spotify pixel

January 1

There are 1 entries for this date: Francesca Stavrakopoulou

    Francesca Stavrakopoulou

    Francesca Stavrakopoulou

    On this date in 1975, biblical scholar and atheist Francesca Stavrakopoulou (Stav-rah-kah-poo-loo) was born in Bromley, Greater London, to an English mother and a Greek father. “I wasn’t brought up religious at all. There were people in my family who were different flavors of Christianity, but not in a going-to-church-all-the-time kinda way. Or the bible being read every day. Just that kind of cultural Christianity that so many of us grow up with in Western society.” (What I Wanna Know online, Aug. 25, 2023)

    Perhaps due to her heritage, she loved stories about Greek gods and goddesses. “And I just remember not being able to quite understand why there’s all this fuss about Jesus, because it seemed to me like this was completely normal in sort of mythological terms. Here’s a guy whose mum was immortal and whose dad was a god. So what? Why is he so special? How come this guy gets all the attention now and some of those great mythological figures from the past had disappeared?” (Ibid.)

    After earning a doctorate in theology from the University of Oxford, she joined the Oxford faculty for several years before assuming a position at the University of Exeter, one she holds as of this writing in January 2025 as a professor in the department of classics, ancient history, religion and theology.

    Her book “God: An Anatomy” (2021) won the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize celebrating the best nonfiction writing on any historical subject. It was named one of The Economist’s Books of the Year. “It’s the book I always wanted to write – to find out why this deity, out of all the ancient gods, is the one who managed to survive into the present day. I wanted to set God in his natural cultural habitat, and what we discover is that he was no different than the other gods in ancient southwest Asia,” she said in a University of Exeter post. (Dec. 21, 2022)

    Penguin Random House called it “a vividly corporeal image of God: a human-shaped deity who walks and talks and weeps and laughs, who eats, sleeps, feels, and breathes, and who is undeniably male.” Stavrakopoulou believes that “very little, probably” of the Hebrew bible is historical fact, based on the contention that ancient writers had an understanding of “fact” and “fiction” very different from a modern understanding.

    On Channel 4 in 2010, she posited that figures like Moses and King David did not actually exist. A former secretary of the British-based Society for Old Testament Study, she has appeared on BBC One to discuss topics such as “Is the bible still relevant?” “Is there a difference between a religion and a cult?” and “Are religions unfair to women?”

    She took issue with this comment in a review by The Independent that included her physical appearance: “Clearly whoever commissioned a three-part series on biblical scholarship for BBC2 was entirely indifferent to the fact that it would be presented by someone who looks as if she’s shimmied out of one of the hotter passages of the Song of Solomon.” (The Guardian, Oct. 26, 2014)

    A foul statement, Stavrakopoulou responded. “Essentially, the message is the same: Unless women dress modestly and conservatively, they look out of place in academia, because fundamentally, they don’t have the right bodies to be academic authorities. This infuriates me, and I refuse to accept it.”

    In a long interview that more than amply displayed the depth of her religious scholarship exploring the mythical deities of classical antiquity as well as Christianity and Judaism, Stavrakopoulou said people were confused by her early on. “Even when I started my academic studies, when I did my first degree and then my master’s and then my doctorate and even doing postdoctoral work, people always said, ‘But you’re an atheist? Why would you be interested in the bible?’ … This collection of texts has shaped so much of our cultural assumptions and preferences and our cultural anxieties. And it just seems to me to be wrongheaded to think that an atheist wouldn’t be interested in the bible.” (Ibid. What I Wanna Know)

    As a patron of both Humanists UK and Defence Humanists, Stavrakopoulou advocates for improved mental health services and nonreligious pastoral support for active and veteran military members and their families. Her husband is a former Royal Marines commando who suffered a life-altering injury while on duty. “When were you the happiest?” she was asked by The New Statesman in 2023. “The day I got married. I’m very soppy,” she answered.

    She thinks the hate mail she gets, including threats of rape and death, stems from fear and deep-seated insecurity that maybe she’s right that their beliefs are mostly based on myth: “Religion is obviously terrible in all sorts of ways for all sorts of different people, but it’s not going anywhere. And so there is no point in trying to dismiss it and ridicule it, not least because not all religious people are bad, unthinking, stupid people. I know a lot of very deeply wonderful, caring, fantastic, clever people who also happen to be religious.” (Ibid.)

    PHOTO: Stavrakopoulou in 2015 on London Thinks: A Scientist, an Atheist Biblical Scholar and a Vicar Walk Into an Ethical Society; Conway Hall photo under CC 3.0.

    “Whether we like it or not, [the bible] matters. It’s like how Shakespeare matters, and the bible matters in that sense. So it’s a cultural icon, whether you believe it or not. But certainly, it’s not the divine word of God.”

    — Interview, What I Wanna Know (Aug. 25, 2023)
    Compiled by Bill Dunn
    © Freedom From Religion Foundation. All rights reserved.

Freedom From Religion Foundation