Hector Avalos

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Hector Avalos (b. Nogales, Sonora, México, October 8, 1958) is a professor of Religious Studies at Iowa State University and the author of several books about religion.^[1] Avalos is a former editor of the Journal for the Critical Study of 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 has become an important critic of Intellligent Design creationism, and he is often linked with Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez, the advocate of Intelligent Design who lost his bid for tenure at Iowa State University. Avalos co-authored a statement against Intelligent Design in 2005, which was eventually signed by over 130 faculty members at Iowa State University, and 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).

[edit] Books

This Abled Body: Rethinking Disabilities in Biblical Studies (co-edited with Sarah Melcher and Jeremy Schipper) (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007) ISBN 1589831861.
The End of Biblical Studies (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2007) ISBN 1591025362.
Strangers in Our Own Land: Religion in U.S. Latina/o Literature, (Nashville: Abingdon, 2005) ISBN 0687330459.
Fighting Words: The Origins of Religious Violence, (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2005) ISBN 1591022843
Introduction to the U.S. Latina and Latino Religious Experience, (Editor; Boston: Brill, 2004) ISBN 0391042408.
Se puede saber si Dios existe? [Can One Know if God Exists?]. (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Press, 2003) ISBN 1591020433.
Health Care and the Rise of Christianity, (Peabody: Mass: Hendrickson Press, 1999) ISBN 1565633377.
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 0788500988.