The first chapter presents the most prevalent reading strategies, assumptions, and working principles that guide the work of biblical ecocritics. I focus on particular scholars that engage both eco-recovery and resistance strategies for biblical ecocriticism, followed by a summary of the Earth Bible Project's six ecojustice principles. This exposes an important gap within contemporary biblical ecocriticism: a critical engagement of the human/animal binary. Chapter two offers a survey of some of the key figures and methodological approaches produced by critical animal studies, focusing on approaches and theoretical perspectives that can be utilized by post-Cartesian biblical ecocritics. These coalesce in a new approach to animality that I introduce for ecotheology and biblical ecocriticism: a sibling theology and corresponding sibling hermeneutic. Building on the work of mujerista theologian Ada María Isasi-Díaz and her development of the "kin-dom of God" concept, alongside my own work with queer ecocriticism and Rosi Braidotti's concept of zoe-egalitarianism, I propose a new way of describing how we relate to one another as well as how we relate to the rest of the creaturely community: as siblings, employing a sibling theology as we attempt to understand the kin-dom of God, and utilizing a sibling hermeneutic as we read the Bible with an ecocritical lens. These methods, reading strategies, and hermeneutic provide the intersectional foundation for a re-reading of the Markan bestiary, exploring creaturely relations and the human/animal binary exhibited in biblical narrative and biblical interpretation.

I then focus on various passages within the Gospel of Mark that incorporate non-human animals, grouping them in a manner that illustrates the variety of ways that the Markan author and Markan Jesus utilize those creatures — not as a means of recognizing animals as such, but, rather, as a didactic tool to teach a lesson or point. Simply stated, I illustrate that for the Markan author and biblical critics, "animals are good to think with." I commence this line of inquiry in chapter three by exploring Mark's aviary, the five scenes in which the Gospel employs birds (Mk. 1:9-11; 4:1-20; 4:30-32; 11:15-19; 14:26-31, 68-72), in order to examine some of the common themes and methods explored with a critical animal studies philosophical axiom in mind — that difference matters. Chapter 4 builds on this foundation, taking an intersectional approach to the swine and man of Gerasa in Mark 5:1-20, focusing on race and ethnicity while analyzing the animalizing logic and rhetoric of incarceration and imprisonment exhibited within the narrative. An analysis of this rhetoric, alongside the hierarchies created within the narrative provide the framework for a critical rethinking of the pericope, where a zoe-egalitarian response aids in the rejection of Jesus' "fix" for the man from Gerasa, which never provides a shift in the terrorizing logic of (de)animalization and the demonization of those that are imprisoned — human and non-human animals alike. Working alongside race and ethnicity, gender adds an additional layer to my critical animal studies analysis of Mark. Chapter 5 explores the association of the Syrophoenician woman and her daughter (Mk. 7:24-30) with dogs in order to illumine the way in which both gender and ethnicity are derided through animalization. I look to both linguistic rhetoric (i.e. animalizing metaphors) and material culture (i.e., ancient iconography informing animalizing metonymy) as spaces that inform our understanding of animality in antiquity, especially in relation to dogs. This didactic tool employed by Jesus essentializes the canine category and associates it with the Syrophoenician woman, forcing each to be considered less than human.