Landscaping Language: Biblical Constructions of Borders and Identities in the Iron Age Shephelah

The Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations warmly invites you to attend an upcoming public lecture with Dr. Mahri Leonard-Fleckman of the College of the Holy Cross, entitled Landscaping Language: Biblical Constructions of Borders and Identities in the Iron Age Shephelah. Please see the attached flyer.

The Bible’s depictions of the social landscape (such as borders and identities) are remarkably varied. This talk explores the malleability of such perceptions of Israel in relation to “the other,” using Timnah (Tel Batash) as a case study and focusing especially on the stories of Samson in Judges 14-15. Using these and other texts to explore shifting inner-biblical interpretations of the Shephelah through a literary-historical lens, and comparing the Bible’s depictions to archaeological and extra-biblical evidence, how do such varied interpretations affect how we understand the social landscape of Iron Age Israel?

Mahri Leonard-Fleckman is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the College of the Holy Cross. She is the author of The House of David: Between Political Formation and Literary Revision (Fortress, 2016), and co-author of The Book of Ruth (Wisdom Commentary Series, Liturgical, 2017). Her current book project explores biblical constructions of the social landscape in the Shephelah and the ramifications of such constructions for assumed notions of identity in the Iron I-II Levant.