The Synoptic Gospels are set in particular times and places, and they take knowledge of these contexts for granted. Modern interpreters, however, are far removed from biblical times (and often from biblical places), and therefore lack direct access to the contexts these writings assume. Biblical scholars have done a great deal to reconstruct the social contexts and ecological worldviews of the Gospels, which has helped interpreters better understand the human characters presented in these writings. And yet, the social, cultural, and historical efforts to reconstruct the lost contexts of the Bible often lack a necessary component: they do not pay sufficient attention to the material relationships between humans and the environments in which their social contexts arose and which the writings take for granted. This project synthesizes and expands my research of the past eight years, placing classical resources on farming practices and the findings of environmental archaeology in conversation with social-historical and social-scientific research to develop a wholistic understanding of the social-ecological contexts behind the Gospels. I then re-examine stories from the Synoptic Gospels in which non-human entities play a significant role (like the agricultural parables and the cursing of the fig tree), considering the meanings they would have conveyed in the shared social-ecological contexts of their original audiences and authors. I explore how these readings support, nuance, expand, and sometimes contradict traditional interpretations and scholarly consensuses.