Hector Avalos
Encyclopedia
Hector Avalos is a professor of Religious Studies
at Iowa State University
and the author of several books about religion. He is a former Pentecostal preacher and child evangelist.
He has a Doctor of Philosophy
in Hebrew Bible
and Near East
ern Studies from Harvard University
(1991), a Master of Theological Studies
from Harvard Divinity School
(1985), and a Bachelor of Arts
in Anthropology from the University of Arizona
in 1982.
Avalos arrived at Iowa State University in the Fall of 1993 after completing a postdoctoral fellowship (1991–93) in the departments of Anthropology and Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
. In 1996 Avalos was named Professor of the Year at Iowa State University, where he was also named a Master Teacher for 2003–04. Other awards include The Early Achievement in Research and Creative Activity Award (College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, 1996), and the Outstanding Professor Award (College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, 1996)http://www.philrs.iastate.edu/philosophyawards.shtml.
Avalos is an internationally recognized opponent of neo-creationism
and the intelligent design
movement, and is frequently linked to Guillermo Gonzalez
, an astrophysicist and proponent of intelligent design who was denied tenure at Iowa State University in 2007. Avalos co-authored a statement against intelligent design in 2005, which was eventually signed by over 130 faculty members at Iowa State University. That faculty statement became a model for other statements at the University of Northern Iowa and at the University of Iowa. Gonzalez and Avalos are both featured in the movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
(2008).
Avalos is an atheist activist and advocate of secular humanist ethics.
In Health Care and the Rise of Christianity (1999) Avalos outlined the thesis that Christianity began, in part, as a health care reform movement that sought to address the problems voiced by patients in the Greco-Roman world.
Since 2004, Avalos had turned his attention to the study of U.S. Latinos, the name given to people who live in the United States and trace their ancestry to the Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America. Latinos are now the largest "minority" in the United States, numbering over 40 million persons. By then, Avalos also served as General Editor of Religion in the Americas book series for Brill Publishers. He was the editor of, and a contributor to, Introduction to the U.S. Latina and Latino Religious Experience (2004), which aimed to be the first general textbook on U.S. Latino/a religions. It was unusual because it covered groups such as Dominicans and Central Americans, which most other books on Latino religion usually overlook.
His book Fighting Words: The Origins of Religious Violence (2005) used scarce resource theory to explain the role of religion in violence. Avalos argues that all conflict is usually the result of some resource that is either scarce or perceived to be scarce. This could range from love in a family to energy on a global scale. When religion causes violence, it does so because it has created a new scarce resource somewhere. Such scarce resources could include sacred space ("The Holy Land"), group privileging, and eternal life. Violence may result from the effort to maintain or acquire these religiously-created resources, and people may be willing to give or take life in pursuit of these resources. However, unlike scarcities that are verifiable (e.g., water, oil), resources such as eternal life are unverifiable and created entirely by religious bellief. Therefore, when one kills for religious reasons, one is usually trading actual lives for resources that are either not scarce or cannot even be verified to exist. He made the further argument that religious violence is always immoral, whereas secular violence is only sometimes immoral. The book also offered a scathing critique of religionist scholars who defended biblical violence and genocide, as well as a critique of the thesis that the Nazi Holocaust was an example of atheistic violence. Avalos and his book were featured on National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation on August 22, 2005. It established his position as a critic of religion alongside Richard Dawkins
, Sam Harris
, Christopher Hitchens
and Daniel Dennett
.
The same year, Avalos published Strangers in Our Own Land: Religion in U.S. Latina/o Literature (2005), which was the first systematic study of how Latino authors address issues of religion and specific religions (e.g., Judaism, Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, African Religions, and Indigenous religions).
In 2007 Avalos published The End of Biblical Studies (2007) where he argued that academic biblical scholarship was primarily an apologetic religionist enterprise meant to provide the illusion that the Bible was still a culturally and morally superior authority. He critiqued numerous fields (translation, archaeology, history, textual criticism, literary aesthetics) arguing the discipline was permeated with pro-religionist biases. John Merrill of the Biblical Archaeology Review writes that "instead of being constructive, Avalos’s arguments come off in the end as an exercise in emotional nihilism whose conclusions seem ultimately self-defeating."
This Abled Body: Rethinking Disabilities in Biblical Studies, published also in 2007, saw Avalos returning to health care studies. He contributed to, and co-edited (with Sarah Melcher and Jeremy Schipper), an anthology that explores how biblical authors conceptualize the human body and deviations from "normative" views of the human body.
In 2011, Avalos published Slavery, Abolitionism, and the Ethics of Biblical Scholarship (Sheffield Phoenix Press), which seeks to deconstruct the claim that reliance on biblical and Christian ethics was a main factor in the abolition of slavery in western civilizations.
In addition to books, Avalos has published dozens of articles in peer reviewed and semi-scholarly periodicals (e.g., Journal of Biblical Literature
, Journal of Hispanic/Latino Theology, Catholic Biblical Quarterly
, and Traditio), as well as in standard reference books such as The Anchor Bible Dictionary (1992), The Oxford Companion to the Bible (1993), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East (1996), Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000), and The New Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible (2006–).The subjects have ranged from Astronomy and the Bible to targumic textual criticism.
Religious studies
Religious studies is the academic field of multi-disciplinary, secular study of religious beliefs, behaviors, and institutions. It describes, compares, interprets, and explains religion, emphasizing systematic, historically based, and cross-cultural perspectives.While theology attempts to...
at Iowa State University
Iowa State University
Iowa State University of Science and Technology, more commonly known as Iowa State University , is a public land-grant and space-grant research university located in Ames, Iowa, United States. Iowa State has produced astronauts, scientists, and Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners, along with a host of...
and the author of several books about religion. He is a former Pentecostal preacher and child evangelist.
He has a Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
in Hebrew Bible
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...
and Near East
Near East
The Near East is a geographical term that covers different countries for geographers, archeologists, and historians, on the one hand, and for political scientists, economists, and journalists, on the other...
ern Studies from Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
(1991), a Master of Theological Studies
Master of Theological Studies
A Master of Theological Studies is a general academic degree that gives students an introduction to advanced theological studies. The M.T.S usually requires two years of program study to complete. The Latin equivalent for M.T.S...
from Harvard Divinity School
Harvard Divinity School
Harvard Divinity School is one of the constituent schools of Harvard University, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the United States. The School's mission is to train and educate its students either in the academic study of religion, or for the practice of a religious ministry or other public...
(1985), and a Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
in Anthropology from the University of Arizona
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
in 1982.
Avalos arrived at Iowa State University in the Fall of 1993 after completing a postdoctoral fellowship (1991–93) in the departments of Anthropology and Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a public research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States...
. In 1996 Avalos was named Professor of the Year at Iowa State University, where he was also named a Master Teacher for 2003–04. Other awards include The Early Achievement in Research and Creative Activity Award (College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, 1996), and the Outstanding Professor Award (College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, 1996)http://www.philrs.iastate.edu/philosophyawards.shtml.
Avalos is an internationally recognized opponent of neo-creationism
Neo-creationism
Neo-creationism is a movement whose goal is to restate creationism in terms more likely to be well received by the public, policy makers, educators, and the scientific community. It aims to re-frame the debate over the origins of life in non-religious terms and without appeals to scripture. This...
and the intelligent design
Intelligent design
Intelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a form of creationism and a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for...
movement, and is frequently linked to Guillermo Gonzalez
Guillermo Gonzalez
Guillermo Gonzalez may refer to:*Guillermo Gonzalez , American soccer player*Guillermo Gonzalez , astrophysicist and promoter of intelligent design...
, an astrophysicist and proponent of intelligent design who was denied tenure at Iowa State University in 2007. Avalos co-authored a statement against intelligent design in 2005, which was eventually signed by over 130 faculty members at Iowa State University. That faculty statement became a model for other statements at the University of Northern Iowa and at the University of Iowa. Gonzalez and Avalos are both featured in the movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is a 2008 documentary film, directed by Nathan Frankowski and hosted by Ben Stein. The film contends that the mainstream science establishment suppresses academics who believe they see evidence of intelligent design in nature and who criticize evidence supporting...
(2008).
Avalos is an atheist activist and advocate of secular humanist ethics.
Research and publication
Avalos' first major work was Illness and Health Care in the Ancient Near East: The Role of the Temple in Greece, Mesopotamia, and Israel (1995), published in the Harvard Semitic Monograph series. The book was the first to combine systematically critical biblical studies with medical anthropology to reconstruct the health care systems of Greece, Mesopotamia, and Israel.In Health Care and the Rise of Christianity (1999) Avalos outlined the thesis that Christianity began, in part, as a health care reform movement that sought to address the problems voiced by patients in the Greco-Roman world.
Since 2004, Avalos had turned his attention to the study of U.S. Latinos, the name given to people who live in the United States and trace their ancestry to the Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America. Latinos are now the largest "minority" in the United States, numbering over 40 million persons. By then, Avalos also served as General Editor of Religion in the Americas book series for Brill Publishers. He was the editor of, and a contributor to, Introduction to the U.S. Latina and Latino Religious Experience (2004), which aimed to be the first general textbook on U.S. Latino/a religions. It was unusual because it covered groups such as Dominicans and Central Americans, which most other books on Latino religion usually overlook.
His book Fighting Words: The Origins of Religious Violence (2005) used scarce resource theory to explain the role of religion in violence. Avalos argues that all conflict is usually the result of some resource that is either scarce or perceived to be scarce. This could range from love in a family to energy on a global scale. When religion causes violence, it does so because it has created a new scarce resource somewhere. Such scarce resources could include sacred space ("The Holy Land"), group privileging, and eternal life. Violence may result from the effort to maintain or acquire these religiously-created resources, and people may be willing to give or take life in pursuit of these resources. However, unlike scarcities that are verifiable (e.g., water, oil), resources such as eternal life are unverifiable and created entirely by religious bellief. Therefore, when one kills for religious reasons, one is usually trading actual lives for resources that are either not scarce or cannot even be verified to exist. He made the further argument that religious violence is always immoral, whereas secular violence is only sometimes immoral. The book also offered a scathing critique of religionist scholars who defended biblical violence and genocide, as well as a critique of the thesis that the Nazi Holocaust was an example of atheistic violence. Avalos and his book were featured on National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation on August 22, 2005. It established his position as a critic of religion alongside Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL , known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author...
, Sam Harris
Sam Harris
Sam Harris may refer to:* Sam Harris , American playwright and theater producer* Sam Harris , American actor and recording artist* Sam Harris , American author and neuroscientist...
, Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Eric Hitchens is an Anglo-American author and journalist whose books, essays, and journalistic career span more than four decades. He has been a columnist and literary critic at The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry, and became a media fellow at the...
and Daniel Dennett
Daniel Dennett
Daniel Clement Dennett is an American philosopher, writer and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science. He is currently the Co-director of...
.
The same year, Avalos published Strangers in Our Own Land: Religion in U.S. Latina/o Literature (2005), which was the first systematic study of how Latino authors address issues of religion and specific religions (e.g., Judaism, Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, African Religions, and Indigenous religions).
In 2007 Avalos published The End of Biblical Studies (2007) where he argued that academic biblical scholarship was primarily an apologetic religionist enterprise meant to provide the illusion that the Bible was still a culturally and morally superior authority. He critiqued numerous fields (translation, archaeology, history, textual criticism, literary aesthetics) arguing the discipline was permeated with pro-religionist biases. John Merrill of the Biblical Archaeology Review writes that "instead of being constructive, Avalos’s arguments come off in the end as an exercise in emotional nihilism whose conclusions seem ultimately self-defeating."
This Abled Body: Rethinking Disabilities in Biblical Studies, published also in 2007, saw Avalos returning to health care studies. He contributed to, and co-edited (with Sarah Melcher and Jeremy Schipper), an anthology that explores how biblical authors conceptualize the human body and deviations from "normative" views of the human body.
In 2011, Avalos published Slavery, Abolitionism, and the Ethics of Biblical Scholarship (Sheffield Phoenix Press), which seeks to deconstruct the claim that reliance on biblical and Christian ethics was a main factor in the abolition of slavery in western civilizations.
In addition to books, Avalos has published dozens of articles in peer reviewed and semi-scholarly periodicals (e.g., Journal of Biblical Literature
Journal of Biblical Literature
The Journal of Biblical Literature is one of three theological journals published by the Society of Biblical Literature .First published in 1881, JBL is the flagship journal of the field...
, Journal of Hispanic/Latino Theology, Catholic Biblical Quarterly
Catholic Biblical Quarterly
The Catholic Biblical Quarterly is a refereed theological journal published by the Catholic Biblical Association of America....
, and Traditio), as well as in standard reference books such as The Anchor Bible Dictionary (1992), The Oxford Companion to the Bible (1993), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East (1996), Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000), and The New Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible (2006–).The subjects have ranged from Astronomy and the Bible to targumic textual criticism.
Books
- Slavery, Abolitionism, and the Ethics of Biblical Scholarship (Sheffield,UK: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2011) ISBN 978-1-907534-28-7
- This Abled Body: Rethinking Disabilities in Biblical Studies (co-edited with Sarah Melcher and Jeremy Schipper) (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007) ISBN 1-58983-186-1.
- The End of Biblical Studies (Amherst, NY: Prometheus BooksPrometheus BooksPrometheus Books is a publishing company founded in August 1969 by Paul Kurtz, who also founded the Council for Secular Humanism and co-founded the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. He is currently the chairman of all three organizations. Prometheus Books publishes a range of books, including many...
, 2007) ISBN 1-59102-536-2. - Strangers in Our Own Land: Religion in U.S. Latina/o Literature, (Nashville: Abingdon, 2005) ISBN 0-687-33045-9.
- Fighting Words: The Origins of Religious Violence, (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2005) ISBN 1-59102-284-3
- Introduction to the U.S. Latina and Latino Religious Experience, (Editor; Boston: Brill, 2004) ISBN 0-391-04240-8.
- Se puede saber si Dios existe? [Can One Know if God Exists?]. (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Press, 2003) ISBN 1-59102-043-3.
- Health Care and the Rise of Christianity, (Peabody: Mass: Hendrickson Press, 1999) ISBN 1-56563-337-7.
- Illness and Health Care in the Ancient Near East: The Role of the Temple in Greece, Mesopotamia, and Israel (Harvard Semitic Monographs 54: Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995) ISBN 0-7885-0098-8.
- A chapter called, "Why Biblical studies must end" p107 in The End of Christianity edited by John W. Loftus, (Amherst, NY: Prometheus BooksPrometheus BooksPrometheus Books is a publishing company founded in August 1969 by Paul Kurtz, who also founded the Council for Secular Humanism and co-founded the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. He is currently the chairman of all three organizations. Prometheus Books publishes a range of books, including many...
, 2011) ISBN 1-61614-413-5.