Edward L. Greenstein | Bar-Ilan University (original) (raw)

Edward L. Greenstein is Professor Emeritus of Bible at Bar-Ilan University, where he served as Professor since 2006, headed the Institute for Jewish Biblical Interpretation and held the Meiser Chair in Biblical Studies. He also served as Chair of the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Hermeneutics and Cultural Studies. Prior to that, he served as professor at Tel Aviv University from 1996 to 2006. From 1976 through 1996 he taught at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, where he became Professor of Bible in 1989. In addition to his full-time appointments, he has taught at the Columbia University Graduate School, Yale University, Princeton University, Union Theological Seminary, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and other institutions of higher learning. He has lectured widely.

A native of Lynbrook, New York, Greenstein was educated primarily at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he earned B.A. and M.A. degrees (1970, 1974), and at Columbia University, where he earned B.A., M. Phil., and Ph.D. degrees (1970, 1975, 1977). His Columbia dissertation, Phonological Studies in Akkadian, earned distinction and was published in revised form as a monograph in 1984.

Greenstein’s books include: The Book of Job: A New Translation (Yale University Press, 2019), Essays on Biblical Method and Translation (1989; reissued in a revised edition with new Preface in 2020); The Hebrew Bible in Literary Criticism (1986; co-compiled and coedited), The State of Jewish Studies (1990; coedited), and several other scholarly volumes. He has edited the Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society from 1974 until 2022 and was editor of the Society of Biblical Literature Semeia Studies series from 1988-1993. He has published scores of articles, chapters in books, and reviews, as well as scores of semipopular pieces. He is a co-author of The Timetables of Jewish History (1993). Greenstein has chaired the Ugaritic Studies Group of the Society of Biblical Literature, the Columbia University Seminar for the Study of the Hebrew Bible, and the Israel Association for Assyriology and the Ancient Near East.

Among his academic awards are a senior research fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities (1991-92), a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship (1992-93), a Guastella Fellowship for outstanding scholars immigrating to Israel (1996-99), a fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University (2001-2), and three research grants from the Israel Science Foundation. In 2013-14 he was a research fellow at the Herzl Institute, Jerusalem. In 2017 he received the Rector’s Prize for Innovative Research at Bar-Ilan University, and in 2020 he was awarded the EMET Prize ("the Israeli Nobel"). His "Job: A New Translation" won a finalist prize in the Jordan Schnitzer Book Awards of the Association for Jewish Studies. He has graduated 37 doctoral students and over a dozen masters students and continues to supervise several graduate students.

Greenstein is currently engaged in writing commentaries on Lamentations, Job, and Ruth, as well as a book on reader theory and biblical narrative (in English), a book on postmodern approaches to biblical studies (in Hebrew), and several other books and studies.

Greenstein is married to Dr. Beverly Gribetz. He has an adult daughter, an adult son, and two granddaughters. He also writes songs; two have been recorded and several have been performed.

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