Francesca Stavrakopoulou

Francesca Stavrakopoulou
Born	(1975-10-03) 3 October 1975 Bromley
Nationality	British
Title	Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion
Academic background
Alma mater	Oxford University
Thesis title	King Manasseh and Child Sacrifice: Biblical Distortions of Historical Realities
Thesis year	2002
Academic work
Discipline	Biblical studies
Institutions	University of Exeter
Main interests	History of ancient Israel and Judah

Francesca Stavrakopoulou, born 3 October 1975, is an Oxford University-trained theologian, and current Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion at the University of Exeter and head of its Department of Theology and Religion. The main focus of her research is on the Hebrew bible, and on Israelite and Judahite history and religion. She is also well known as a popularizer of biblical historical subjects through her presentation roles (e.g., in programs for the BBC2 and Channel 4). Her popular contentions reflect her research perspectives, and include that Hebrew bible (Old Testament) authors had understandings of fact and fiction that differed markedly from modern notions, and statements that particular characters in these texts (e.g., Moses and King David) are not factual, historical accounts. As of 2011, Stavrakopoulou was a self-described atheist.

Early life and education

Francesca Stavrakopoulou was born on 3 October 1975 in suburban Bromley, in greater London, to an English mother and a Greek father. Stavrakopoulou is quoted as having said that "she was brought up 'in no particular religion'," and that she remains an atheist.

Career

Stavrakopoulou was awarded a D. Phil. in theology by the University of Oxford. Her dissertation, which examined the creation of an imagined past within the Hebrew Bible, was subsequently published as King Manasseh and Child Sacrifice: Biblical Distortions of Historical Realities.

Stavrakopoulou filled subsequent teaching and research positions at Oxford for three years, at Worcester College, as a Junior Research Fellow, and as a Career Development Fellow in the Faculty of Theology, departing Oxford in 2005.

Stavrakopoulou began a position in Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion in the University of Exeter's Department of Theology and Religion in 2005, rising to the level of senior lecturer by March 2011. She was elevated to a "personal chair" in 2011. She currently serves as Head of Theology and Religion.

Stavrakopoulou began a position as secretary of the British-based Society for Old Testament Study. She has been a member of the European Association of Biblical Studies, and of the US-based Society of Biblical Literature.

Public appearances and presentations

Stavrakopoulou has appeared on several occasions in BBC One's programme featuring "moral, ethical and religious debates," The Big Questions hosted by Nicky Campbell; appearances include on the topics "Is the Bible still relevant?", "Is there a difference between a religion and a cult?", and "Are religions unfair to women?".

Stavrakopoulou has served as writer and presenter for a number of media productions relating to her scholarly interests. She contributed to Channel 4's series The Bible: A History (2010), regarding the historicity of Moses. Her first primetime presentation was a three-part television series for the BBC2 The Bible's Buried Secrets (2011; not to be confused with NOVA's 2008 programme of the same name).

These popular presentations, while being widely presented (e.g., the BBC2 production has been appearing in the U.S. as an offering of PBS stations), have met with mixed and some skeptical reviews, both in the U.K. popular press, and more broadly.

Fr. Alexander Lucie-Smith, likewise a theologian, and consulting editor of The Catholic Herald, notes that the BBC's …Buried Secrets series "is the sort of television programme that theologians ought to cherish…" and notes that "…Stavrakopoulou, the programme’s presenter [is] …an absolute natural in front of the camera [and] …does not shy away from asking some weighty questions." However, he goes on to argue, regarding the second episode of the production, which addresses the origins of monotheism, that "…in [its] closing moments… scholarship seemed to be given up in favour of… mere opinion"; he then proceeds to take strident issue with Stavrakopoulou's suggestion that contemporary Christianity's views of Mary, saints, and angels were a "hangover" [holdover] from the polytheistic religions, and that monotheism's presentation of God as "exclusively male" led therefore "to the marginalisation and repression of women." With regard to the latter point, he argued:

With a charge like this, where can one start? The polytheistic Greeks and Romans denied females all political rights, despite the fact that Athens was under the protection of the goddess Athene, and Rome under the protection of Juno. The Julio-Claudian rulers claimed descent from Venus, but were not noted for their feminism. The idea that polytheism is more friendly to women is simply unsupported by the facts. It is easy to claim and sounds good, but as a serious thesis, it deserves to be dismissed. How on earth did it find itself in what purported to be a serious programme about the Bible?

Lucie-Smith goes on the accentuate the positive of the series, that "Dr Stavrakopoulou wants us to see that the Bible and history are not necessarily the same thing, and that is a worthy task; [and that] she does have some thought-provoking things to say about modern Israeli claims to the land of ancient Israel," but argues that the programme as a whole was "undermined" by closing speculative argument.

Scholarly positions and responses

The main focus of Stavrakopoulou's research is on the on the Hebrew bible, and on Israelite and Judahite history and religion. She describes herself as "an atheist with huge respect for religion" and regards her work as "a branch of history like any other." Stavrakopoulou has argued in popular venues, based on her research, that important figures in the Hebrew bible were not historical figures as represented in that text. She has further stated that she believes "very little, probably" of the Hebrew bible is historical fact, based on the arguments that ancient writers had an understanding of "fact" and "fiction" very different from a modern understanding, and that the Hebrew bible "wasn't written to be a factual account of the past"; she concludes, saying she does not believe accounts of Moses and King David in the Hebrew bible to be factual, and that "as an historian of the bible, I think there is very little that is factual." In response to the pronouncement of "hardly any facts," her fellow panelist, the Right Reverend Michael Nazir Ali, former Bishop of Rochester, replied that her view was one of "radical skepticism," stating that it was unwarranted; continuing, he said:

This is just sensationalism... Most mainstream archaeology would accept that there is an historical basis to what there is of history in the bible,

and further argued that archaeological evidence, as held by a large company of scholars of history and archaeology (noting G.E. Wright, John Bright, and Kathleen Kenyon), supports the historicity of the historical books of the Hebrew bible (of which he noted the books of Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah). Stavrakopoulou dismissed the scholars noted by Ali for their being deceased, and therefore "disengaged" from the modern debate; Ali replied that their being dead did not make their work wrong or irrelevant to the question. John Barton, Oriel & Laing Professor of Interpretation [of biblical texts] at the University of Oxford, in his Ethics in Ancient Israel, comments thus on the conclusions and general disputes in one area that Stavrakopoulou is writing as theologian and historian:

[Stavrakopoulou] argues that the idea of the king and his entourage as worshipping in an official way—that is, in practice, in accordance with the kind of religious customs the prophets approved of—while the populace at large indulged in illicit cults, is wishful thinking. A particularly striking example is child sacrifice, which (she has argued) was regarded as normal by everyone in pre-exilic and exilic times, except prophets such as Jeremiah and Ezekial. And indeed the Old Testament itself, while strongly condemning such a practice, makes it abundantly clear that it was very common. The idea that it was popular rather than official reflects Old Testament condemnation, but probably not the reality on the ground at the time. Similarly, polytheism was fairly obviously common in pre-exilic Israel, but there is no particular reason to think it was more common among 'the people' than in the king's palace and, indeed, in the temple. / These matters are widely disputed, but so-called popular religion may well have been much nearer to official religion… [break in paragraph indicated, emphasis regarded disputed nature of views, added]

On one matter of her dissertation and later writings, regarding the places of the burial of Judean kings and the implications thereof, Christopher B. Hays, D. Wilson Moore Associate Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary describes Stavrakopoulou as calling into question any reform to burial practices under Hezekiah, while Nadav Na'aman, Professor of Jewish History at Tel Aviv University, has argued to the contrary, "that the place of the… kings' burials moved for religious reasons… as a part of Hezekiah's reform program…".

In an interview with Anita Singh of The Telegraph in March 2011, Stavrakopoulou acknowledged that the public presentation of the conclusions based on her scholarship on the Hebrew bible are intended to be "'colourful' and 'uncomfortable'."

Major published works

Books

Stavrakopoulou's dissertation-based monograph, and her subsequent authored book-length publications are:

Journal articles and book chapters

Stavrakopoulou's major journal articles and her authored book chapters include:

External links

• Stavrakopoulou Exeter faculty page.
• Stavrakopoulou Twitter page.
• Francesca Stavrakopoulou at the Internet Movie Database Stavrakopoulou at IMDB.