Marc Zvi Brettler

Marc Brettler is the Bernice and Morton Lerner Professor of Jewish Studies in the Department of Religious Studies at Duke University.  A graduate of Brandeis University, he has published and lectured widely on metaphor and the Bible, the nature of biblical historical texts, and gender issues and the Bible. He is co-editor of the Jewish Study Bible, first published by Oxford University Press in 2004.  That book has won a National Jewish Book Award, and was called “a masterpiece” in a review in the Times Literary Supplement.  A second, expanded and revised edition was published in 2014.  His How to Read the Bible (Jewish Publication Society), which has been called “an eye-opening journey through a familiar text, a fresh look at an old story,” was the award winner in the Judaism category of the Best Books 2006 Book Awards.  A slightly revised version was published in paperback by Oxford University Press as How to Read the Jewish Bible.  He is co-editor with Amy-Jill Levine of The Jewish Annotated New Testament (Oxford University Press), the first book of its type, which was written up in the N.Y. Times, and has just been republished in an expanded, highly revised version. He is co-author of The Bible and the Believer: How to Read the Bible Critically and Religiously (Oxford University Press), recently republished as a paperback. He is committed to applying innovative methods to classroom teaching, including teaching via the internet, and is the recipient of the Michael A. Walzer Award for Excellence in Teaching, and the Keter Torah Award from the Boston Bureau of Jewish Education. He has also developed a website to aid those new to studying the Hebrew Bible academically (linked below). He has spent recent sabbaticals studying, teaching, and lecturing in Israel, China, and Japan.  In summer 2015, after retiring from Brandeis University, he assumed the Bernice and Morton Lerner Professorship in the Department of Religious Studies at Duke University.  In 2017, he was one of 100 scholars and leaders asked to participate in the “American Values Religious Voices” project. His special interests in regards to the Manuscript Migration Lab revolves around the various Ashkar-Gilson manuscripts at the Rubenstein Library.

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