Dogs of the Bible Lands

A burial strongly suggesting domestication has been excavated in Israel and dated to around 12,000 years ago. This picture from the site, taken by Alain Dagand, shows a human skeleton, the left hand over the skeleton of a small dog, the two of them buried at Mallaha, about 15 miles north of the Sea of Galilee. (Davis and Valla, 1978) There has been a good deal of research and speculation regarding the measurements of the dogs found in Natufian excavations, and it is generally agreed that they were not tamed wolves and may have been similar in size to present day pariah dogs.

Despite early evidence for domestication in the region, and the implicit affection of such a burial, The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, in its entry on dogs, says bluntly that biblical writers "seem unfamiliar with any kind of warm personal relationship between a dog and its master." Dogs were either sheep dogs or scavengers when they are referred to at all. Of the ancient Israelites, B.S.J. Isserlin says that dogs "were kept, but little esteemed," and unlike the Greeks and Arabs, there were no breeds prized for hunting. (The same word is used for dog in Arabic (kalb, كلب) and Hebrew (kalev, כָּלֵב).)

There is no evidence that the Egyptians influenced early Israelites as to dog breeding or otherwise. A knife handle dated from 3300 to 3200 said to have been found at Gebel El-Arak near Abydos, presently in the Louvre, is thought to show Mesopotamian influence, perhaps even the god El wearing Mesopotamian clothing. What is less remarked upon are the dogs, aligned below the lions, which could as easily be Mesopotamian Molossians as Egyptian war dogs, and may reflect trade in dogs across the entire region in the pre-dynastic period. It has also been suggested that the knife “shows unmistakably an Elamite source of myths for people invading Egypt.” (Finders Petrie, at 80) Edward C. Ash (at 52) states that Samuel Birch, first head of the Egyptian and Assyrian section of the British Museum, was of the opinion that the mastiff "was not of a native [Egyptian] breed, but one brought to Egypt from India, for it is not figured on the Tombs before the IVth Dynasty." India seems unnecessarily distant, but may reflect then current belief that the Molossian originated in Tibet. Going well into the Christian period, M.R. James refers to an apocryphal account where the apostles Andrew and Bartholomew share a ship with a dog-headed man. Such Anubis-like imagery, however, comes not from Judaism or perhaps even Egypt but rather from the mystery initiations of late antiquity. (White 1980, at 25)

Deuteronomy 23:18 declares, in the King James version that "Thou shalt not bring the hire of a whore, or the price of a dog, into the house of the Lord." In both Jewish and Christian exegesis the reference to a dog is thought to mean a male prostitute, and the New English Bible uses that term directly. This explanation does not exclude the possibility that those reading the original law would have understood that dogs, like male prostitutes, do have a price, though a negligible one. If there were any trading in dogs, it would most likely have involved the puppies of proven sheep guard dogs. Miller (2008) doubts that the price referred to was that of a male prostitute and argues that it most probably refers to the price of a dog, but he is at a loss to explain why money obtained from selling a dog could not be brought into the temple.

Job 30:1 refers to sheep dogs, probably distinguishing them from the dogs that scavenged on the outskirts of cities and villages:

But now I am laughed to scorn
by men of a younger generation,
men whose fathers I would have disdained
to put with the dogs who kept my flock
(אֲשֶׁר-מָאַסְתִּי אֲבוֹתָם לָשִׁית, עִם-כַּלְבֵי צֹאנִי)

Proverbs 30:29-31 was once thought to refer to a greyhound, and is so translated in the King James version ("There be three which go well, yea, four are comely in going: a lion...; a greyhound....") but it has long been known that this rendering is inaccurate. Dansey (Arrian, The Cynegeticus), writing in 1831, noted that there is no allusion elsewhere in the Bible to dogs of the chase, so this had much appeal to King James and a court besotted by hunting with greyhounds. The animal is rendered "a strutting cock" in the New English Bible. There is evidence for sighthounds in the Middle East as early as the Neolithic period, with a shard from Susa showing a greyhound/saluki-like figure from about 4,000 BC.

Allowing a dog to devour a body was seen as a severe condemnation. The body was no more than refuse thrown out of the village. "Jezebel shall be devoured by dogs in the plot of ground at Jezreel and no one will bury her." (2 Kings 9:10)

The Book of Enoch, 89,42-50, uses animals as code names for Israel's rulers and enemies.

"And the dogs (κυνες) and the foxes (άλωπεκες) and the wild boars (ύες) began to devour those sheep (πρόβατα) till the Lord of the sheep raised up [another sheep] a ram from their midest, which led them. And that ram began to butt on either side those dogs, foxes, and wild boars till he had destroyed them all. And that sheep whose eyes were opened saw that ram, which was amongst the sheep, till it forsook its glory and began to butt those sheep, and trampled upon them, and behaved itself unseemly. And the Lord of the sheep sent the lamb to another lamb and raised it to being a ram and leader of the sheep instead of that ram which had forsaken its glory. And it went to it and spake to it alone, and raised it to being a ram, and made it the prince and leader of the sheep; and during all these things those dogs oppressed (έθλιβον) the sheep. And the first ram pursued that second ram, and that second ram arose and fled before it; and I saw all those dogs pulled down the first ram. And that second ram arose and led the [little] sheep. And those sheep grew and multiplied; but all the dogs, and foxes, and wild boards feared and fled before it, and that ram butted and killed the wild beasts, and those wild beasts had no longer any power among the sheep and robbed them no more of ought. And that ram begat many sheep and fell asleep; and a little sheep became ram in its stead, and became prince and leader of those sheep."

According to the commentators of the Oxford Apocrypha and Pseudoepigrapha of the Old Testament, the dogs here are the Philistines, the foxes are the Ammonites, and the wild boars are the Edomites. The ram who forsook its glory was Saul. The second ram was David. That makes the last ram Solomon. Is the story meant to say that the Philistines are wolves that attack the flock? It seems they are more like guard dogs who do not know their place, or regularly take advantage of the charges for which they are responsible.

Israel would have encountered war dogs among its enemies. While captives in Babylon, they would have seen the massive Molossians like those from the palace of Ashurbanipal displayed in the British Museum. The third picture of Ninevah is taken form Baynes and Fuertes (1919).  The fourth picture shows a similar dog from a Nabataean site at Hetra. This massive-headed dog, held by a rope-like leash, represents Cerberus, the guard of the underworld. (Glueck 1996)

There is one curious sampling of the types of dogs that could be found in Israel before the arrival of Alexander. An analysis of canine burials at excavations in Ashkelon determined that most of the dogs fit within the size and head shape parameters of modern pariah dogs. The burials, dating from the period of Persian control of the southern Levant (538-322 BC), involved the dogs being carefully arranged with their tails curled towards their feet, but none of the burials included markers or items of remembrance, and the dogs do not seem to have been pampered. Nor was there any evidence the dogs were killed in some ritual. The burials are localized, but there is no indication that this was a pet cemetery or that there was any intention to preserve a memory of the animals. One skeleton fell within the gazehound group. Wapnish and Hesse, the excavators, note that Ashkelon had diverse cultural groups, including Jews and Phoenicians. They suggest that burying dogs in the city might have been “a syncretism, a local amalgam of attitudes towards dogs” and that the burial ritual “cannot be attributed to a particular culture.” Similar burials were found at nearby Ashdod. The study demonstrates the prevalence of pariah dogs in a coastal city on the Mediterranean in antiquity and suggests that the dog populations of the area may not have changed much in appearance until modern times. (That Ashkelon was regarded by 1st century Jews as part of their land is demonstrated by the fact that during the revolt against Rome in AD 66-70, the rebels attempted to take the city from the Roman garrison, as described by Jonathan Price.) The idea of a syncretistic practice cannot be disproven, but it could just as easily be argued that the neighborhood where the dogs were buried reflected the practice of one ethnic group, though only the local members of that group.

The Book of Tobit from the Apocrypha is the only real indication that dogs could be companions:

(6.1) The boy and the angel left the house together, and the dog came out with him and accompanied them.
(11.2,4) When they reached Caserin close to Ninevah ... The dog went with the angel and Tobias, following at their heels.

The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible says that the likely composition date of Tobit is between 200 and 170 BC, and that it was probably composed in Syria or Mesopotamia, though an Alexandrian origin has been suggested. In any of these locations, the culture in which the book was produced would have had different functions for dogs than could be found in the agrarian and largely rural society of ancient Israel. An Alexandrian origin in the Hellenistic period would easily fit other data about human-canine relationships, but this argument cannot weigh heavily in the debate on the locus of composition.

In 1902, John Peters and Hermann Thiersch, an American and a German went into recently discovered burial caves at a place called Beit Jibrin, about 40 miles southwest of Jersualem. The caves dated from the second century BC. They took photographs but, because of the poor lighting, had copies of the paintings on the walls drawn, two of which are reproduced here. The photographs of the walls were not included in their monograph, but remained in the archives of the Palestine Exploration Fund in London. David M. Jacobson, Honorary Secretary of the Fund, recently published the original photographs.

Of particular interest for canine history are two wall paintings in Tomb 1. The first painting shows a hunter on horseback just before throwing a lance at an already wounded she-leopard. Beneath the horse runs a hound, which Peters and Thiersch describe as of “the same lank, sharp-eared species as the Kerberos.” Another dog seizes the leopard from behind. Both dogs have collars. Above the leopard’s head is the Greek word, ΠΑΡΔΑΛΟC (pard). The faces on the tombs were scratched out by the local inhabitants of the area at the time of discovery, where the Sheikh of Beit Jibrin declared that they were haram, forbidden by Moslem law.

The three-headed Kerberos which Peters and Thiersch argued to be the same type as the hunting dogs, shown in a second painting from the tomb, is further described by them as “of the long-haired, jackal-like dogs of the country, with pointed ears and long tail.” Although the head is similar to that of the hunting dogs, the body is more that of a Molossian, with massive musculature at the chest and thighs. The Kerberos appears very similar to that on a krater in Munich (Munich 3297), dated from 330 to 310 BC.

The rider is, according to Peters and Thiersch, “evidently the prince Sesmaios or Apollophanes,” who is wearing a Persian costume and riding on a highly decorated saddle cloth. The tombs used Greek, but those buried had names, such as Sesmaios, which these authors describe as bearing “a decided Phoenician stamp.” Other names appear Jewish or Idumaean. Thus, the cultures represented on the tomb walls may be rather diverse, syncretistic to repeat a term already used. At the very least, there was someone buried here who wanted to be remembered for his hunting abilities, and perhaps wanted to display those abilities to the gods after death. It seems likely that the Ptolemaic overlords of the area brought their hunting passions with them, and hunting would have been seen in the areas around the Hellenistic cities where they lived.

The Kerberos painting raises another possibility, though not more than that, if the dogs are in fact Molossians, which is that guard dogs could have been used by the Ptolemaic commanders, which would include the Idumaean soldiers, through whom control was exercised.

In the Gospel of Matthew (15: 26-7), Jesus says, "It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs," to which a woman replies, "True, sir, and yet the dogs eat the scraps that fall from their master's table." The Gospel of Mark (7:27-8) contains the same parable, but adds that the dogs may be under the table. The Cambridge Bible Commentary on Matthew (A.W. Argyle) says that Jesus is probably quoting a proverb. Regardless of its meaning (most commentators think that it is a debate as to whether Jesus should give his message to the Gentiles), the passage indicates that by the first century AD dogs were sufficiently common in dining areas that a reference to their picking up scraps dropping from the table would have been easily understood.

There is a curious difference in the saying as it appears in the two gospels. Only in Mark does the adverb translated by The New English Bible as "under," ύποκάτω, appear. The passage in Matthew could mean the dogs are beside the table, and implies nothing about their size. Mark puts the dogs under the table, which suggests they are small and might even be pets. Could this indicate that the author was familiar with the pet dogs of families in the cities, or even in the Roman world? Both passages use a diminutive for dog, κυνάριον, but it is generally agreed that this word was often used without any implication that a dog was small. (Bauer, entry on κυνάριον) The picture from the funerary monument shows a dog chewing a bone under a dining couch. (Goodenough, Plate 72)

During the revolt against Rome, Josephus recounts (BJ III.7.14) that one of the ways he tried to supply Jotopata when it was under siege was to have messengers creep past the Roman sentries at a neglected gully wearing sheepskins so that they might look for food. The messengers were to wear sheepskins so that if seen they might be mistaken for dogs (φαντασιαν παρέχοιεν κυνων). This means that dogs could be expected to be near the walls of a city under siege, but there is no implication that they were there for a military purpose, certainly no defensive purpose or the dogs would have been brought in to avoid their barking and alerting the Roman sentries to the messengers.

Josephus says (BJ IV.5.2) that when the Idumaeans cast corpses from Jerusalem, the naked victims might become the food of dogs and wild beasts (βορα κυνων και θηριων). Again, dogs are expected outside the walls, but they were pariah scavengers. The Idumaeans, a war-like people from whom Herod was descended, could have been expected to use the military technologies of the times, and might have had war dogs to guard encampments and fortresses, but there is no reference to this in Josephus. In the final stage of the war, Josephus tells of valleys filled with dead bodies, and mentions (BJ V.12.4) dogs tearing bodies. He describes bodies being thrown to the dogs (BJ VI.7.2) (ερριπτων αυτων κυσι τους νεκρους). Josephus mentions throwing bodies to dogs in other contexts in his history of the Jewish people, including in the war against the Philistines (Antiquities VI.9.4, VIII.11.1, IX.6.4 (Jezebel), XII.4.9, XV.8.4).

Dogs in the region are still sheep dogs and scavengers. The picture printed by Edwin Wilbur Rice, taken about 1910 in Syria, shows dogs assembling for some anticipated treat. Rice does not further specify the location, but they are likely the pariah dogs of some city or village. Concerning Syrian dogs, Rice writes:

"These [roaming] sheep are often brought back by the dogs, which the shepherd sends after them [W.M.] Thomson regards these shepherd dogs of Syria as lazy, half-starved, ill-conditioned, furious barking, mean curs, and not at all the noble animal known to us, like the St. Bernard dog. And [H.B.] Tristram says that the sheep dog is the pariah dog of the town, an outlaw and scavenger, but attached to a person owner or shepherd."

The Mishnah, composed in the late second to the early third century, specifies in Kilaim 1.6 that the wolf and the dog, and the wild dog and the jackal, are of diverse kinds, though they are similar. Merlen (De Canibus, at 38) takes this to mean that neighboring peoples were breeding dogs with wolves, presumably to produce more fearsome guard dogs, a practice the rabbis wanted to discourage. Another passage, Baba Kamma 5.3, says that "if a man brought his ox into the courtyard of a householder without permission and the householder's ox gored it or the householder's dog bit it, the householder is not culpable." This is a legal principle with practical meaning in an agricultural society, but it also tells us that dogs could be found in courtyards. It does not, however, tell us whether they were sheep dogs, guard dogs, or pets. That injury would occur suggests they were large. The same book (7.7) says that "a man may not rear a dog unless it is kept bound by a chain." This also means that in the agricultural society in which the Mishnah was written, dogs were owned and cared for, but society even then expected them to be leashed. Finally, another book, Nedarim (4.3) says that the meat of unclean cattle could be fed to dogs. Chullin (4.7) says that if a beast that had not before borne young cast an afterbirth, it may be thrown to the dogs. Although the Jerusalem temple had been destroyed and replaced by a pagan temple by the time of composition of the Mishnah, the ritual purity of food was still maintained. It also means that meat was not considered inappropriate for dogs. Meat sacrificed on a pagan altar could be given to them. (See also Pesachim 29a, Bechorot 15a.) The prohibition of giving meat sacrificed on the altar of the Jerusalem temple may explain the original context of a passage in the Gospel of Matthew (7:6): "Do not give dogs what is holy (Μη δωτε το άγιον τοις κυσιν)." (See also Joseph and Aseneth 10:14, but the provenance of this writing, and whether it is originally Christian or Jewish, remain highly debated.)

Belonging to the same environment of the mystery religions as the dog-headed man encountered by two apostles, M.R. James describes an apocryphal Acts of Paul, where a dog speaks to Peter. One fragment of the Acts of Andrew and Paul refers to a woman who bore her child in the desert, killed it, cut it into pieces and gave it to a dog to eat. The dog told the story to Andrew. This dream-like story relates to the exposure of unwanted babies on dung heaps in pagan environments, something that revolted Jews and Jewish Christians and which they sought to stop in communities they converted.

Temple dogs in the pagan world were sometimes encouraged to lick the sores of suppliants (Aelian, de Natura Animalum VIII.9, την γλωτταν φαρμακον, the medicinal tongue that heals by licking), and something of this belief may have existed in the Near East. Luke (16.20) describes dogs licking the sores of Lazarus. Rice observed that the poor of Syria "who are afflicted with sores, expose them purposely to the dogs to be licked, trusting their saliva will help to cure them." Such a primitive medical practice could occur, however, without any religious significance.

The Talmudic writings, largely written in Babylon (Baghdad) in the fifth and sixth centuries AD (Rubenstein 2005), but compiling earlier traditions, provide many rules and observations concerning dogs, as noted by Fred Rosner. Although they may not eat sacred foods and sacrifices, they may eat semi-leaven on Passover (Pesachim 43a). Dogs bark to protect their owners and a neighborhood (Pesachim 113b). A shepherd's dog comes when it is called (Becherot 55a). Dogs pretend to be asleep in order to steal food (Genesis Rabbah 36.7). Dogs rarely devour lambs (Kietuhot 41b, Chullin 53a). When dogs howl, the angel of death has come to town; when they frolic, Elijah the prophet has come to town (Baba Kamma 60b) (a belief shared by Arabs, Thousand and One Nights, 2:56). A widow should not raise dogs lest she be suspected of immorality (Abodah Zarah 22b; Baba Metzia 71a). It is forbidden to castrate a dog (Chagigah 14b). Jacob had sixty myriads of dogs (Genesis Rabbah 78.11 and 96.1). A dog knows its owner but a cat does not (Horayot 13a) (perhaps an early draft of "Dogs have masters, cats have staff."). Some of these passages (dogs pretending to sleep to steal food) indicate that, by this time, the rabbis were familiar with dogs living very close to their masters.

Feral dogs and pariahs that roamed far enough could have preyed on a great many species until fairly recently. They in turn were prey to other animals. Isserlin notes that "the rich animal life found in the past has been progressively impoverished, particularly since the arrival of modern firearms." Hippotopotami and crocodiles were found in the coastal plain in the Iron Age. Ostriches, wild ass (onagers), oryx and gazelles roamed the steppes of the Transjordan, while hyrax, wild goat, and ibex were found on rocky ground. Ostriches "were seen east of Amman, and gazelles near Jerusalem, while the roar of the lion was still heard by a medieval pilgrim not far from Haifa." In the forested regions could be found red, fallow, and roe deer, wild ox (aurochs), and wild boar, and the latter may still be encountered. Predators in this region included foxes, wolves, cheetahs, leopards, and bear.

The portion of the painting shows three dogs on the beach at Sidon, a lithograph by David Roberts from the 19th century. Brian Duggan tells me that the dogs at the water's edge may be an attempt to render Salukis, perhaps with cropped ears. "The third dog is so unlike anything found in the Middle East that I would be tempted to think that it belonged to a European -- perhaps Roberts himself or one of his party." Salukis had been prized as hunting dogs by the Arabs since antiquity, and would have been known to their neighbors.

What then can be said about the dogs of the people of Israel? While it is dangerous to draw conclusions from negatives, it appears to me significant that there are no descriptions of dogs by color, virtually no descriptions by size, no mention of hunting or military uses, though neighboring and conquering peoples had dogs with both these functions. Some game animals would have been regarded as unclean in any case, and killing in such a way as to damage organs would have prohibited at least some of the population from hunting. Although dogs were used to guard flocks and houses, there is no indication that any breed was ever developed or valued for this function, and there is no indication that dogs of the Ptolemaic governors came into wider usage, though the possibility of Idumaean soldiers using large guard dogs cannot be excluded.

Rice's description of dogs guarding sheep as being similar to pariah dogs may mean that dogs that attached themselves to shepherds and households were part of the general population of dogs in the neighborhood, not dogs specialized by breeding for any functions. The Menzels, writing before 1948, describe pariah dogs as being tamed by Bedouins and used as herd dogs, as shown in the picture of a farm from what the Menzels describe as the northern coastal area of Palestine. The similarity of the Canaan dog to the pariah has long been noted, and the treatment of this dog as a breed is a modern effort to isolate certain characteristics that was not part of earlier cultures. There was, in other words, not the sort of isolation of canine groups that led to massive sheep dogs in Babylonia or northern Greece. After diaspora communities encountered other attitudes towards dogs in the greater Mediterranean culture, dogs began to be pets and to become members of households, but this comes very late and should not be projected backwards onto earlier cultural environments.

Sources:

1. Ash, E.C. (1927). Dogs: Their History and Development, vol. 1. Ernest Benn Ltd., London.
2. Bauer, W. (1957). A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
3. Baynes, E.H., and Fuertes, L.A. (1919). The Book of Dogs.  National Geographic Society, Washington. D.C.
4. Charles, R.H. (1913). The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, Vol. II: Pseudoepigrapha, Book of Enoch, 254 (Oxford U. Press 1913).
5. Davis, S.J.M., and Valla, F.R. (1978). Evidence for Domestication of the Dog 12,000 Years Ago in the Natufian of Israel. Nature, 276, 608-610.
6. Dayan, T. (1994). Early Domesticated Dogs of the Near East. J. Archaeological Science, 21, 633-640.
7. Duggan, B.P. (2009). Saluki: The Desert Hound and the English Travelers Who Brought It to the West. McFarland Press.
8. Glueck, N. (1966). Deities and Dolphins. Cassell, London (Plate 10a).
9. Goodenough, E.R. (1953). Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period. Princeton U. Press, Princeton, N.J.
10. Isserlin, B.S.J. (1998). The Israelites. Thames & Hudson, London.
11. Jacobson, D. (2004) Marisa Tomb Paintings. Biblical Archaeology Review, Mar./Apr., 24-39.
12. Jacobson, D. (2007). The Hellenistic Paintings of Marisa. Palestine Exploration Fund Annuals, Maney Publishing.
13. James, M.R. (1924). The Apocryphal New Testament. Oxford U. Press, Oxford (pp. 471, 298, 313, 473).
14. Johannes J.E. (2004). Basenji Origin and Migration: At Africa's Doorstep. The Official Bulletin of the Basenji Club of America, 38(1), 18-19.
15. Merlen, R.H.A. (1971). De Canibus. J.A. Allen & Co. Ltd., London.
16. Miller, G.D. (2008). Attitudes toward Dogs in Ancient Israel: A Reassessment. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 32(4), 287-500.
17. Peters, J.P. and Thiersch, H. (1905). Painted Tombs in the Necropolis of Marissa (Mareshah), Palestine Exploration Fund, London.
18. W.M. Finders Petrie (1920-1923), Ancient Egypt. Macmillan & Co.
19. Pope, A.U. (editor) (1938-1958) A Survey of Persian Art from Prehistoric Times to the Present. Manafzadeh Group, Teheran (I.15, Figure 24h).
20. Preuss, J. (1993). Biblical and Talmudic Medicine. Jason Aronson, London.
21. Price. J.L. (1992). Jerusalem Under Siege: The Collapse of the Jewish State, 66-70 C.E. E.J.Brill, The Netherlands (Price, of all the analysts of the war and biographers of Josephus, best understands and describes the various factions in the rebel movement).
22. Rice, E.W. (1910). Orientalisms in Bible Lands. Bible Union (pp. 113, 166).
23. Roberts, D. (1982). The Holy Land. Terra Sancta Arts.
24. Rosner, F. (2000). Encyclopedia of Medicine in the Bible and the Talmud. Jason Aronson, Jerusalem.
25. Rubenstein, J.L. (2005). The Culture of the Babylonian Talmud. Johns Hopkins U. Press, Baltimore.
26. Schwartz, J. (2004). Dogs in Jewish Society in the Second Temple Period and in the Time of the Mishnah and Talmud. Journal of Jewish Studies, 50(2), 246-277.
27. Stager, L.E. (1991). Why Were Hundreds of Dogs Buried at Ashkelon? Biblical Archaeology Review May/Jun, 26-42.
28. Vesey-Fitzgerald, B. (1948). The Book of the Dog. Nicholson & Watson. London (R. and R. Menzel, Observations on the Pariah Dog, at 968, Plate VIII, at 982).
29. Wapnish P., and Hesse, B. (1993). Pampered Pooches or Plain Pariahs? The Ashkelon Dog Burials, The Biblical Archaeologist, 56(2), 55-80.
30. White, D.G. (1991). Myths of the Dog-Man. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, arguing that the story of a dog-faced figure in the Ethiopic Acts of Andrew and Bartholomew can be traced back to Gnostic and Manichaean roots. Both such possible sources could reflect pagan syncretism, however.

Photograph of Gebel el Arak Knife courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and Rama. Thanks to Brian Duggan and Richard Hawkins for corrections and suggestions. Also, thanks to E. Earle Ellis, no longer with us, who discussed historical theology with me for years, always bringing ancient societies to wonderful life. Thanks to Dorothy Resig for suggesting additional sources.