Animals play prominent, often peculiar, roles in the highly entertaining five major apocryphal acts of the apostles, the Acts of Andrew, Acts of John, Acts of Peter, Acts of Paul and Acts of Thomas. Lions, bears, dogs, bedbugs, asses and even seals appear in these narratives - some friendly, some vicious, some with the capacity for human speech. Janet E. Spittler argues that these animal episodes have a greater, more complex significance than has previously been recognized, reading these texts within the broad context of Greco-Roman natural history, philosophy, fables and prose narrative and presenting new interpretations of each animal-related episode.weiterlesen