Shemaryahu Talmon (

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

: שמריהו טלמון) (born Shemaryahu Zelmanowicz; 1920 in Skierniewice,

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, , is a country in Central Europe. Poland is divided into Voivodeships of Poland, sixteen voivodeships and is the fifth most populous member state of the European Union (EU), with over 38 mill ...

– December 15, 2010) was J. L. Magnes Professor of Bible at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, known particularly for his work in the

Hebrew University Bible Project The Hebrew University Bible Project (HUBP) is a project at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to create the first edition of the Hebrew Bible that reproduces the text of the Aleppo Codex and includes a thorough critical apparatus. It was begun in ...

Early life

Talmon was born in

in 1920, growing up and studying in the city of Breslau (which was then in Germany). He was educated at the Jüdisches Reform-Real Gymnasium in Breslau,

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

. He was a detainee at

Buchenwald concentration camp Buchenwald (; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or s ...

during the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

. During that time his parents and two sisters were killed, he managed to emigrate to Palestine. He obtained a PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1956. His thesis was on the text and versions of the

Tanakh The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
''

Religious work

He worked with Moshe Goshen-Gottstein and Chaim Rabin on the

, and after their deaths served as its editor in chief. His work helped to advance the understanding of the biblical text, especially the

Dead Sea Scrolls The Dead Sea Scrolls (also the Qumran Caves Scrolls) are ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at the Qumran Caves in what was then Mandatory Palestine, near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the ...

. He combined his interest in the scrolls and sociology to study the nature and history of the "community of the renewed covenant." In interfaith activities he was a leader in international Jewish-Christian dialogue, working with the

World Council of Churches The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a worldwide Christian inter-church organization founded in 1948 to work for the cause of ecumenism. Its full members today include the Assyrian Church of the East, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, most ju ...

and the Vatican. In the area of Biblical education, he was director for educational institutions in the Immigration Camps in Cyprus (1947–48). He taught at the major Israeli universities and been a visiting professor at many institutions throughout the world. He was the

rector Rector (Latin for the member of a vessel's crew who steers) may refer to: Style or title *Rector (ecclesiastical), a cleric who functions as an administrative leader in some Christian denominations *Rector (academia), a senior official in an edu ...

of the

University of Haifa The University of Haifa ( he, אוניברסיטת חיפה Arabic: جامعة حيفا) is a university located on Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel. Founded in 1963, the University of Haifa received full academic accreditation in 1972, becoming I ...

and of the Institute of Judaic Studies at the College of Jewish Studies at Heidelberg, dean of the Faculty of Humanities at the Hebrew University. In December 2008, Talmon donated a library of 10,000 volumes, mostly in Biblical studies, to the Shalom Hartman Institute.

Publications

His publications include "Qumran and the History of the Biblical Text" (1975), "King, Cult, and Calendar" (1986), "Gesellschaft und Literatur in der Hebräischen Bibel" (1988), "The World of Qumran from Within" (1989) and hundreds of articles in scholarly journals.

Awards

In 1997, Talmon was awarded the Israel Prize, for Biblical studies.

Early life

Religious work

Publications

Awards

See also

References

Further reading