Jonathan Ben-Dov

Visiting Research Scholar 2010-2011

Jonathan Ben-Dov holds BA, MA and Ph.D (2005) degrees from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and is a lecturer in the department of Bible at the University of Haifa, Israel. His research interests include the history of science, calendars, and cosmology in Early Jewish culture with relation to other centers of the ancient world, particularly the cuneiform culture from Mesopotamia. In addition he studies the religion and literature of the Hebrew Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls and early Jewish Apocalyptic writings, with an eye towards cognate sources in Aramaic and Akkadian. He was co-author in the publication of the calendrical scrolls from Qumran (Discoveries in the Judaean Desert 21, Oxford 2001). His dissertation is published asHead of All Years: Calendars and Astronomy at Qumran in their Ancient Context (Brill 2008). In recent years he has been working on a new edition and commentary of the 'Book of Heavenly Luminaries' (2-3 centuries BCE), embedded in the Book of 1 Enoch, according to the Aramaic and Geez (Ethiopic) textual witnesses. Jonathan is heading the program "Jewish Culture in the Ancient World", a joint effort of three Israeli universities supported by the Yad Hanadiv Humanities Fund, which fosters the study of ancient Judaism in comparative perspective.