Dr. Cynthia R. Chapman is Associate Professor of Biblical Studies at Oberlin College, where she teaches courses on the Old and New Testaments, suffering and the book of Job, and biblical women, among other topics. She holds a B.A. from Kalamazoo College, an M.Div. from Vanderbilt Divinity School, and a Th.D. from Harvard Divinity School, Harvard University. Professor Chapman's research has focused on the historiography of the Bible considered within the larger ancient Near Eastern environment, and on gender in ancient Israel. Her first book, The Gendered Language of Warfare in the Israelite-Assyrian Encounter, explores the shared use of gendered literary tropes in the Bible and Assyrian royal texts. She is currently completing her second book, The House of the Mother: The Social Function of Maternal Kin in Biblical Hebrew Narrative, which demonstrates that kinship bonds established through the mother served vital social and political functions for a son who aspired to inherit in his father's household. A chapter has been published in the online Journal of Hebrew Scriptures.