Oberlin College Scholar Wins Book Award From the Biblical Archaeology Society

Cynthia Chapman, the Adelia A.F. Johnston and Harry Thomas Frank Professor of Religion at Oberlin College in Ohio, received the Best Book Relating to the Hebrew Bible Award from the Biblical Archaeology Society. Professor Chapman was honored for her book The House of the Mother: The Social Roles of Maternal Kin in Biblical Hebrew Narrative and Poetry (Yale University Press, 2016).

The judges of the competition stated that “Cynthia Chapman innovatively combines textual scholarship, gender studies and anthropology. Although society in ancient Israel was patriarchal and patrilineal, Chapman’s research allows us to see that maternal descent and maternal relationships were also important identity markers.”

Professor Chapman is the co-author of The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures, now in its fourth edition from Oxford University Press. She is a graduate of Kalamazoo College in Michigan. Dr. Chapman earned a master’s degree at Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville and a doctor of theology degree from Harvard University.