Hector Avalos’s Followers (36)

Hector Avalos

Born

in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico

October 08, 1958

Died

April 12, 2021

Website

http://www.philrs.iastate.edu/avalos.shtml

Genre

Religion & Spirituality, History, Philosophy

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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. Recognized as one of the foremost scholars of health care in the ancient world, Avalos is also one of the most prominent secular humanist biblical scholars today.

He has a Doctor of Philosophy in Hebrew Bible and Near Eastern 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 Relig ...more

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Hector Avalos’s books

Average rating: 4.18 · 256 ratings · 32 reviews · 15 distinct works • Similar authors

	Fighting Words: The Origins of Religious Violence 4.09 avg rating — 55 ratings — published 2005 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Bad Jesus: The Ethics of New Testament Ethics 4.46 avg rating — 26 ratings — published 2015 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	This Abled Body: Rethinking Disabilities in Biblical Studies by Hector Avalos (Editor), Sarah J. Melcher (Editor), Jeremy Schipper (Editor) 3.96 avg rating — 23 ratings — published 2007 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Slavery, Abolitionism, and the Ethics of Biblical Scholarship 4.29 avg rating — 14 ratings — published 2011 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Health Care and the Rise of Christianity 3.27 avg rating — 15 ratings — published 1999 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Strangers in Our Own Land: Religion In Contemporary U.S. Latina/O Literature 4.50 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 2005 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Reality of Religious Violence: From Biblical to Modern Times liked it 3.00 avg rating — 2 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Introduction to the U.S. Latina and Latino Religious Experience 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2004 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Illness and Health Care in the Ancient Near East: The Role of the Temple in Greece, Mesopotamia, and Israel (Harvard Semitic Monographs, 54) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 1995	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	RELATOS PARA EL CAFE DE AQUI Y ALLA 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by Hector Avalos (?)

“By Hays' reasoning, penetrating a rectum with a penis is a violation of how God meant humans to function. However, penetrating a human body with a sword, a common way to kill people in biblical times, is acceptable. Apparently human bodies were designed to be penetrated by metal implements, but not by flesh.”
― Hector Avalos

tags: atheism, bible, christianity, christianity-and-homosexuality, god, homophobia, homosexuality, humans, murder, nature, reasoning, religion, religion-and-homosexuality, sodomy, swords

69 likes

“I have argued elsewhere (Fighting Words: The Origins of Religious Violence [2005]) that we need to treat ethics in biblical texts just as we treat ethics in any other works of ancient literature. It is a vacuous exercise to pick and choose which atrocities were really ordained by any gods and which were not. We should have a zero-tolerance view of any text or collection of texts that at any time endorses genocide, misogyny, and other atrocities. We always judge ancient texts by modern ethical standards, and the Bible should not be treated differently.”
― Hector Avalos

tags: ancient-literature, atheism, atrocities-in-the-bible, biblical-ethics, biblical-morality, cherry-picking, cherry-picking-scripture, ethics, genocide, genocide-in-the-bible, misogyny, misogyny-in-the-bible, morality, myths, special-pleading, special-treatment

5 likes

“Modern biblical scholarship has demonstrated that the Bible is the product of cultures whose values and beliefs about the origin, nature, and purpose of our world are no longer held to be relevant, even by most Christians and Jews.”
― Hector Avalos, End of Biblical Studies

4 likes

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Topics Mentioning This Author

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The Mystery, Crim...: First Name - Last Name	18021	3494	Jan 05, 2026 01:41PM

Hector Avalos’s Followers (36)

Hector Avalos

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Hector Avalos’s books