Deena Grant, Associate Professor of Jewish Studies, will speak on March 1, 2021, at the Rabbinical Assembly Convention, an annual meeting of the International Association of Conservative Rabbis.

Dr. Grant’s talk is titled: Where Did all the Goddesses Go? Assimilating the Feminine in Biblical Monotheism.

The God of Israel depicted in the Hebrew Bible did not emerge in a vacuum. On the contrary, numerous gods and goddesses abounded in the Ancient Near East, with each god controlling their own domain. For instance, goddesses were typically charged with tending to fertility and childbirth. In this lecture we will analyze texts and iconography in order to understand how the portrait of a single, anthropomorphically male God attains prominence in the Hebrew Bible. With this knowledge, we are afforded the opportunity to revisit our own concepts of divinity.

The 2021 convention, called Sacred Connections, runs from Feb. 28 to March 3, 2021.