Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
A novel approach to Israelite kinship, arguing that maternal kinship bonds played key social, economic, and political roles for a son who aspired to inherit his father s household
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."