What the bible says about cats

The bible says nothing about domestic cats. Nada. Zilch. Some wild cats are mentioned. Dogs are poo-pooed.

A search for 'domestic cat' on the openbible.info website produced nothing at all. I know this from previous searches. The domestic cat is not mentioned in the bible at all. Other animals are. The dog is. The domestic cat, no. Wild cats are sometimes referenced but rarely; such as the leopard and lion below. P.S. The dog is mentioned over 40 times in the bible but nearly always in a derogatory and contemptuous manner.

What the bible says about cats. Image: MikeB

Genesis 1:26

Then God said, 

“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 

Search for 'domestic cat' produced no references in the bible as mentioned twice already!! A search for 'cat' produced the above. 'Cats' produced the following (a reference to the leopard):

Daniel 7.6: After this I looked, and behold, another, like a leopard, with four wings of a bird on its back. And the beast had four heads, and dominion was given to it.

 The lion mentioned on search for 'lion'. There are other mentions.

Psalm 104:21: The young lions roar for their prey, seeking their food from God.

Why isn't the domestic cat mentioned in the bible? The Bible Research Today website says this:

"The most common explanation for the omission of the cat within Hebrew biblical texts is that it was a reaction by monotheistic Israel against the Egyptian practice of worshipping cats (or gods that were fashioned in the form of cats)."

In an earlier article I wrote years ago I suggested that the domestic cat was irrelevant to the topics discussed in the bible and was not mentioned as a result. A common-sense viewpoint.

When it comes to the bible forget about the domestic cat which was very much part of the lives of some Jews at the time of Christ (plausible and reasonable suggestion). Perhaps they were quite rare among Jews. 

The domestic cat existed at that time as the Egyptians had domestic cats for thousands of years before Christ. There were probably fewer pet cats than pet dogs among the Jews.  Today the Jews are generally very kind to stray cats. There are lots of them in Israel. Too many actually! Ironic that.

Remember too that the bible was written over the course of almost a century after Jesus' death. That's a factor. It is an historical account.

Witchcraft banned cats from the bible

Witchcraft banned cats from the bible. Crazy? Absurd? No not really. Here is my argument. The bible contains no reference to the domestic cat whatsoever. The domestic dog is mentioned but not that frequently. Lions and leopards are referred to rarely.

At the time of Christ the cat had, by mutual consent, been domesticated for more than 6,000 years. In Egypt the African wildcat had been well and truly domesticated also by consent with the cat. In other words the cat and humans gained from the relationship.

For a while, the domestic cat in Egypt before the time of Christ (a cat that is the Eyptian Mau even today), was revered and worshiped. We know about that. As a result, a lot of potential existed for a least a mention in the bible. But nothing. Zilch. Rien. Porquoi?

It may simply be that the authors of the bible found nothing in the domestic cat that related to their stories. That seems a fair assumption as the bible is about people. And the bible was written second hand many, sometimes hundreds of years after the event. It is not necessarily an accurate account of events.

And then we have the translation. Lost in translation might apply to the bible. Did the 47 Church of England scholars who translated the Greek text of the bible into the King James Version do it objectively, accurately? Or were they tempted (as I would be) to put in a bit that I thought is more important and which would guide readers in the direction that the Church of England wanted them to go?

At the time (early 1600s) cat familiars (black cats that lived with so called witches) were thought of as real. People believed in them. Might it have been very easy to erase the few references to the domestic cat that might have been in the original text to "clean it up" for modern England? What I mean is modern in relation to the origins of the bible.


Black Cat - Charlie

You know, translating text from one language to another, particularly an old language allows for a good amount of artistic enterprise. The translator is looking for the true meaning of the text as they understand it. It is objectivity built upon subjectivity - a dangerous concept.

So, if as I say witchcraft and cat familiars were part of the national consciousness in the days when the bible was translated into the most widely used languages, it is not beyond the bounds of reasonable thought to suggest that the cat was removed from the text. After all, witches familiars revealed the devil to the witch. It was possessed by the witch. How could an author put a cat in the bible on that basis?

My conclusion as to why there is no reference to domestic cats in the bible is:

• They were not that relevant to the stories in the bible
• Cats were seen as evil and possessed of the devil at the time translations of the bible were being carried out
• The bible was written 50 to hundreds of years after the events. The stories are second had and somewhat historical. Under these circumstances only the broader issues where referred to. Detail mentioning the cat were irrelevant to the stories as mentioned.

The Islam faith has a more practical and open culture and teaching regarding the domestic cat because Mohammed kept a cat as far as I remember. A great start for a domestic cat. I don't know what the modern Muslim feels about the domestic cat but if they read the books they will be tender and compassionate because that is what is taught.



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