Cynthia R. Chapman

Upending traditional scholarship on patrilineal genealogy, Cynthia Chapman draws on twenty years of research to uncover an underappreciated yet socially significant kinship unit in the Bible: "the house of the mother." In households where a man had two or more wives, siblings born to the same mother worked to promote and protect one another's interests. Revealing the hierarchies of the maternal houses and political divisions within the national house of Israel, this book provides us with a nuanced understanding of domestic and political life in ancient Israel.

This resource is a concise and updated version of Coogan's 'The Old Testament'. It takes a historical and literary approach to exploring the Hebrew Bible. It begins with two introductory chapters, in order to give students the preliminary background necessary to prepare for analysis of the biblical texts 'in context'.