This volume explores the ubiquity of animals and the remarkable density of animal language in the New Testament and its contemporary world.
By situating the New Testament amid ancient discourses and incorporating understanding from the emerging field of Animal Studies, the contributors explore the insights that emerge when non-human animals and notions of animality take centre stage.
By analysing the Classical contexts of the New Testament, the gospels, the writings of Peter, Paul and John and extra-canonical Christian contexts, the volume identifies and explores the myriad ways in which humans find themselves and others to be like animals, addressing basic notions of human and animal nature and highlighting traits such as sentience, subjectivity, and intentionality. Ranging from the intense discussions regarding animal souls and their place in contemporary narratives to their various roles in the teachings of Jesus, their depictions in the writing of the apostles and their symbolic and ethical significance in early Christianity, this highly original and methodologically diverse collection introduces an unfamiliar paradigm that offers new perspectives and insights into the New Testament and its contemporary world.

Justin Strong is Associate Professor of New Testament at MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society in Oslo, Norway. He has published articles on the animal in New Testament Studies, Journal for the Study of Judaism, and Biblical Archaeological Review.

Ruben Zimmermann is University Professor of New Testament on the Faculty of Protestant Theology at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany.

Preface
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Part I: Introduction
Chapter One: The Animal and the Beginning of the Gospel: An Orientation to Animal Studies - Justin David Strong, MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion, and Society, Norway; University of Mainz, Germany
Part II: Classical Contexts
Chapter Two: Do Non-human Animals Have a Soul and Logos? Perspectives from Pagan, Jewish, and Christian Thought - Hedwig Schmalzgruber, University of Graz, Austria
Chapter Three: Animal Emotions in Greco-Roman 'Popular' Science and Philosophy and in Imaginative Genres - Stephen Newmyer, Duquesne University, USA
Chapter Four: On Focalization in Ancient Verse Fables and in the New Testament: Animals in Contemporary Narrative Literature - Ursula Gärtner, University of Graz, Austria
Part III: Gospels
Chapter Five: Humanimals, Godanimals, Demonimals: Is the Animetaphorical Habitat of the New Testament Dangerous for Nonhuman Animals? - Stephen Moore, Drew University Theological School, USA
Chapter Six: How Are the Children before the Dogs? Reading Jesus's Encounter with the Syrophoenician Woman
within Ancient Child-Dog Symbolism - John Van Maaren, University of Heidelberg, Germany
Chapter Seven: The Choice to Untie a Donkey, Ox or 'Daughter of Abraham' - Emma Swai, Liverpool Hope University, UK
Chapter Eight: About Sheep and Their Keepers: Parallels in Literary Usage - Ursula Ulrike Kaiser, University of Jena, Germany
Chapter Nine: "No Longer Do I Call You Slaves, Rather Friends:" Animal, Slave, and Human Hierarchy in the Logic of John - Ruben Zimmermann, University of Mainz, Germany
Part IV: Peter, Paul, and John
Chapter Ten: Eating and Seeing: The Birds and Animals and Creeping Things of Acts 10:12 and Romans 1:23 - Sophia Niepert-Rumel, University of Paderborn, Germany
Chapter Eleven: 'Is God Concerned with Oxen?' (1 Corinthians 9:9-10) - Joel White, Free Theological University Giessen, Germany
Chapter Twelve: Of Men, Dogs, and 'Mutilated Monsters': Paul's Use of Dehumanizing Terminology in Phil 3:2 and
Beyond - Gregory Lamb, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, USA
Chapter Thirteen: Paganism's Champion: Interpreting the Diabolical Lion Metaphor of 1 Peter 5.8 alongside Early Jewish Literature - Noel Cheong, Oxford University, UK
Chapter Fourteen: Animals and the Eschaton: Outside are the Dogs... and the Rest? - Michelle Fletcher, King's College London, UK
Part V: Extra-Canonical Christian Contexts
Chapter Fifteen: Jesus, Goats, and Other Animals in the Epistle of Barnabas: The Intersection of Animal Symbolism and Implicit Ethics in the Epistle of Barnabas - Travis W. Proctor, Wittenberg University, Germany
Chapter Sixteen: Animals' Sight of God? Justin Martyr on the Transmigration of Souls (Dialogue with Trypho 4) - Jonathan H. Young, University of Oxford, UK
Chapter Seventeen: A Venomous Snake of Toxic Speech and Other Animals Illustrating Biblical Ethics in the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles - Susanna Luther, University of Göttingen, Germany
Chapter Eighteen: Between Antelopes and Hyenas: Animals in Egyptian Ascetic and Monastic Texts - Ingvild Sælid Gilhus, University of Bergen, Norway
Bibliography
Index