Bernard M. Levinson

Associate Professor, Classical and Near Eastern Studies
Berman Family Chair in Jewish Studies and Hebrew Bible
Associate Professor, School of Law

Email: levinson at umn.edu 

On leave, academic year 2007–2008, as Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin/Berlin Institute of Advanced Study.

Email Bernard.levinson at WiKo-Berlin.de (through August 2008).

• B.A. York University, Toronto (1974)
• M.A. McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario (1978)
• Visiting Researcher in Bible and Semitic Languages, Hebrew University, Jerusalem (1979-80)
• Ph.D. Brandeis University (1991)

• Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
• Biblical and Cuneiform Law
• Pentateuchal theory
• Deuteronomy
• History of Interpretation
• Literary Approaches to Biblical Studies

I am interested in the literature and religion of ancient Israel. I focus on biblical law in its ancient Near Eastern context and on the way that biblical law was later reinterpreted in the Dead Sea Scrolls and other Second Temple literature. I have also explored the relation of the Bible to later western intellectual history. I just completed a book on the problem of divine justice in the Decalogue and on the importance of academic biblical studies for current work in the humanities on canon theory (Legal Revision and Religious Renewal in Ancient Israel). I am a member of the Center for Jewish Studies and one of the affiliated members of the Law School.

Selected Publications

Books

Legal Revision and Religious Renewal in Ancient Israel.
New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming August 2008.

“The Right Chorale”: Studies in Biblical Law and Interpretation. Forschungen zum Alten Testament 54; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, forthcoming August 2008.

L’Herméneutique de l’innovation: Canon et exégèse dans l’Israël biblique.
Preface by Jean Louis Ska.  Le livre et le rouleau 24.  Brussels: Éditions Lessius, 2005.

Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation.
Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1997; paperback, 2002.
Salo W. Baron Award for Best First Book in Literature and Thought, American Academy for Jewish Research, 1999.

The Pentateuch as Torah: New Models for Understanding Its Promulgation and Acceptance.
Gary Knoppers, co-editor.
Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2007

Theory and Method in Biblical and Cuneiform Law:
Revision, Interpolation, and Development.
Classic Reprints series, Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2006.

Judge and Society in Antiquity
Edited by Aaron Skaist and Bernard M. Levinson. Special double issue of MAARAV: A Journal for the Study of the Northwest Semitic Languages and Literatures 12.1–2 (2005).

Recht und Ethik im Alten Testament: Beiträge des Symposiums “Das Alte Testament und die Kultur der Moderne” anlässlich des 100. Geburtstags Gerhard von Rad (1901–1971).
Eckart Otto, co-editor, with Walter Dietrich.  Münster/London: LIT, 2004.

Gender and Law in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East. Victor H. Matthews and Tikva Frymer-Kensky, co-editors.
JSOTSup 262.  Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998; paperback, 2004.

“Deuteronomy.” In The Jewish Study Bible. Edited by Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003, 356–450.

“Deuteronomy.” In New Oxford Annotated Bible.  Third edition.  New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, 240–313.

“Reading the Bible in Nazi Germany: Gerhard von Rad’s Attempt to Reclaim the Old Testament for the Church,” Interpretation 62.3 (July, 2008): 238-53.

“The First Constitution: Rethinking the Origins of Rule of Law and Separation of Powers in Light of Deuteronomy.” Cardozo Law Review 27:4 (2006): 1853–1888. Click here for full text of article.

“ ‘Du sollst nichts hinzufügen und nichts wegnehmen’ (Dtn 13,1): Rechtsreform und Hermeneutik in der Hebräischen Bibel.” Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 102 (2006): 157–183.

“The Manumission of Hermeneutics: The Slave Laws of the Pentateuch as a Challenge to Contemporary Pentateuchal Theory.”  In Congress Volume Leiden 2004.  Edited by André Lemaire.  Vetus Testamentum Supplements 109.  Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2006, 281–324.

“The Birth of the Lemma: Recovering the Restrictive Interpretation of the Covenant Code's Manumission Law by the Holiness Code (Lev 25:44–46).” Journal of Biblical Literature 124 (2005): 617–639.

“The Metamorphosis of Law into Gospel: Gerhard von Rad's Attempt to Reclaim the Old Testament for the Church” (with Douglas Dance). In Recht und Ethik im Alten Testament. Edited by Bernard M. Levinson and Eckart Otto. Münster/London: LIT Verlag, 2004, 83–110.

“Is the Covenant Code an Exilic Composition? A Response to John Van Seters.” In In Search of Pre-Exilic Israel: Proceedings of the Oxford Old Testament Seminar. Edited by John Day. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament: Supplement Series, vol. 406.  London & New York: T. & T. Clark, 2004, 272–325.

“‘You Must Not Add Anything to What I Command You’: Paradoxes of Canon and Authorship in Ancient Israel.” Numen: International Review for the History of Religions 50:1 (2003): 1–51.

“Revelation Regained: The Hermeneutics of כי and אם in the Temple Scroll” (Co-author: Molly M. Zahn). Dead Sea Discoveries: A Journal of Current Research on the Scrolls and Related Literature 9:3 (2002): 295–346.

• Biblical/Classical Hebrew (all levels)
• Bible: Context and Interpretation
• Biblical Law and Jewish Ethics
• Scripture and Interpretation in Israelite Religion and Judaism
• Prophecy in the Bible and the Ancient Near East
• Silencing the Gods

Classical and Near Eastern Studies
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