Benjamin D. Sommer

Biography

BA, summa cum laude, with distinction in Philosophy and in Judaic Studies, Yale University, 1986; Studies in the department of Bible at Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1986–1987; MA, Bible and Ancient Near East, Brandeis University, 1991; PhD, with distinction, Religion/Biblical Studies, University of Chicago, 1994

Benjamin D. Sommer joined The Jewish Theological Seminary faculty as professor of Bible in July 2008. Previously, he served as director of the Crown Family Center for Jewish Studies at Northwestern University, where he had taught since 1994. Dr. Sommer has been a fellow at the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the Tikvah Center for Jewish Law and Civilization at the New York University School of Law, and the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. He has served as a visiting faculty member in the Department of Bible of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and at the Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, Texas. He has received fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies and the Yad Hanadiv/Berakha Foundation.

Dr. Sommer was elected to membership in the American Academy for Jewish Research in 2017. He was chosen to e a member of the Biblical Colloquium in 2014.

Dr. Sommer has long been active as a lecturer and scholar-in-residence, teaching rabbis, Jewish educators, and laypeople in a variety of settings in the United States and Israel.

He and his wife, Jennifer Dugdale, have three children, who have attended S.A.R. High School in Riverdale and the Solomon Schechter School of Bergen County.  They are members of Congregation Beth Sholom in Teaneck, New Jersey.

Grants, Fellowships, and Awards

• National Book Award Finalist, 2016
• Goldstein-Goren Book Award, 2016
• Jordan Schnitzer Award Finalist, 2013-2015
• Israel Institute for Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University, 2012–2013.
• Tivkah Center for Law and Jewish Civilization at New York University Law School. Fellowship, 2011–2012.
• William Scheide Fellowship in Theology, Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, NJ, 2011–2012 (declined).
• Jordan Schnitzer Award (Association of Jewish Studies, 2009) in the category of Biblical Studies, Rabbinics, and Archaeology for books published in 2006–2009.
• The Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion from the American Academy of Religion, for the best book in religious studies focusing on textual analysis published in 2009.
• Salo Wittmayer Baron Prize (American Academy for Jewish Research, 1999) for the best first book on biblical, ancient, or medieval Judaism published in 1998.
• American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship, 1998–1999.
• Yad Hanadiv/Beracha Foundation Fellowship, 1998–1999.
• National Humanities Center Fellowship in Research Triangle Park, NC, 1998–1999 (declined)

Publications

Books

• Yehezkel Kaufmann and the Reinvention of Jewish Exegesis of the Bible. Co-edited with Thomas Staubli and Job Jindo, Freiburg and Göttingen: Universitätsverlag Freiburg and Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2017. A collection of essays discussing the intellectual setting and influence of Yehezkel Kaufmann, the most important Jewish biblical scholar of the 20th century, along with translations of several works by Kaufmann not previously available in English.
• Revelation and Authority: Sinai in Jewish Scripture and Tradition. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015 (Anchor Bible Reference Library). At once a study of biblical theology and modern Jewish thought, this volume describes the ways biblical authors and contemporary theologians alike understand the process of revelation and hence the authority of the law.
• Revelation and Authority, Hebrew edition, התגלות וסמכות: סיני במקרא ובמסורת, Carmel Publishing House, Israel, 2022.

Edited Books

• Jewish Concepts of Scripture: A Comparative Introduction. Editor. New York: New York University Press, 2012. How do the People of the Book conceive of the Book of Books? In what ways is it authoritative? Who has the right to interpret it? Have Jews always thought about the Bible in the same way? This volume traces the way Jewish thinkers throughout history have addressed these issues.
• A Prophet Reads Scripture: Allusion in Isaiah 40–66. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998. Dr. Sommer examines the ways Deutero-Isaiah drew upon and reworked older biblical texts, and the implications of the prophet’s frequent recourse to older texts for our understanding of the history of Israelite religion. Winner of the 1999 Salo Wittmayer Baron Prize in 1998.
• The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Dr. Sommer addresses perceptions of divine embodiment in ancient Israel, Canaan, and Assyria, and how these perceptions reappear in later Jewish philosophy and mysticism. Winner of the 2009 Jordan Schnitzer Award of the Association of Jewish Studies in the category of Biblical Studies, Rabbinics, and Archaeology, and winner of the 2010 Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion (Textual Studies category) from the American Academy of Religion.
• Dr. Sommer is the editor of the Psalms volumes of the Jewish Publication Society Bible Commentary series and is writing the first book of that five-volume set.

Articles

• Click here to access Professor Sommer’s articles.

Research

An overarching concern of Dr. Sommer’s scholarship involves the close and manifold relationships between biblical thought and later Jewish theology, or, to use the Hebrew phrasing, between Torah shebiktav and Torah shebe’al peh. His books have won multiple awards from scholarly organizations. 

Learn with Dr. Sommer at JTS Torah Online