that you have a cooperative pet. But, if God's decreed word for man's dominion over animals is still valid, then a pet that chooses to submit to its owner is not an unreasoning animal, but one that has chosen to submit to authority. 

We need to be clear here. I am not claiming that a pet chooses to honor God by submitting to a human's authority. That is adding more than the scripture can support. But we can see that when a pet recognizes the authority of its owner, it is acting in a way that God desires.  At some level, the pet has submitted its will to the God-ordained authority over it, and willingly fitting into that Godly order brings God glory, even if the animal is unaware of it. Furthermore, it is an act of the animal's will, and having a will indicates a soul. The proverb Peter quoted in verse 22 was being applied only to the rebellious that were operating on an instinct level. A dog that chooses to obey a "No, stay!" command instead of following its instinct does not return to its own vomit. 

Again, we need to be clear.  Humans don't always obey God's commands perfectly, and we are not expecting perfect compliance from a pet either.  But compare 2 John 1:6, And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments.  Love is demonstrated through an obedience that honors authority. Showing love indicates a spirit. This concept will be addressed in more depth at the end of this series, but for now let us lay this foundation: Our salvation is dependent upon our exercising free choice to honor the Lord as our Authority.¹ 

Jude 6
And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day—

At first glance, this passage may seem to have little to do with the Flood and even less to do with pets in Heaven. My main reason for including it comes from holes that I discovered as an adult in the narrative taught to me as a child. The standard Sunday School teaching I received about the flood went something like this: Man was wicked. God decided to wipe out mankind, except for Noah, who was the last true righteous person loyal to God. God tweaked the natural forces to cause a flood. 

This passage from Jude indicates that his view of Genesis 6-9 is radically different than the one that I was taught. Apparently his audience of contemporary, first-generation Christians who were setting out to make disciples of all nations saw it differently too. Most notably, they were seeing not only a physical world judgment, but also a judgment occurring simultaneously in the supernatural.  And THAT is how it relates to our Pets in Heaven—the physical events in Noah's story have supernatural implications.  

The angels that both Peter and Jude are referring to, who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper place, are the 'sons of God' from Genesis 6:2,4 that were identified as one of the reasons that God decided to have a flood. 

I am going to digress into the Book of Enoch,² for a bit. The Book of Enoch was dropped from canon, but is still useful as a history book. We can be pretty sure that Peter and Jude had read it because they either paraphrased or quoted it directly in their writings. To summarize—

Two Hundred angelic beings called The Watchers³ made a pact to take human wives. They knew they were opposing the Lord Most High by procreating with human women, but they decided to do it anyway, and the offspring were the nephilim giants.  They also taught their wives things which God had intended to be kept secret, about the art of metal working-to make weapons as well as jewelry, how to make and use cosmetics, how to make recreational drugs from plants, about sorcery, astrology, and, curiously, how to make mirrors. Enoch 8:2 says, "Impiety increased; fornication multiplied; and they transgressed and corrupted all their ways." 
Five angels loyal to the Lord Most High, (named as Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Suryal, and Uriel,) saw the corruption, violence, and bloodshed increasing on Earth and asked the Most Holy God if they should do something. God's response was to send a messenger angel to Noah to tell him about the coming flood and give him instructions about how to "conceal himself" in an ark. During the time that Noah was preparing the ark, God assigned Raphael to deal with the "lead teacher" of the secret knowledge by binding him hand and foot; casting him into darkness; and opening the desert which is in Dudael, to cast him in there. God sent other angels to entice the offspring of the Watchers, the nephilim, to fight and kill each other. So the Watchers saw their sons die, and then they themselves were bound underneath the earth for seventy generations.

Peter and Jude knew that there was a co-existant realm of corruption on Earth, that there was more going on than violent sex-crazed men rioting in the streets. Mankind had been polluted by esoteric knowledge from supernatural beings.  Having an awareness of Peter and Jude's broader perspective than what I got from Sunday school intensifies the contrast of what God did by electing to save animals on the ark. They were not only being saved from a world suffering from man's corruption, but they were also being delivered from the machinations of sinister supernatural entities. Literally and figuratively, God delivered animals for the next world. 

Genesis 6:1-8

Genesis 6:7 is one of the most disturbing verses in the Bible!  "The LORD said, 'I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them.'"  

That New American Standard (NASB) version (which is usually my go-to Bible for its balance of staying literal and using contemporary English) certainly makes it seem like God regretted creating both man and the animals that man had dominion over, and God was ready to wipe them off the face of the Earth. The King James, God speaking, says "...for it repenteth me that I have made them."  

I have a childhood memory of a pastor squirming to give an answer for "if God is perfect, acts perfectly, and knows everything, why would He repent or be sorry for what He'd done?"  I don't remember what he said. It did not settle with my spirit and I have forgotten that part. But I do remember that here was a person I was told to look up to as an expert and he was faltering.  It was a lesson that I should probably remind my readers of:  If anything in this blog does not settle well with the witness in your spirit, ask God about it. And if you are still unsure, then put it on a shelf for awhile. I am not trying to convince you that I am right; I am simply blogging about my own exploration of the Pets in Heaven question. 

So here is where I am now— after researching other translations, other scholars' opinions, and looking up the Strong's listing for H5162, I think the King James got it right. Modern translations often use "regret" which points to sorrow or rue, but that is only half the picture conveyed by the word "repent."  Especially when hooked up with the previous verse 6:
And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
you quickly notice the phrase is "it repented the LORD," and not 'the Lord repented.' The other half of the picture with "repent" relates to changing the course of action. If a person does not change his/her ways, we question if they were truly sorry, but when they change the direction their life was headed, we see the results and say that person's repentance was genuine!  "Repented" fits here because the Lord surely changed the course of direction for Mankind, and it is worth noting that man got to take his animals with him! 


In Part One of  "Noah, the Ark, and the Covenant as a template," we have shown that God's purpose for judgment by flood was far more involved than the obvious punishment-factor for man's wickedness.  We see that the Bible points to a supernatural component for the flood, even though it does not go into detail. It was important to lay the groundwork for this idea with Peter and Jude, the two New Testament witnesses, because unless you've been part of an in-depth Bible study or searched it out on your own, "the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them" can seem pretty disconnected from "reasons to build a boat."  But in Part Two of  "Noah, the Ark, and the Covenant as a template," we will be able to see God's plan to deliver man and animals from what was, in a sense, an alien invasion of immortals who corrupted society with knowledge that did not acknowledge the Lord God Creator.


 


Footnotes

¹ In post #6 of this series, I did an "Ask the Experts" article where a mix of theologians from different backgrounds had come to the conclusion that pets will be in heaven. The parallel here between human recognition of God's authority and an animal's recognition of human authority was used by some to draw their conclusions. 

 ² click to read the Book of Enoch online or to download a copy to Kindle.  Chapters 7-10 are about the flood. 

³ The Bible is written to men to reveal God on the Earth, therefore it does not go into depth about supernatural entities. It speaks of cherubim, seraphim, host, and watchers as being in an angelic class of created beings. The term "watchers" referring to an angelic order is found in Daniel 4:17, and possibly in Jeremiah 4:16. The watchers were to observe men, and they were able to make decrees.
 

A Sidebar Post - Examining Some Anomalies (a supplement to #8 in the series)

 In the eighth post of this series, we laid out how God originally gave mankind dominion to rule over animals and we presented support to demonstrate that even though we now live in a fallen world where perfect rule is impossible, our charge to rule was not revoked.  We showed that as we practice and exercise this latent charge to rule over animals "in which are the breath of life," we are learning and practicing skills needed to become good kings and priests in the restored Kingdom to come. We really are living on a bootcamp planet where successful graduation means passing into life everlasting.

[This post has a supplement status because it does not directly address the question of pets in heaven; instead, it counters arguments that (falsely) claim man has lost God-given dominion over his pets.]

To frame this "dominion mandate" of Genesis 1:28¹ properly, let me say that time and location change things! We are not in the Garden of God, which is how Eden is specifically identified in Ezekiel 28:13. We are in a fallen world, surrounded by an unseen realm. Our Creator's #1 directive to mankind is modified for each age on Earth.  Currently, during the present age or dispensation, Jesus' declaration to go and make disciples of all nations, baptize them, and teach them the importance of obedience² is the primary mandate for believers.  Our charge of ruling over animals may have temporarily taken a back seat while there are lost and dying humans out there, but the original charge to rule is still on the bus, not thrown under it!
In your talks with Holy Spirit and prayers to the Father, when you are discussing God's plan for your personal life, ask and He will reveal the proper pet-balance for the current season of your life. Most men and women will find an ebb and flow to what God asks them to do—this is because He is raising well-rounded children. Nothing stays exactly the same for long; you typically find times when caring for a pet is so impractical that is is not best for the animal, and other times when caring for a pet helps to train you for the future by exercising a portion of that dominion in this present world.

But what about the animals in the Bible that don't seem to fit with mankind having dominion over them?   Anomalies like this can make our faith waver if we don't get a handle on them; and some even point to these dominion-defiant beasts as "proof" that dominion was revoked. But the reasons that such creatures do not submit to man's authority are not evidence that our authority was nullified.

There are three in particular, and the key to unlocking all of their explanations is to accept that they are physical representations of supernatural entities.  They are:
1. the Serpent of Eden, a nachash.
2. the primeval sea serpent, Leviathan
3. the strong beast, Behemoth

If you are not willing to be open to a demonic realm of the supernatural, you may as well stop reading this and go find something else to do. This blog is not here to argue that. But if you are willing to consider that these three creatures are "reptilian" in ways other than a valid phylogenetic grouping of paleontology, then I believe you will understand why these three "animals" do not neatly fit the dominion mandate of Genesis 1:28.¹

I. The Serpent of Eden
We will start with the go-to on this one, Strong's number for this animal-being is nachash,  #H5175, נָחָשׁ noun masculine Genesis 3:1 serpent. Late Hebrew id.; Arabic serpent, viper.
But wait... there's more.
The noun is derived from an adjective, and Hebrew being vowel-less, this opens up connotations for  bright, shining, fiery, and brassy in addition to the snake/serpent meaning. That is about as far as my web search could discover in sticking to the Genesis passage alone, but when that dot is connected to Revelation 12:9 and 20:2, which both speak of the great dragon, that old serpent,³ called the Devil, and Satan, the meaning explodes with the supernatural. This was not a talking snake from the Little Golden Book® of Moses' Fairy Tales.
As sojourners of the 21st century, [that is the perspective we need here: eventually we will put on immortality, and so today's here and now will have become a just-passing-through,] our view of the divine time line has an unnamed adversary in Genesis and throughout the Old Testament, but finally, at the end, is the revealing of who/what the ancient serpent is. For the bulk of the Bible's history, satan was basically a job description and not a name.
For now, we are mostly going to bookmark that thought because there will be a later post on the importance of Naming. But you can still get a sense of where it will go if you remember that Jesus said "in My name" believers would cast out devils. The point for today, however, is that the serpent in Eden was not the sort of created animal that God designed man to rule over. That is Jesus' job now— All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him, Matthew 28:18. Jesus did give believers the authority to "cast out devils," that is, to claim small bits of territory demon-free zones; but that is not the same thing as ruling over him.  Paul spoke of a day when we will judge supernatural entities, angels, cf I Corinthians 6:3, Do you not know that we will judge angels? But that day is not today.

II. Behemoth
Behemoth is a land dwelling creature that is mentioned only once, Job 40:15. God said He made this creature, just as He made Job. Many people have tried to identify it as a real animal that exists today, such as a water ox, bull, elephant, or hippopotamus; but if you are looking for a literal animal, one of the dinosaurs make the best fit for the Bible's description.  As big and as tremendously strong as it is, it is an herbivore, and there is no mention of the wild animals on the mountain where it grazes being harmed. Even the dinosaurs' extinction is not out-of-sync with the biblical record. Job 40:19 may be predictive: He is the grandest of God's undertakings, yet his creator is approaching him with his sword, ISV. God's point in using Behemoth as an example was to show Job that he was not strong enough to save himself. 

III. Leviathan
This creature is mentioned six times in five verses of the New King James scriptures. Job 3:8, Job 41:1, Psalm 74:14, Psalm 104:26, and the double mention in Isaiah 27:1.
Of these, the forty-first chapter of Job gives the best physical description, should you wish to look it up. Those who claim that man's rule over animals has been revoked often point to these sea-monster characteristics, state that it is ridiculous to think man could rule over such a creature, and fold their arms as if they have made their case.  But...
Isaiah 27:1 is more obviously a metaphorical description of  a supernatural being, (or perhaps 3 "beings").  I will quote it here in the New American Standard:

   In that day the LORD will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, With His fierce and great and mighty sword, Even Leviathan the twisted serpent; And He will kill the dragon who lives in the sea.

Some commentators say these are three aspects of one entity that the Lord will reprimand. Others say there are three entities, a fleeing one, a twisted one, and a sea-dragon one, and then they attempt to match each with countries or empires. I even found one commentary that said the Lord pronounced three levels of judgments on Leviathan. Fortunately, we do not have to pick an interpretation because all we need to know to debunk using "Leviathan" as "proof" that God revoked His intent that man have dominion over animals is that this Leviathan thing, whatever it is, has a whoppin' spiritual component that puts it in a whole 'nuther league.
I doubt that any one man has a comprehensive list of all the malevolent spiritual entities. In Ephesians 6:12, Paul lists four: principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this world, and  spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. These are not flesh-and-blood enemies, and we were never given dominion over them. Jesus gave a limited authority to believers to use His Name against demons, but that authority does not annihilate them, rather, it forces them to leave our geographic proximity. 
Leviathan appears to be the physical manifestation of a supernatural entity. When reading mythology and paleoanthropologic literature or browsing YouTube videos, I kept finding Leviathan being linked to the Chaos demon.  James 3:15&16 gives us a working-backward scripture that calls chaos the effect of the demonic: Such wisdom does not come from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every evil practice.  Almost always there is a "twisting" motif about Leviathan, and this characteristic fits with a being that causes demonic disorder.  At the risk of leaning more to the esoteric than any of my early Sunday school teachers would have been comfortable with, I would not be shocked if I learned that Leviathan is a shape-changer, the kind upon which science fiction is based. 

Conclusion —

Of these creatures, there are three main interpretations:  (a) they are mythological, fictitious, or exclusively allegorical, (b) they are literal, natural animals, but possibly extinct since the days of Job, or (c) they are real in the realm of the supernatural and capable of manifesting in the physicality of Earth.
Whichever conclusion you come to, your reasons for choosing it must accommodate the argument that God spoke of them as real animals that Job was familiar with.  If you choose (a), you will need to explain how God’s purpose in glorifying His creation would be served by describing mythological creatures.

Best Guesses?
♦ The Serpent of Eden is clearly allegorical, but it also must have had some physicality in order to participate in an Earth environment that would affect the entire space/mass/time of Earth. It is also clearly supernatural.
♦ Behemoth was a literal, created animal that Job was familiar with, and although the hint is a bit obtuse, it is possible that God was showing as well as talking during his discourse with Job. If so, then Job 40:19, which says, "yet its Maker can approach it with his sword," could have been demonstrated at that point. I know, it is not the "extinction of the dinosaurs" theory that you are used to, but it's a hypothesis that aligns with scripture.
♦ Leviathan is the enigma that is hiding in plan sight. Job 41:34 says, "He looks on everything that is high; He is king over all the sons of pride." The physical account given in the preceding verses is of the archetypal dragon complete with fire-breathing ability, but this final verse describes the spiritual nature of this being. It fits the description of Lucifer, whose pride was central to his fall. Isaiah 14:14 confirms the part about looking on everything that is high. Ezekiel 28:16-17 tells of how he was cast down from that mountain because he corrupted wisdom for the sake of his splendor. The sons of pride are his followers.  God gives Job multiple examples of  how human strength and weapons are unable to defeat the supernatural Leviathan.

Bottom Line
All of these creatures had a unique role and purpose, even if adversarial, and man had not been given dominion over any of them.  
Maybe one could build the argument that Adam had dominion over the Serpent of Eden, but that gets too cerebral, hypothetical, and ultimately pointless to bother with.  Anyway, if the serpent was, or was possessed by—either way, if it was a fallen angel, Adam had not been given dominion over it.  God told Job straight-out that man did not have dominion over Behemoth.  And leviathan was the embodiment of primordial chaos, not the typical representative of animal creation.
Therefore, in my judgment, anyone who tries to use these creatures as "proof" that man lost his dominion over animals has failed to make his or her argument.

Unless you can be happy with the answer that, "Oh, my pet will be in Heaven because my God is good like that," which really is not a bad argument except that you are left with only one reason for believing your pet will be there; so if you you would prefer to meet the "two or three witnesses" standard of evidence for believing your pet will be in heaven, then assurance that we still have God-ordained dominion over our pets is essential to building the strongest case possible.   



Footnotes & More

¹ God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth." Genesis 1:28

² ¹⁹Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰;and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. Matthew 28:19,20

³  The Greek for serpent here is ὄφις (ophis).
Link to "nachash"
Many concepts in this post came from reading Dr. Michael S. Heiser's work, particularly in regard to the Hebrew word nachash.  I haven't copied and pasted anything, or even closely paraphrased anything that I think requires footnotes as his "intellectual property," but if something seems curious in this post, you should go search his website to find out more. drmsh.com

A Rabbit Trail for You— Egyptian Hieroglyph -  this is interesting in that a hieroglyph that looks roughly like a cartoon figure of the biblical Leviathan has been linked to animal sacrifice to a demon/god.  Whether these creatures were worshiped or sacrificed in worship, the Egyptian artist has portrayed a physical animal being used to contact the spiritual.