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Birds of the Bible
Consider the Birds:
A Provocative Guide to the Birds of the Bible
Debbie Blue
Abingdon Press, 2013, paperback
How many birds are mentioned in the Bible? You possibly know about God’s concern for the sparrows, and have soared on eagles’ wings in times of distress. When you think of those lilies of the field, you might also find yourself looking more closely at the cranes and swallows to “observe the time of their coming” (Jeremiah 8:7 ). But that’s it. All too often our spiritual aviary isn’t any wider.
A new book, Consider the Birds (Abingdon Press, Nashville), from pastor Debbie Blue of St. Paul, Minnesota, does some of the work for us. “Once you start looking for birds,” Blue writes, “you will find them everywhere. … I believe it is the same way with the grace of God—when you are paying attention, you’ll discover [grace] in places you hadn’t noticed it before.” Her hope in writing this book, she adds, ”was to get myself and readers deeply paying attention to what flits by us on any given day, to the layers of meaning in sacred text.”
And no one appears to have gotten more from the book than Lauren Winner, whose writing we have reviewed before in this column. In a succinct and gracious foreword, she points out that readers will learn not just about birds, but about sacrifice, and salvation, and desire: “Who knew that biblical birds held so many of the keys to what the Scriptures have to say about God?”
It’s a good reference book to have beside your Bible at any time.
This is not to suggest that Blue’s book is all sweetness and light. Its subtitle, A Provocative Guide to Birds of the Bible, is a warning of sorts. We are invited to consider birds’ strength and fragility, their beauty and ugliness. Blue is an honest researcher, and doesn’t hesitate to reveal, for example, that the dove in the lore of ancient civilizations wasn’t actually as pure as we might wish; it had a “complicated past.”
Yet she finds the good even among less friendly creatures such as the quail (bobwhite to many of us), which in some cultures means trouble. She says the quail can be viewed as a sign of God’s extravagant care as well as a warning that the Israelites’ desires during their time in the wilderness needed transforming—a tough experience from which the rest of us are not exempt.
The chapter on vultures may be uncomfortable for some readers, yet Blue hastens to confirm that “the vulture, unlike us, rarely ever hurts a living thing.” She also writes about the power and vulnerability of eagles, and calls for us to see them not as representing allegiance to power so much as our commitment to hope.
This study is more about the symbolism of birds and their cultural and historical background—as reflected in the Scriptures—than about their contribution to our spiritual well-being. It is unlikely to deepen our prayer life or facilitate or explain the healing Jesus taught and demonstrated. But it’s a good reference book to have beside your Bible at any time.