Moshe Greenberg
|
|
Moshe Greenberg is a major scholar in the area of Biblical studies, in the course of a career that has spanned half a century. He has also made major contributions to the study of Semitic languages.
He was born in Philadelphia on 10 July, 1928. At the University of Pennsylvania, where he received his Ph.D. in 1954, he studied Bible and Assyriology with E. A. Speiser; simultaneously, he studied post-Biblical Judaica at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.
Greenberg taught Bible and Judaica at the University of Pennsylvania from 1964-1970. He holds a chair in Jewish studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he has taught since 1970. He has also taught at Swarthmore College, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and the University of California at Berkeley. His former students virtually form a school in Hebrew studies.
He is the author of ten books and numerous articles. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1961, the Harrison award for Distinguished Teaching and Research by the Danforth Foundation, and the Israel Prize in Bible.
Some of his publications:
- Hab Piru, 1955
- Understanding Exodus, 1967
- Biblical Prose Prayer as a Window to the Popular Religion of Ancient Israel, 1983. This was considered one of the most important early articles on this newly-broached subject, in which Greenberg offered some social history to guide the study of popular cult among the Israelites. Critics suggested that Greenberg's programme applied only to elite Yahwistic strata.
- Ezekiel in the Anchor Bible Series 3 volumes, 1983, 1997 and forthcoming.
- Torah: Five Books of Moses, 2000