FRIENDS OF ASOR WEBINARS
Priestesses in the Days of Solomon and Ahab
(Image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Open-Access Collection)
Friends of ASOR is excited to announce the second webinar in our monthly series on September 13, at 7:30pm EDT, featuring Dr. Susan Ackerman. An expert in the study of gender and religion in ancient Israel, Prof. Ackerman invites us to explore and question our own assumptions about gender roles in the ancient world. Priestesses abound in the religions of the Near East and the eastern Mediterranean — in Mesopotamia, Egypt, ancient Syrian tradition, and Greece. Priestesses are even attested in the records of some of ancient Israel’s closest neighbors (for example, from Phoenicia and the Transjordanian site of Deir Alla).
So why were there no priestesses in ancient Israel? In this lecture, Prof. Ackerman will propose an answer to that question, but also will propose—based on a survey of features commonly manifest by priestesses elsewhere in the biblical world—that there may be a few priestess-like women lurking in the pages of the Bible. The webinar will conclude with a live Q&A session.
Susan Ackerman is the Preston H. Kelsey Professor of Religion, Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and the former Chair of both the Department of Religion and the Program in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Dartmouth College. She also earned her A.B. degree at Dartmouth, majoring in Religion, and then went on to earn a Masters of Theological Studies at Harvard Divinity School and a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Her research specialties include the religion of ancient Israel, women and gender in ancient Israel, myth and ritual studies in ancient Israel, and the Hebrew Bible.
Register and get 25% off Ackerman’s book from Yale University Press!
Her publications include several articles and three books, Under Every Green Tree: Popular Religion in Sixth-Century Judah; Warrior, Dancer, Seductress, Queen: Women in Judges and Biblical Israel; and When Heroes Love: The Ambiguity of Eros in the Stories of Gilgamesh and David. She has recently completed a draft of a new book, on women and the religion of ancient Israel, and is currently at work on another book manuscript on Israelite women’s life-cycle rituals, such as coming-of-age, marriage, motherhood, death.
Ackerman served as ASOR President from 2014-2019. Prior to that, Ackerman served as a member of the ASOR Board for seven years (2007-2013), during which time she was a member of the ASOR Capital Campaign Cabinet, the Task Force on the ASOR Strategic Plan for 2011-2015, and the Finance Committee. She has also served as President of the New England and Eastern Canada Region of the Society of Biblical Literature (2013-2014), as President of the Colloquium for Biblical Research (2008-2010), and as a member and then Secretary of the Board of Trustees of the W. F. Albright Institute for Archaeological Research (AIAR), from 2008-2013.
In November 2019, Ackerman received ASOR’s most prestigious award, the Richard J. Scheuer Medal, for lifetime achievement and professional service.
ASOR Sustaining Members: $0 | ASOR Members: $5 | Public: $10
To receive your ASOR member discount, log into the online store. If you are new to ASOR, please click on the “New Visitor Registration” link to enter your email and password for our online store. Then navigate to “Meeting and Event Registration” to register for the webinar and pay the fee. Each paid registrant will receive a confirmation email when you pay for the webinar. If you do not receive this email, then you are not registered. Please e-mail membership@asor.org with any questions or issues with registering.
You will be e-mailed the Zoom Webinar link prior to the lecture on September 13, 2020. All webinars are recorded and all paid registrants who cannot attend the webinar will be sent a link to download the recording.
All proceeds from this lecture are used to fund scholarships for members impacted by COVID-19 as well as increasing ASOR’s online resources, which are free to the public.
