William M. Schniedewind (born 1962,
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
) holds the Kershaw Chair of Ancient Eastern Mediterranean Studies and is a Professor of
Biblical Studies and
Northwest Semitic Languages at the
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California S ...
.
He has a B.A. in Religion from
George Fox University
George Fox University is a private Christian university in Newberg, Oregon. Founded as a school for Quakers in 1891, it is now the largest private university in Oregon with more than 4,000 students combined between its main campus in Newberg, it ...
in
Newberg, Oregon, an M.A. in Historical Geography of Ancient Israel, from
Jerusalem University College, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, from
Brandeis University
, mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts"
, established =
, type = Private research university
, accreditation = NECHE
, president = Ronald D. Liebowitz
, ...
.
Schniedewind serves on the steering committees for both th
Center for the Study of Religionand the Center for Jewish Studies at UCLA.
He serves as network editor for the Dead Sea Scrolls & Second Temple Judaism section o
Religious Studies Review He serves on the editorial boards for the ''Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, the Journal of Biblical Literature, and Tel Aviv''. He was a trustee and the secretary of the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research.
An article in
The Christian Century
''The Christian Century'' is a Christian magazine based in Chicago, Illinois. Considered the flagship magazine of US mainline Protestantism, the monthly reports on religious news; comments on theological, moral, and cultural issues; and review ...
refers to Schniedewind as having demonstrated in his book ''How the Bible Became a Book'' his knowledge of the archaeology of ancient Israel, the history of the Hebrew language, and the development of historical literature based on the
Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts ...
.
Schniedewind is listed in the 2007 ''Distinguished Lecturer Series Speaker Biographies'' in the Dead Sea Scroll exhibition at the
San Diego Natural History Museum
The San Diego Natural History Museum is a museum located in Balboa Park in San Diego, California. It was founded in 1874 as the San Diego Society of Natural History. It is the second oldest scientific institution west of the Mississippi and th ...
.
Schniedewind was the director of the ''Qumran Visualization Project'' (QVP), which created a
virtual reality
Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), e ...
model of ancient Qumran under the auspices of UCLA's Experiential Technologies Center (which also has notable projects for 2nd Temple Jerusalem, Islamic Jerusalem, and Ancient Rome).
Schniedewind has participated in excavations and surveys in
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
, including
Tell es-Safi
Tell es-Safi ( ar, تل الصافي, Tall aṣ-Ṣāfī, "White hill"; he, תל צפית, ''Tel Tzafit'') was an Arab Palestinian village, located on the southern banks of Wadi 'Ajjur, northwest of Hebron which had its Arab population expelled ...
,
Wadi Qumran, Har Tuv, and
Tel Batash
Timnath or Timnah was a Philistine city in Canaan that is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible in and in connection with Samson. Modern archaeologists identify the ancient site with a tell lying on a flat, alluvial plain, located in the Sorek Valley ...
,
and is currently the Associate Director of UCLA's Jaffa Cultural Heritage Project.
Bibliography
* ''The Finger of the Scribe: How Scribes Learned to Write the Bible'' (Oxford, 2019)
* ''A Social History of Hebrew: Its Origins Through the Rabbinic Period'' (Yale, 2013),
* ''The El-Amarna Correspondence (2 Vol. Set): A New Edition of the Cuneiform Letters from the Site of El-Amarna Based on Collations of All Extant Tablets'' (by Anson F. Rainey, volume 1 edited by W. Schniedewind) (Brill, 2014),
* ''A Primer on Ugaritic: Language, Culture, and Literature'' (with Joel Hunt) (Cambridge, 2007),
* ''How the Bible Became a Book: The Textualization of Ancient Israel'' (Cambridge, 2004),
* ''Society and the Promise to David: A Reception History of 2 Samuel 7:1-17'' (Oxford, 1999),
* ''The Word of God in Transition: From Prophet to Exegete in the Second Temple Period'' (Sheffield, 1995),
References
External links
*
*
Living people
Religious studies scholars
American biblical scholars
Hebrew language
George Fox University alumni
University of California Near Eastern Languages and Cultures faculty
Brandeis University alumni
1965 births
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