Recovering Stories of the Maccabean Matriarchs

Lecture Description 

While Mattathias and sons Judas, Jonathan and Simon are prominent in 1 Maccabees, the women in their lives are barely visible in this ancient Jewish text. Nonetheless, there are other surprising and interesting accounts of the women in this family known as the Maccabees or later Hasmoneans that merit discussion, alongside 1 Maccabees. Though invisible in 1 Maccabees, the women of the Maccabee family were political actors, active in the national and international affairs of this period. 

Speaker Bio 

Dr. Kelley Coblentz Bautch is Professor of Religious and Theological Studies at St. Edward’s University. The publications of Dr. Coblentz Bautch take up Enochic literature, representations of gender in antiquity, otherworldly beings in Jewish imagination, and 1 Maccabees. She is an active member of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) and the Enoch Seminar. Her current leadership roles include serving on the Program Committee of the International SBL Meeting, on the editorial boards of the Journal of Biblical Literature and Early Judaism and Its Literature Series, and as Vice-Director of the Enoch Seminar. Peers have recognized her scholarship, teaching and advising by means of juried awards.

SAJE is endowed by a generous gift from Cis Maisel and supported by Carol & Ronald P. Fogel, Sheri & David Jaffa, and Elaine & Michael Serling through The J’s Pillar of Light Program.