Academic co-operation in "Ancient Near East Today" article

Kristine Henriksen Garroway and Shawn Flynn co-author article on reconstructing the lives of ancient children in "Ancient Near East Today."

4 June 2019

Kristine Henriksen Garroway, Visiting Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible at the Hebrew Union College, and Shawn Flynn, SJC's academic dean, have co-authored an article in "Ancient Near East Today," an on-line publication of The American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR), a major scholarly association concerned with the history and cultures of the Near East and the Mediterranean world. The article, "How Two Historians Reconstruct the Lives of Ancient Children," is based on the work of the two co-authors, specifically Garroway's "Growing Up in Ancient Israel: Children in Material Culture and Biblical Texts" and Flynn's "Children in Ancient Israel: The Hebrew Bible and Mesopotamia in Comparative Perspective."

Garroway and Flynn look at various aspects of the often forgotten history of children in the ancient biblical world, including issues such as pregnancy, death and burial, socialization, breastfeeding, adoption and violence. Given the limited information in the biblical text, both scholars make use of the archaeological record and texts from similar societies, particularly Mesopotamia, to inform their understanding of the experience of children in ancient Israel.