Joshua Berman (born February 29, 1964) is an Orthodox rabbi and professor of bible at

Bar-Ilan University Bar-Ilan University (BIU, , ''Universitat Bar-Ilan'') is a public research university in the Tel Aviv District city of Ramat Gan, Israel. Established in 1955, Bar Ilan is Israel's second-largest academic university institution. It has 20,000 ...

. He is known for his views on the history of Jewish belief, and on biblical source criticism, arguing that "knowledge of the cultural context of the ancient Near East" is required in understanding the scriptures. Berman earned his A.B. at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

in 1987 and his PhD at

in 2002. He studied at

Yeshivat Har Etzion Yeshivat Har Etzion (YHE; ), commonly known in English as "Gush" and in Hebrew as "Yeshivat HaGush", is a Hesder yeshiva located in Alon Shvut, an Israeli settlement in the West Bank. It is considered one of the leading institutions of advanced T ...

for eight years. Before completing his PhD Berman taught Bible at the

Nishmat Nishmat ( or 'the soul of every living thing') is a Jewish prayer that is recited during Pesukei D'Zimrah between the Song of the Sea and Yishtabach on Shabbat and Jewish holidays, Yom Tov. It is also recited during the Passover seder. Shochen A ...

Midrasha A ' (Hebrew: ; : ), typically, is an institute of Torah study for women of post-high-school age, somewhat equivalent to a men's yeshiva; most are located in Israel. The midrasha is also somewhat parallel to a "women's seminary" (Hebrew "semin ...

for several years. Berman is a frequent contributor to '' Mosaic Magazine'', a magazine for Jewish ideas, religion, politics, and culture, and has written there on a variety of topics including most commonly the Israelite exodus out of Egypt and the current state of

biblical studies Biblical studies is the academic application of a set of diverse disciplines to the study of the Bible, with ''Bible'' referring to the books of the canonical Hebrew Bible in mainstream Jewish usage and the Christian Bible including the can ...

, where he has drawn both agreement and disagreement from other scholars. Berman began a strong proponent of the

documentary hypothesis The documentary hypothesis (DH) is one of the models used by biblical scholars to explain the origins and composition of the Torah (or Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible: Book of Genesis, Genesis, Book of Exodus, Exodus, Leviticus, Bo ...

and late Persian authorship, but became convinced of the reliability of the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' *''The Temple: Its Symbolism and Meaning Then and Now'', (2010) Wipf & Stock Publishers, *''Narrative Analogy in the Hebrew Bible: Battle Stories and their Equivalent Non-battle Narratives'', Brill *''Inconsistency in the Torah: Ancient Literary Convention and the Limits of Source Criticism'', (2017) Oxford University Press *''Ani Maamin: Biblical Criticism, Historical Truth, and the Thirteen Principles of Faith'', 2020, *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Berman, Joshua Living people Old Testament scholars Princeton University alumni Academic staff of Bar-Ilan University Bar-Ilan University alumni Orthodox rabbis 1964 births Yeshivat Har Etzion alumni