The Chaim Rosenberg School of Jewish Studies and Archaeology, Department of Jewish Philosophy and Talmud, Faculty of Humanities, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv 69978, POB 39040, Israel
Fields of Research
Rabbinic Literature; Second Temple literature; early halakhah
Education
1985 Hebrew University Talmud; Archeology B.A.
1989 Hebrew University Talmud M.A., summa cum laude
1997 Hebrew University Talmud Ph.D, summa cum laude
Academic Posts
2017 - Chair of the Chaim Rosenberg School of Jewish Studies and Archaeology, Tel Aviv University
2016 - Member of the Board of Directors, Tel Aviv University
2015-16 Chair of the Department of Hebrew Culture Studies, Tel Aviv University
2014-15 Organizer (with Prof. Rami Reiner) of the international research group "Interpretation as a Generator of Religious Law: A Comparative Perspective", at the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies in Jerusalem. http://www.as.huji.ac.il/research_groups
2014 Full professor
2012 – 2014 Chair of the Program of Jewish Philosophy, Ancient Jewish Literature and Kabbalah, Tel Aviv University
2010-11 Horace Goldsmith Visiting Professor in Judaic Studies, Yale University
2008 Associate professor
2005-10 Chair of the Talmud and Ancient Jewish Literature program of the Department of Hebrew Culture Studies, Tel-Aviv University
2004 Senior lecturer, the Department of Hebrew Culture Studies, Tel-Aviv University
2003-2008 Research fellow at the Hartman Institute, Jerusalem
Academic and Public Committees
2018 – Member of the Executive Committee of the World Union of Jewish Studies
2017 - Member of the editorial board of Jewish Studies Quarterly
2015 - Member of the Board of Directors of the National Library, Israel
2015 - Member of the International Advisory Board of Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, Penn University
2015 - Member of the academic advisory board of Shalem College
2014 Member of the Israel Prize Committee for Talmud
2013 - Coeditor of Zion, a quarterly for research in Jewish History
2013 - Member of the editorial board, Bialik Institute
2011 - Member of the advisory board of Journal of Ancient Judaism (JAJ)
2010 - Coeditor (with Armin Lange and Bernard M. Levinson) of JAJ Supplement Series
2010 - Member of the editorial board of Dead Sea Discoveries (DSD)
2008 – 2016 Member of the Academic Advisory Committee, Yad Ben-Zvi Institute
2008-2014 Member of the editorial board, Yad Ben-Zvi Institute
Prizes and Fellowships
2019 The book Shifting Images of the Hasmoneans: Second Temple Legends and their Reception in Josephus and Rabbinic Literature has been selected as a finalist of the 2018 NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD.
2017 Israel Science Foundation : A three year grant for the project: 4QMMT: A New Translation and Commentary For the Oxford Commentary on the Dead Sea Scrolls
2015 Israel Science Foundation - Publication support, Humanities, for the publication of the book Josephus and the Rabbis
2014 The Rector's award for outstanding teaching
2014/15 A yearlong fellowship at the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies in Jerusalem
2010-11 Horace Goldsmith Visiting Professor in Judaic Studies, Yale University
2010 The Michael Bruno Memorial Award, the Rothschild Foundation http://www.yadhanadiv.org.il/fellowshipprize/michael-bruno-memorial-award
2008 Israel Science Foundation - Publication support, Humanities, for the publication of the book From Qumran to the Rabbinic Revolution
2008 Israel Science Foundation - A three year grant for the project: A Literary-Historical Investigation into the Parallel Traditions in the Writings of Josephus Flavius and in Rabbinic Literature
2002 Prize for outstanding lecturer for 2001–2, Tel Aviv University
2000 A.S. Rosenthal Prize, Talmud Department, Hebrew University
1998 Ephraim Urbach Post-doctoral Scholarship, Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture
1998 Kennedy-Lee Prize for a doctoral dissertation
1994 Council for Higher Education Scholarship for outstanding doctoral candidates in the humanities and the social sciences
Professional Affiliations
World Union of Jewish Studies
The Society of Biblical Literature
Association for Jewish Studies
European Association of Biblical Studies
International Organization for Qumran Studies
Books:
Megillat Ta’anit: Versions, Interpretation, History. Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi Press, 2003. 451 pp. (in Hebrew).
From Qumran to the Rabbinic Revolution: Conceptions of Impurity, Yad Ben Zvi Press, 2010. 408 pp. (in Hebrew).
Josephus and the Rabbis (with Tal Ilan), Yad Ben-Zvi Press, 2017. 952 pp. (in Hebrew).
Shifting Images of the Hasmoneans: Second Temple Legends and Their Reception in Josephus and Rabbinic Literature, Oxford University Press, 2018
In Preparation:
‘Some Precepts of the Torah’ – An English translation and commentary of 4QMMT, for The Oxford Commentary on the Dead Sea Scrolls
http://www.ocdss.div.ed.ac.uk/#volumes
Edited Books:
(With Arye Edrei and Suzanne Last Stone) Dine' Israel: Studies in Halakhah and Jewish Law, 26-27 (2009-2010)
Introduction to Rabbinic Literature (M. Kahana, M. Kister, V. Noam, D. Rosenthal, eds., 2 vols.), Yad-Ben-Zvi press, 2018 (in Hebrew).
(With D. Boyarin and I. Rosen-Zvi), Te'uda 31, The Disciples of Aharon – Studies in Tannaitic Literature and its sources, in Memory of Aharon Shemesh (forthcoming 2020, in Hebrew).
Articles:
Accepted:
"Two Novel Readings in Miqṣat Maʻaśe Ha-Torah", D. Boyarin, V. Noam and I. Rosen-Zvi, eds., Te'uda 31, The Disciples of Aharon – Studies in Tannaitic Literature and its sources, in Memory of Aharon Shemesh (forthcoming 2020).
"From 4QMMT to the Rabbinic Halakhah," R. G. Kratz, ed., Qumran 4 QMMT (Miqṣat Maʻaśe Ha-Torah): Some Percepts of the Law, SAPERE vol. XXXIII (forthcoming).
“Will this one never be brought down?”: Reflections of Jewish hopes for the downfall of the Roman Empire in biblical exegesis," Jonathan Price and Katell Berthelot, editors, The Future of Rome: Roman, Greek, Jewish and Christian Visions, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (forthcoming 2020).
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Published articles:
"Ben Sira: A Rabbinic Perspective," J.K. Aitken, R. Egger-Wenzel and S.C. Reif (eds.), Discovering, Deciphering, and Dissenting: Ben Sira Manuscripts after 120 Years (DCLY 2018-2019; Berlin: de Gruyter).
"Halakhah", T & T Clark Companion to the Dead Sea Scrolls (George J. Brooke and Charlotte Hempel, eds., Great Britain, 2019), 395-404
“The Halakhah: From Poetry to Sorcery – A Century of Bialik’s 'Halakhah and Aggadah'”, Dine Israel 32 (2018), 4-20 (Hebrew)
“"The Scroll of Fasting," in Menahem Kahana, Vered Noam, Menahem Kister • David Rosenthal, eds., The Literature of the Sages in the Land of Israel, vol. 1 (Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi, 2018), 179-209 (Hebrew)
“Why did the Heavenly Voice Speak Aramaic? Ancient Layers in Rabbinic literature,” The Faces of Torah. Studies in the Texts and Contexts of Ancient Judaism in Honor of Steven Fraade (Christine Hayes/ Tzvi Novick/ Michal Bar-Asher Siegal eds.), Journal of Ancient Judaism Supplements, vol. 22, 2017, 157-68
“Lost Historical Traditions: between Josephus and the Rabbis,” Sybils, Scriptures, and Scrolls: John Collins at Seventy (Joel Baden, Hindy Najman, and Eibert Tigchelaar, eds.), JSJ Supplements, Leiden: Brill 2017, II, 991-1017.
"Did the Rabbis Cause the Hasmoneans to Be Forgotten? A Reconsideration," Zion 81 (2016), 295-333.
(with Ian Stern), “Holey Vessels," Aram periodical 27 (2015), 355-374.
“The Emergence of Rabbinic Culture from the Perspective of Qumran," Journal of Ancient Judaism 6 (2016), 253-274.
(With Tal Ilan), "Remnants of a Pharisaic Apologetic Source in Josephus and in the Babylonian Talmud," in Tradition, Transmission and Transformation from Second Temple Literature through Judaism and Christianity in Late Antiquity: Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature (M. Kister, H.I. Newman, M. Segal & Ruth Clements, eds., Leiden. Boston: Brill, 2015), 112-133.
“Essentialism, freedom of choice, and the calendar: Contradictory trends in rabbinic halakhah," Nominalism and Realism in Halakha Revisited: Studies in the Philosophy of Halakha, Dine Israel 30, S. L. Stone, Y. Lorberbaum and J. Rubenstein, eds. (2015), 121*-137*.
"The Story of King Jannaeus (b. Qiddushin 66a): A Pharisaic Reply to Sectarian Polemic," Harvard Theological Review 107:1 (2014) 31-58
"Did the Rabbis Know Josephus' Works?" Tarbiz 81 (2013), 367-395 (in Hebrew)
"Another Look at the Rabbinic Conception of Gentiles from the Perspective of Impurity Laws", in Judaea-Palaestina, Babylon and Rome: Jews in Antiquity (Benjamin Isaac and Yuval Shahar, eds.; TSAJ 147, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), pp 89-110
"Embryonic Legal Midrash in the Qumran Scrolls", in The Hebrew Bible in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Nora David, Kristin De Troyer, Armin Lange, and Shani Tzoref, eds.; FRLANT 239; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck&Ruprecht, 2011), 237-262.
"Josephus and Early Halakhah: The Exclusion of Impure Persons from Holy Precincts", ‘Go Out and Study the Land’ (Judges 18:2): Archaeological, Historical and Textual Studies in Honor of Hanan Eshel, ( A.M. Maeir, J. Magness, and L.H. Schiffman, eds.), Supplements of the Journal for the Study of Judaism, Leiden: Brill, 2011, 133-146
"Creative Interpretation and Integrative Interpretation in Qumran", Adolfo D. Roitman, Lawrence H. Schiffman, and Shani Tzoref (eds.), The Dead Sea Scrolls and Contemporary Culture. Proceedings of the International Conference held at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem (July 6-8, 2008), (Leiden: Brill, 2011) 363-376.
"Qumran and the Rabbis on Corpse-Impurity: Common Exegesis—Tacit Polemic", C. Hempel (ed.), The Dead Sea Scrolls. Text and Context (STDJ), Leiden. Boston: Brill, 2010, pp. 397-430.
"'Choosing the Path of Lenience': Qumranic Stringency or Tannaitic Leniency?", Meghillot 8-9 (2010): 211-226 (in Hebrew).
"'The Gentileness of the Gentiles': Two Approaches to the Impurity of Non-Jews," Halakha in Light of Epigraphy, Albert I. Baumgarten, Hanan Eshel, Ranon Katzoff, and Shani Tzoref (eds.), JAJS; Gottingen/Oakville, CT, USA: V&R, 2010, pp. 27-41.
"Ritual Impurity in Tannaitic Literature: Two Opposing Perspectives", Journal of Ancient Judaism 1 (2010): 65-103
"Early signs of Halakhic Midrash at Qumran", Dine' Israel: Studies in Halakhah and Jewish Law 26-27 (2009-2010): 3-26 (in Hebrew)
"Is it true that "a Corpse does not Defile"? on Ritual Contamination in Tannaitic Literature", Tarbiz 78 (2009): 157-188 (in Hebrew).
"Corpse-Blood Impurity: A Lost Biblical Reading?" JBL (2009): 243-251
"Stringency in Qumran: A Reassessment", JSJ 40/3 (2009): 342-355.
(With Elisha Qimron), "A Qumran Composition of Sabbath Laws and Its Contribution to the Study of Early Halakhah." DSD 16 (2009): 55-96.
"Between Qumran and Rabbinic Midrash: Common Exegesis and Implied Polemics." Meghillot 7 (2009): 71-98 (in Hebrew).
"You Shall Pass Through Fire" (Numbers 31:23) – An Early Exegetic Tradition", Shenaton Le-Mikra U-Le-Heker HaMizrah HaKadum 19 (2009): 119-128 (in Hebrew).
"The Dual Strategy of Rabbinic Purity Legislation" JSJ 39 (2008): 471-512.
"In the Wake of the New Leaf of Megillat Ta'anit and its Scholion", Tarbiz 77 (2008): 424-411 (in Hebrew)
"Tradition: Continuity or Change – Two Religious Options." In Judaism and the Challenges of Modern Life, ed. M. Halbertal and D. Hartman, 32-48. London and New York: Continuum, 2007.
"The Bounds of Non-Priestly Purity: a Reassessment." Zion 72 (2007): 127-60 (in Hebrew).
“Traces of Sectarian Halakha in the Rabbinic World.” in Rabbinic Perspectives: Rabbinic Literature and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Proceedings of the Eighth International Symposium of the Orion Center, (S. D. Fraade et al., STDJ 62, Leiden: Brill, 2006) 67-85.
“Megillat Taanit: The Scroll of Fasting.” Chapter eight of The Literature of the Sages, Second Part, ed. Shmuel Safrai et al., 339-62. CRINT, Section 2: The Literature of the Jewish People in the Period of the Second Temple and the Talmud, 3a. Assen: Gorcum and Fortress Press, 2006.
"The Origin of the List of David’s Songs in ‘David’s Compositions.’" DSD 13 (2006): 134-49.
“Divorce in Qumran in Light of Early Halakha.” JJS 56 (2005): 206-23.
"From Philology to History, The Sectarian Dispute, as Portrayed in the Scholium to Megillat Ta'anit." In Recent Developments in Midrash Research: Proceedings of the 2002 and 2003 SBL Consultation on Midrash, ed. L. M. Teugels and R. Ulmer, 53-95. Piscataway, N.J.: Gorgias Press, 2005.
(with Elisha Qimron). "A Qumran Composition on the Laws of the Sabbath and Its Contribution to Early Halachic History." Tarbiz 74 (2005): 511-46 (in Hebrew).
“The Miracle of the Cruse of Oil.” HUCA 73 (2003): 191-226.
“‘The Later Rabbis Add and Innovate’: On the Development of a Talmudic Sugya.” Tarbiz 72 (2002-3): 151-75 (in Hebrew).
“A Story That was Captivated: The Evolvement of a Tale between Eretz Yisrael and Babylon.” Jerusalem Studies in Hebrew Literature 19 (2002-3): 9-21 (in Hebrew).
“From Textual Criticism to Historical Reconstruction: On the History of Three Places in Eretz Yisrael.” Cathedra 104 (2002): 7-30 (in Hebrew).
“Early Version Traditions in Rashi’s Emendations of the Talmud.” Sidra 17 (2000-2): 109-50 (in Hebrew).
“Beit Shammai and Sectarian Halakha.” Jewish Studies 41 (2001-2): 45-67 (in Hebrew).
“The Miracle of the Cruse of Oil: A Source for Clarifying the Attitude of the Sages to the Hasmoneans?” Zion 67 (2001-2): 381-400 (in Hebrew).
“Rediscovered Fragments of Variant Biblical and Midrashic Texts.” In Issues in Talmudic Research: Conference Commemorating the Fifth Anniversary of the Passing of Ephraim E. Urbach, 66-79. Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences
and Humanities, 2001 (in Hebrew).
“Two Testimonies to the Route of Transmission of Megillat Ta‘anit and the Source of the Hybrid Version of the Scholion.” Tarbiz 65 (1995-96): 389-416 (in Hebrew).
“The Seventeenth of Elul in Megillat Ta’anit.” Zion 59 (1993-94): 433-44 (in Hebrew).
“The Scholion to the Megilat Ta‘anit: Towards an Understanding of Its Stemma.” Tarbiz 62 (1992-93): 55-99 (in Hebrew).
Book Reviews:
Vered Noam, "Yair Furstenberg, Purity and Community in Antiquity: Traditions of the Law from Second Temple Judaism to the Mishnah," Zion 82 (2017), 360-367 (in Hebrew)
Encyclopedia entries:
"Megillat Ta’anit (Scroll of Fasting)" – in T&T Clark Companion to Second Temple Judaism (Daniel M. Gurtner and Loren T. Stuckenbruck, eds.), 362-365.
"Megillat Ta'anit" – in The Cambridge Dictionary of Judaism and Jewish Culture (Judith R. Baskin, ed., New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 417-418.
"Megillat Ta’anit (The Scroll of Fasting)" – in Encyclopedia of Ancient History (Roger Bagnall et al., eds.), Wiley-Blackwell (forthcoming)
"Corpse/ Corpse Impurity" – in Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception (EBR), Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York
