Below are selections from a living bibliography of our research. Please keep checking back for changes and additions, as well as updates about our progress and potential future events and publications.

Our research thus far has travelled through three intersecting topics: ancient definitions of family, how expansion of the family intersected with slavery, and ancient family dynamics as they relate to surrogacy.

Definitions of family

Christianity

Osiek, Carolyn, and David L. Balch.  Families in the New Testament World: Households and House Churches. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997. 

Peskowitz, Miriam. “‘Family/Iies’ in Antiquity: Evidence from Tannaitic Literature and Roman Galilean Architecture.” In The Jewish Family in Antiquity, edited by Shaye J.D. Cohen, 9–36. Atlanta: Brown Judaic Studies, 2020. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvzgb9cp.5. 

Petersen, David L. “Genesis and Family Values.” Journal of Biblical Literature 124, no. 1 (April 1, 2005): 5. https://doi.org/10.2307/30040988. 

Vinzent, Markus. “Race, Ethnicity and Family in Late Antique Judaism and Early Christianity.” Religions 14, no. 5 (May 4, 2023): 603. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14050603. 

Yasin, Ann Marie. “Funerary Monuments and Collective Identity: From Roman Family to Christian Community.” The Art Bulletin 87, no. 3 (September 2005): 433–57. https://doi.org/10.1080/00043079.2005.10786254. 

Islam

Ali, Kecia. Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam. Harvard University Press, 2010. 

Ali, Kecia. Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qurʾan, Hadith, and Jurisprudence. Reprint. Oxford: Oneworld, 2012. 

Guindi, Fadwa El. “Properties of Kinship Structure: Transformational Dynamics of Suckling, Adoption and Incest.” In Focality and Extension in Kinship: Essays in Memory of Harold W. Scheffler, edited by Warrren Shapiro, 1st ed., 177–201. ANU Press, 2018. 

Powers, David Stephan. Muḥammad Is Not the Father of Any of Your Men: The Making of the Last Prophet. Divinations. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009. 

Yassari, Nadjma. “Adding by Choice: Adoption and Functional Equivalents in Islamic and Middle Eastern Law.” American Journal of Comparative Law 63, no. 4 (December 14, 2015): 927– 62. 

Christianity

Henriksen Garroway, Kristine. Children in the Ancient Near Eastern Household. Winona Lake: Penn State University Press, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781575068954. 

Kartzow, Marianne Bjelland. “Navigating the Womb: Surrogacy, Slavery, Fertility—and Biblical Discourses.” Journal of Early Christian History 2, no. 1 (January 2012): 38–54. https://doi.org/10.1080/2222582X.2012.11877257. 

Kriger, Diane. Sex Rewarded, Sex Punished: A Study of the Status “Female Slave” in Early Jewish Law. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2011. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv2175r02. 

MacDonald, Margaret Y. “Slavery, Sexuality and House Churches: A Reassessment of Colossians 3.18–4.1 in Light of New Research on the Roman Family.” New Testament Studies 53, no. 1 (January 2007): 94–113. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0028688507000069. 

Tiroyabone, Obusitswe.“Reading Philemon with Onesimus in the Postcolony: Exploring a Postcolonial Runaway Slave Hypothesis.” Acta Theologica, no. 24 (December 2016): 225-36. https://doi.org/10.38140/at.v0i24.2794.  

Islam

Ali, Kecia. Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam. Harvard University Press, 2010. 

Freamon, Bernard K. Possessed by the Right Hand: The Problem of Slavery in Islamic Law and Muslim Cultures. Studies in Global Slavery, vol. 8. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2019. 

Gordon, Matthew S., and Kathryn A. Hain. Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2017. 

de la Puente, Cristina. “Free Fathers, Slave Mothers and Their Children: A Contribution to the Study of Family Structures in Al-Andalus,” Imago Temporis – Medium Aevum. 7. 27-44. 2013. 

Urban, Elizabeth. Conquered Populations in Early Islam: Non-Arabs, Slaves and the Sons of Slave Mothers. Edinburgh Studies in Classical Islamic History and Culture. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020. 

Christianity

Bormann, Lukas, ed. Abraham’s Family. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1628/978-3-16-156686-8. 

Glancy, Jennifer A. “Hagar as/against Bare Life.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 37, no. 1 (2021): 103-121. https://doi.org/10.2979/jfemistudreli.37.1.07. 

Kartzow, Marianne Bjelland. “Reproductive Salvation and Slavery: Reading 1 Timothy 2:15 with Hagar and Mary.” Neotestamentica 50, no. 1 (2016): 89–103. https://doi.org/10.1353/neo.2016.0037. 

Krayer, Patrick. “God’s Promise to Hagar in Genesis 16: Rethinking a Problematic Text.” The Bible Translator 73, no. 1 (April 2022): 73–88. https://doi.org/10.1177/20516770211066937. 

Trible, Phyllis, ed. Hagar, Sarah, and Their Children: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Perspectives. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006. 

Islam

Haddad, Yvonne Yazbeck. Daughters of Abraham: Feminist Thought in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002. 

Lovat, Terence, ed. Women in Islam: Reflections on Historical and Contemporary Research. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 2012. 

Thabede, S’lindile. “Navigating the Threshold: An African-Feminist Reading of the Hagar Narrative in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam,” PhD diss., Stellenbosch University. 2022. 

Urban, Elizabeth. “Hagar and Mariya Early Islamic Models of Slave Motherhood.” in Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History. ed. Gordon, Matthew S., and Kathryn A. Hain. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2017. 

Wadud, Amina. “A New Hajar Paradigm: Motherhood and Family,” in, Inside the Gender Jihad: Women’s Reform in Islam. Oxford: Oneworld, 2006.