Francesca Stavrakopoulou | The Weekly (Interview)

Francesca Stavrakopoulou (1975) is a British biblical scholar and broadcaster. She is currently Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion at the University of Exeter. The main focus of her research is on the Hebrew Bible, and on Israelite and Judahite history and religion [ΠΗΓΗ].


  • We cannot possibly understand Western culture and the history of Western culture without the Bible.
  • [I] love the Bible because it's like the most amazing collection of ancient literature; reading it is like going into a time capsul, it's like time traveling and you get to to read all about these different sorts of myths and legends.
  • Whether you're an atheist, like me, or you're religious, like other people, the Bible has played such a massive role in our lives right from when we're kids, that somehow to be in these places [the Holy Land], I think you can't but help just feel engaged and excited and curious. And to go somewhere like Jerusalem, where obviously the Bible still matters, because as we we know Jerusalem is is still the kind of the heart, the kind of the central place for Judaism, Christianity and obviously Islam as well, and we know the political tensions, we see it on the news all the time, you can't but help feel impacted by that.
  • [As an atheist] I haven't got the same emotional investment in these texts as you do, but, nonetheless, I still think these texts are really important, they are the absolute Bedrock of Western cultural preference and values. And it's so important, it's responsible, I think, to critique those ideas and say where do they come from and how kind of representative should this be, how important should these texts be. The Bible is a cultural icon, whether we like it or not, whether we believe in it or not, so that's why it's important to study it.
  • I don't think I'm not like some kind of Richard Dawkins figure, who's obviously the most famous atheist in the world probably [...] but he's rude to people, he's unkind to people, I think, and he tells people that they're stupid. I don't think that  people that have faith or belief are stupid at all, that's their choice. And I recognize that there are a lots of different ways of being in the world. So at the same time I try and be polite to people. I'll say what I think [...] other Scholars would disagree with me, a lot of Scholars would agree with me, but I don't want to be rude about it so I respect other people because I'm a human being and I like people. You believe what you want to believe, that's completely fine, but your Bible belongs to me as well, it belongs to all of us, it's like had this huge impact globally, so it's not just your text, it's mine as well, so I've got every right to study it. These books shape the world more than any other books have ever done.