BI304 Women in the Biblical World: Old Testament
Overview
In Women in the Biblical World: Old Testament, Dr. Mark Chavalas provides a historical and archaeological survey of the status of women in the biblical world, considering Old Testament views on women alongside those of the larger ancient Near Eastern context. Beginning from the advent of the nation of Israel, he covers various cultures from the time period, including Mesopotamia, Egypt, Hittite Anatolia, and Iran, exploring primary texts that inform our understanding of the roles of women in the ancient Near East and the Old Testament.
Top Highlights
“‘Once a year in every village all the maidens as they attained marriageable age were collected and brought together into one place, with a crowd of men standing around a crier would display and offer them for sale one by one, first the fairest of all; and then, when she had fetched a great price, he put up for sale the next most attractive, [all the way down to the ugly ones]. Rich men of Assyria who desired to marry would outbid each other for the fairest.’” (source)
“But a man could not give his daughter in marriage to whomever he liked, nor could one [who] bought a girl take her away without giving security that he would in fact make her his wife. And if the couple could not agree, it was a law that the money be returned.’” (source)
“Jane Austen in her Northanger Abbey. Catherine is speaking to Henry. I think they’re probably just in a room somewhere, and they’re just chatting with each other to show how much they know, and Catherine must have been asked a question. She says to Henry, ‘I can read poetry and plays, … and [I] do not dislike travels. But history, real solemn history, I cannot be interested in. Can you?’ And Henry say, ‘Yes, I [like it].’ Catherine responds, ‘[Well,] I wish I [could too]. I read [a little bit of] it as a duty, but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars [and] pestilences, in every page; men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all.’” (source)
“The fundamental difference between this and, of course, the Mosaic code is that the Mosaic code is divinely inspired, divinely worked on by God and then handed on to Moses. However, after that, there are some remarkable similarities, as we’re going to find.” (source)
- Title: BI304 Women in the Biblical World: Old Testament
- Author: Mark W. Chavalas
- Series: Logos Mobile Education
- Publisher: Lexham Press
- Print Publication Date: 2018
- Logos Release Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Courseware
- Subjects: Women in the Bible; Bible. O.T. › Criticism, interpretation, etc. Women--Legal status, laws, etc.--Middle East; Education › Women in the Bible; Education › Bible. O.T.--Criticism, interpretation, etc; Education › Women--Legal status, laws, etc.--Middle East
- Resource ID: LLS:BI304CHAVALAS
- Resource Type: Courseware Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2019-06-21T19:08:31Z
Dr. Mark Chavalas is Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, where he has taught since 1989. He earned his BA at California State University-Northridge and his MA and PhD, both in History, at UCLA.
Dr. Chevalas is author or coauthor of publications including Mesopotamia and the Bible (Baker, 2002) and the IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament (InterVarsity Press, 2000) and coeditor of The Ancient Near East and Women in the Ancient Near East. Dr. Chavalas has had fellowships at Yale, Harvard, Cornell, and other universities. He has nine seasons of excavation experience at various Bronze Age sites in Syria, and he is currently President of the American Oriental Society Middle West region and a member of the editorial board of the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research.
His research over the past decade has focused on interconnections between ancient Mesopotamia and outlying areas such as Anatolia, Iran, Egypt, and Syro-Palestine. Other recent research has investigated gender constructs in the ancient Near East and Mesopotamian historiography. Dr. Chavalas’ current research is focused on writing a history of Bronze Age Syria from the advent of writing in the third millennium BC to the Iron Age. His courses cover a wide area, including ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Israel, Syria, and Turkey; Iran before Islam; women in the ancient world; and the Akkadian and Sumerian languages.
Dr. Chavalas and his wife Kimberlee are the happy parents of six. When he is not serving in various capacities at First Evangelical Free Church in Onalaska, Wisconsin, Dr. Chavalas describes himself as “a hopeless baseball fanatic, bleeding Dodger blue.”