About the Speakers
Oren Ableman is a researcher and curator at the Dead Sea Sea Scrolls Unit of the Israel Antiquities Authority. He recently completed a PhD at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem under the supervision of Esther Chazon and Noah Hacham. The title of his PhD dissertation was: "Responses to the Roman Conquest of Judea (63 BCE) in the Dead Sea Scrolls: A Historical-Literary Discussion in the Roman Context of the Sectarian Texts from Qumran".
Joseph L. Angel is Associate Professor of Jewish History at Yeshiva University. He has published numerous studies on Second Temple Judaism, including Otherworldly and Eschatological Priesthood in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Brill, 2010). He is currently working on a new edition of the Qumran manuscripts known as the Songs of the Sage (4Q510-511).
Jonathan Ben-Dov is George and Florence Wise Chair of Judaism in Antiquity at the University of Haifa. His research interests include the Hebrew Bible, Ancient Near Eastern Literature, Ancient time-reckoning, Dead Sea Scrolls and apocalyptic literature. He is currently preparing editions of wisdom writings and of texts in cryptic script from Qumran.
Moshe J. Bernstein is Professor of Bible and Jewish History at Yeshiva University, where he holds the David A. and Fannie M. Denenberg Chair in Biblical Studies. He has published extensively on Jewish biblical interpretation in antiquity, especially in the Dead Sea Scrolls. He wishes that more of the Genesis Apocryphon had survived in the caves.
Bronson Brown-deVost is a post-doctoral researcher and project manager for the international research project Scripta Qumranica Electronica, where he is currently preparing a digital edition of the large Samuel scroll from Qumran (4Q51). He completed his PhD in Bible and the ancient Near East at Brandeis University in 2015, and recently published an updated form of his dissertation, Commentary and Authority in Mesopotamia and Qumran (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2019). His articles may be found in many of the major research journals in the field of Qumran and biblical studies.
George J. Brooke is Rylands Professor Emeritus of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at the University of Manchester where he taught Biblical Studies and Early Judaism from 1984 until 2016. He is also Visiting Professor of Biblical Studies at the University of Chester. Amongst his publications are Exegesis at Qumran (1985; reprinted, 2006), The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament (2005), and Reading the Dead Sea Scrolls: Essays in Method (2013).
Robert R. Cargill (PhD UCLA, 2008) is Associate Professor of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Iowa and Editor of Biblical Archaeology Review. He is the author of Qumran through (Real) Time: A Virtual Reconstruction of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Gorgias Press, 2009), The Cities the Built the Bible (HarperOne, 2016), and Melchizedek, King of Sodom: How Scribes Invented the Biblical Priest-King (Oxford University Press, 2019).
Prof. Esther G. Chazon is Associate Professor of Hebrew Literature and Director of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls & Associated Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is on the steering committee of the International Organization for Qumran Studies and the editorial board of Dead Sea Discoveries; has served as co-chair of the Qumran Section of the Society of Biblical Literature and was a member of the Dead Sea Scrolls Editorial Team.
John J. Collins is Holmes Professor of Old Testament at Yale. His books include Beyond the Qumran Community (Eerdmans) and The Dead Sea Scrolls. A Biography (Princeton). He is co-editor with Timothy Lim of The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Sidnie White Crawford is Willa Cather Professor of Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Judaism emerita at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a Visiting Professor at Princeton Theological Seminary. She is the author most recently of Scribes and Scrolls at Qumran (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2019). Dr. Crawford is Chair of the Old Testament Editorial Board for the Hermeneia Commentary Series, a Member of the Society of Biblical Literature Council, and Board Chair Emerita of the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem.
Maruf A. Dhali received his M.Sc. degree (with distinction) in Computer Vision and Robotics from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, the UK in 2015. He was a recipient of the European Commission’s Erasmus Mundus Masters Scholarship, and attended the University of Burgundy, France; University of Girona, Spain, and the University of Edinburgh, the UK during his study. He is currently working towards his Ph.D. at the Department of Artificial Intelligence at Bernoulli Institute. He is a researcher in the multidisciplinary ERC project on analyzing the Dead Sea Scrolls. His research interest includes computer vision, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.
Esther Eshel is Professor in the Bible Department and in the Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology at Bar Ilan University, and an acting head of the Jeselsohn Epigraphic Center of Jewish History at Bar-Ilan University. Fields of research: (1) the late books of the Hebrew Bible, as part of an interest in Jewish literature of the Second Temple period, including early Jewish exegesis; and (2) epigraphy of First and Second Temple Periods . A member of the international team publishing the Dead Sea Scrolls; Co-Author (with J.C. Greenfild and M.E. Stone), The Aramaic Levi Document (Studia in Veteris Testamenti Pseudepigrapha, 19). Leiden 2004; and (with A. Kloner, H. Korzakova and G. Finkielsztejn), Maresha III: Epigraphic Finds from the 1989-2000 Seasons (IAA Reports, No. 45). Jerusalem 2010 and S. Ahituv and E. Eshel (2015), To Yhwh of Teman and his ashera : the inscriptions and drawings from Kuntillet 'Ajrud ('Horvat Těman') in Sinai. Jerusalem: Yad Ben Zvi.
Ariel Feldman is an Associate Professor of Jewish Studies at Brite Divinity School and TCU. He published several books and articles, all of which deal with the Dead Sea Scrolls. He is particularly interested in all matters related to the early Jewish interpretation of the texts that came to be known as the Hebrew Bible.
Marcello Fidanzio is professor at the Faculty of Theology of Lugano (FTL), director of the institute of archaeology (ISCAB-FTL), and director of the Qumran Caves Publication Project (EBAF Jerusalem and ISCAB FTL).
Andrew D. Gross is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures at the Catholic University of America, where he has taught since 2008. He received his PhD in Hebrew and Judaic Studies from New York University in 2005. He is completing a new edition of the Temple Scroll with Lawrence H. Schiffman.
Maxine L. Grossman is an associate professor of Jewish Studies and Religious Studies in the Joseph and Rebecca Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Maryland. She is founding co-editor of the Journal of Ancient Judaism, and her scholarship on the Dead Sea Scrolls includes the monograph Reading for History in the Damascus Document: A Methodological Study, and the edited volume Rediscovering the Dead Sea Scrolls: An Assessment of Old and New Approaches and Methods. Her current work on the scrolls includes explorations of gender, sexuality, and theologies of perfection.
Charlotte Hempel is Professor of Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Judaism at the University of Birmingham, UK. Her most recent publications include the T&T Clark Companion to the Dead Sea Scrolls which she co-edited with Professor George Brooke and The Community Rule from Qumran: A Commentary to be published by Mohr Siebeck this fall.
Alex P. Jassen is Chair of the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies and Ethel and Irvin Edelman Associate Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University. He is the author of Mediating the Divine: Prophecy and Revelation in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Second Temple Judaism (Brill, 2007), winner of the 2009 John Templeton Award for Theological Promise, and Scripture and Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Cambridge University Press, 2014), and co-editor of Scripture, Violence, and Textual Practice in Early Judaism and Christianity (Brill, 2010) and the Journal of Ancient Judaism.
Armin Lange is professor for Second-Temple Judaism at the University of Vienna, director of Vienna University's Institute for Jewish Studies, a member of the international team editing the Dead Sea Scrolls, and a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. He has published extensively on the Hebrew Bible, its textual and canonical histories, Second Temple Judaism, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the history of antisemitism.
Erik Larson is chair of the Department of Religious Studies at Florida International University where he has taught since 1995. He contributed to several volumes of Discoveries in the Judaean Desert. His interest is in the apocryphal texts of Qumran and their relevance for the history of Second Temple Judaism and the New Testament.
Colette Loll is the founder and director of Art Fraud Insights, a consultancy dedicated to art-fraud related prevention initiatives, exhibitions, lectures, training, and specialized investigations. Ms. Loll is also a doctoral candidate at Georgetown University. Her dissertation focuses on the creation of new protocols for the scientific interrogation of questioned ancient texts, and the cognitive distortions and ideological biases that contribute to non-evidence-based conclusions of authenticity.
Jodi Magness (www.JodiMagness.org) is the Kenan Distinguished Professor for Teaching Excellence in Early Judaism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is an archaeologist specializing in the Roman-Byzantine-early Islamic periods in Palestine (modern Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian territories). Her most recent book is Masada: From Jewish Revolt to Modern Myth (Princeton University Press 2019).
Emily Master is currently the Executive Director of the Friends of the Israel Antiquities Authority, a connector of people and projects in Israel operated by the Israel Antiquities Authority. To the role, she brings many years of international arts and cultural management experience in marketing, communications, fundraising, operations, program evaluation, and strategic planning. She has been involved in archaeological work in Israel through the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon and Tel Shimron Excavations.
Daniel Machiela is Associate Professor and Chair in the Department of Religious Studies at McMaster University. His research focuses on ancient Jewish and Christian literature, history, and archeology, with a specialization in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Sarianna Metso is Associate Professor in the Department of Historical Studies and the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto and an Associate Member of the University of Toronto Centre for Jewish Studies. She is the author of The Textual Development of the Qumran Community Rule (Brill), The Serekh Texts (T&T Clark), and The Community Rule: A Critical Edition with Translation (SBL Press).
Dennis Mizzi is a senior lecturer in Hebrew and Ancient Judaism at the University of Malta. He teaches biblical Hebrew and Aramaic, Dead Sea Scrolls, and Judaism in the Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine periods, with a focus on both texts and archaeology. He is the assistant director of the Huqoq Excavation Project and co-founder and project manager of the Tayar Foundation for Jewish Heritage in Malta. Currently, he is completing a comprehensive, multi-volume study on the archaeology of Qumran.
Hindy Najman, Oriel and Laing Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture at the University of Oxford is the director and founder of the Centre for the studies of the Bible. Her publications include Losing the Temple and Recovering the Future: An Analysis of 4 Ezra, Past Renewals: Interpretive Authority, Renewed Revelation and the Quest for Perfection, Seconding Sinai: The Development of Mosaic Discourse in Second Temple Judaism, and a recent essay entitled “Ethical Reading: The Transformation of Text and Self.” She is currently working on a new book entitled: Reading Practices and the Vitality of Scripture (Oxford University Press).
Ilit Cohen Ofri is the director of the IAA Conservation laboratory. She earned her PhD in Chemistry at the Weizmann Institute of Science, on ‘degradation of charcoal in the archaeological record,’ with a post-doctoral fellowship in chemistry on charcoal degradation and an additional post-doctoral fellowship in biochemistry on alternative energy (using the principles of photosynthesis to produce artificial energy). Before beginning her position at the IAA, Ilit was the head of the Spectrometry and Chemical Analysis Unit at the Weizmann Institute. Her position at the IAA DSS unit focuses on expanding analytical research on the Dead Sea Scrolls, with a particular emphasis on scroll conservation research.
Mladen Popović is Principal Investigator of the European Research Council project The Hands that Wrote the Bible: Digital Palaeography and Scribal Culture of the Dead Sea Scrolls. He is also director of the Qumran Institute of the University of Groningen, the Netherlands.
Orit Rosengarten is assistant to the head of the Dead Sea Scrolls Project of the Israel Antiquities Authority. In this role she supervises implementation of various conservation activities and scientific research. She lectures regularly on conservation and on the technology and results of the IAA's work with the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Lawrence H. Schiffman is the Judge Abraham Lieberman Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University and Director of the Global Institute for Advanced Research in Jewish Studies. He has served as the Chair of the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University and Ethel and Irvin A. Edelman Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies. He has authored numerous books and articles on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Judaism in Late Antiquity, the history of Jewish law, and Talmudic literature.
Alison Schofield an Associate Professor at the University of Denver (DU) and and DU-Iliff School of Theology Joint Doctoral Program. She specializes in Hebrew Bible, Early Judaism and the Dead Sea Scrolls and serves as co-editor of The Dead Sea Scrolls Editions and Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah series (Brill). Currently as an NEH fellow, she is completing a new edition (translation and commentary) of The Community Rule and of other fragments from Cave 1, now found in Jerusalem and Amman.
Eileen Schuller is Professor Emerita in the Department of Religious Studies at Mcmaster University. Since the 1980s she has been involved in the publication of hymnic and prayer manuscripts from the scrolls, including the 4Q copies of the Hodayot and the re-publication of 1QHa in DJD 40 with Harmut Stegemann
Michael Segal is the Father Takeji Otsuki Professor of Biblical Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he also serves as Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Editor of the Hebrew University Bible Project. He is the author of The Book of Jubilees: Rewritten Bible, Redaction, Ideology and Theology (2008); and Dreams, Riddles, and Visions: Textual, Contextual, and Intertextual Approaches to the Book of Daniel (2016). He is currently writing a commentary on the Book of Daniel for the Anchor Yale Bible Series.
Until January 2020 Pnina Shor was Curator and Head of Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) Unit at the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). Pnina was trained as an archaeologist and has been with the IAA throughout her archaeological career, first as a field archaeologist, then in management positions. She headed and developed the artifacts conservation labs of the IAA and in 2010 established and advanced the unit dedicated to the DSS at the IAA.
Eibert Tigchelaar (PhD Groningen 1994) is Professor at KU Leuven (Belgium) specializing in Dead Sea Scrolls and Ancient Judaism, and editor-in-chief of the Journal for the Study of Judaism. His present research focuses on palaeography, scribal activities and practices, and the scrolls as material and literary products.
Emanuel Tov, Ph.D (1974), Hebrew University, Jerusalem is J.L. Magnes Professor emeritus at that University. He has published many monographs on the textual criticism of the Hebrew and Greek Bible and Qumran and was the editor-in-chief of the international Dead Sea Scrolls Publication Project.
Eugene Ulrich, the John O’Brien professor emeritus of Hebrew Scriptures at the University of Notre Dame, was Chief Editor of the Qumran Biblical Scrolls, editing six volumes of critical editions in Discoveries in the Judaean Desert. He is the author of The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Developmental Composition of the Bible and co-author of The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible: The Oldest Known Bible Translated for the First Time into English. He is a member of the translation team of both the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible and the New American Bible.
Joe Uziel is the new head of the DSS unit at the Israel Antiquities Department. Prior to his current position, Joe was a research archaeologist at the IAA, working on the excavations in Jerusalem's holy basin - the Western Wall Tunnels and the City of David, for nine years, and publishing numerous scholarly articles on the subject of ancient Jerusalem.
After earning a Ph.D. at Harvard (1976), James VanderKam taught at North Carolina State University (1976-91) and the University of Notre Dame (1991-2016) before retiring. He has published in the areas of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Early Jewish Literature, including 1 Enoch 2 and Jubilees in the Hermeneia series.
Cecilia Wassén is Associate Professor of New Testament at Uppsala University in Sweden. Her research focuses on women, purity praxis, and meals in the Dead Sea Scrolls. She is also an expert on the historical Jesus. Her new book, Jesus the Apocalyptic Prophet, with Tobias Hägerland, will be published by T & T Clark/ Bloomsbury Publishing next year.
Cana Werman is an associate professor in the Department of Jewish History at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. She earned her three degrees from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1984; 1987; 1996). Professor Werman’s research covers Second Temple literature and thought, Tannaitic literature, and early Christianity. She has written a number of books in Hebrew including: Apocalyptic Literature of the Second Temple (2003), Revealing the Hidden: Interpretation and Halacha in the Dead Sea Scrolls (2011, with Aharon Shemesh), and The Book of Jubilees: Introduction Translation and Commentary (Yad Ben-Zvi Press, 2015). She has also published numerous articles in leading journals.
Molly Zahn is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Kansas. Her research interests center on exploring the variety of ways early Jewish literature was composed, transmitted, interpreted, and authorized. Her new book, Genres of Rewriting in Second Temple Judaism, will appear this summer.
