Moshe Weinfeld (also ''Weinfield'', ; August 27, 1925 - April 29, 2009), was a professor of

Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...

at the

Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; ) is an Israeli public university, public research university based in Jerusalem. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann in July 1918, the public university officially opened on 1 April 1925. ...

. In 1994, he won the

Israel Prize The Israel Prize (; ''pras israél'') is an award bestowed by the State of Israel, and regarded as the state's highest cultural honor. History Prior to the Israel Prize, the most significant award in the arts was the Dizengoff Prize and in Israel ...

for

Biography

Moshe Weinfeld was born in

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Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

In 1965, Weinfeld earned a PhD at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Prior to his emigration to Palestine in 1947, he survived the Nazi Holocaust—90% of the Jews in the village where he was born died after it was taken in September of 1939 and over the course of what followed in the ghettoes and camps amidst the Disaster. Weinfeld went on to become one of the leading scholars of his generation in historical inquiry and investigations of the source of the origins of the Torah and in particular of the

Book of Deuteronomy Deuteronomy (; ) is the fifth book of the Torah (in Judaism), where it is called () which makes it the fifth book of the Hebrew Bible and Christian Old Testament. Chapters 1–30 of the book consist of three sermons or speeches delivered to ...

(which he, like other scholars, held to be one of the most ancient sections of the laws and teachings). In 1969, he was appointed senior lecturer in Hebrew University's

department. In 1973, Weinfeld became

associate professor Associate professor is an academic title with two principal meanings: in the North American system and that of the ''Commonwealth system''. In the ''North American system'', used in the United States and many other countries, it is a position ...

, and was promoted to

full professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a 'person who professes'. Professors ...

in 1978. Weinfeld taught at the

Jewish Theological Seminary of America The Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) is a Conservative Jewish education organization in New York City, New York. It is one of the academic and spiritual centers of Conservative Judaism as well as a hub for academic scholarship in Jewish studies ...

(1967–1969);

Brandeis University Brandeis University () is a Private university, private research university in Waltham, Massachusetts, United States. It is located within the Greater Boston area. Founded in 1948 as a nonsectarian, non-sectarian, coeducational university, Bra ...

(1968);

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego in communications material, formerly and colloquially UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California, United States. Es ...

(1981);

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

(1989).

Awards and recognition

* In 1993, Weinfeld was awarded the Ben-Zvi Prize for the

History of Palestine The region of Palestine (region), Palestine is part of the wider region of the Levant, which represents the land bridge between Africa and Eurasia.Steiner & Killebrew, p9: "The general limits ..., as defined here, begin at the Plain of ' ...

for his Hebrew book ''From Joshua to Josiah: Turning Points in the History of Israel From the Conquest of the Land Until the Fall of Judah'', Jerusalem: Magnes Press (1992). * In 1994, he was awarded the

, for Bible.

Published works

*''Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School'', Oxford: Clarendon (1972) *''‘Justice and Righteousness’ in Ancient Israel against the Background of Social Reforms in the Ancient Near East'' (Report No. 4/79), Jerusalem: Institute for Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University (1979) *''Getting at the Roots of Wellhausen’s Understanding of the Law of Israel: On the 100th Anniversary of the ‘Prolegomena’'' (Report No. 14/79), Jerusalem: Institute for Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University (1980) *''The Organizational Pattern and the Penal Code of the Qumran Sect: A Comparison with Guilds and Religious Associations of the Hellenistic-Roman Period'' (NTOA, 2), Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht (1986) *''Deuteronomy 1-11'' (Anchor Bible, 5), Garden City NY: Doubleday (1991) *''From Joshua to Josiah'' (1993) *
The Promise of the Land The Inheritance of the Land of Canaan by the Israelites
' Berkeley: University of California Press (1993) *''Social Justice in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East'', Minneapolis: Fortress, Jerusalem: Magnes Press (1995) *''The Place of the Law in the Religion of Ancient Israel'' (Vetus Testamentum Supplement), Leiden: E.J. Brill (2004) *''Normative and Sectarian Judaism in the Second Temple Period'', New York: T & T Clark (2005)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Weinfeld, Moshe 1925 births 2009 deaths Israeli biblical scholars Jewish biblical scholars Academic staff of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Israeli Jews Polish emigrants to Israel Israel Prize in biblical studies recipients People from Nowy Sącz 20th-century Jewish biblical scholars Burials at Har HaMenuchot

External links

Moshe Weinfeld: Hebrew University Faculty Page

Biography

Awards and recognition

Published works

See also

References

External links