Women's Lives in Biblical Times

Dr. Ebeling's book Women's Lives in Biblical Times was recently published; she signed copies at the Evansville Barnes and Noble last Saturday. 

The recent explosion of novels about female characters in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament proves that there is great interest in the lives of biblical women. But can we be sure that these highly dramatized reconstructions are based on actual evidence for the lives of women in ancient Israel? Women’s Lives in Biblical Times looks to recent biblical scholarship along with archaeological, iconographic and ethnographic data to reconstruct the life of a hypothetical woman living in an ancient Israelite village in the period of the Judges, ca. 1100 BCE. Each chapter begins with a narrative describing this woman’s life at various ages from her birth to her final illness and death, and continues with an academic discussion of the daily life activities and lifecycle events described in the narrative. Women’s Lives in Biblical Times is thus a uniquely engaging and accessible source for anyone interested in looking beyond the romanticized accounts of biblical women’s lives to a discussion of what we really know about them.

More information about the book can be found here.  Her interview with WNIN's Micah Schweizer can be heard here.