Richard elliott friedman biography

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The words for “sin” and “holy” in Hebrew do not mean what we claimed. And there is much more. He was the KatzinProfessor of Jewish Civilization: Hebrew Bible; Near EasternLanguages and Literature at the University of California, San Diego, from 1984 until 2006, whereupon he joined the faculty of the University of GeorgiaReligion Department.

He is a winner of numerousawards and honors, includingAmericanCouncil of LearnedSocieties Fellow.

In two Biblical texts, God’s name is not revealed until the time of Moses. The answer is a clue to much more than the Documentary Hypothesis.

Bible & Archaeology Fest XIII, November 19 – 21, 2010
The Death of the Gods—or Why a Monotheistic God Speaks in the Plural.

This presentation is concerned with how the ancient Israelites made the transition from pagan religion to monotheism, and will examine such questions as: How did it come to pass that they rejected the religion of their ancestors?

We are just beginning to come to terms with the meaning of all these discoveries.

Bible & Archaeology Fest XVII, November 21 – 23, 2014
The Name(s) of God

Many people have now heard of the Documentary Hypothesis, as well as the “name of God” issue, which was the first key clue to the hypothesis.

He is a winner of numerous awards and honors, including American Council of Learned Societies Fellow.

Works

Views

Richard Elliot Friedman’s works represent a robust collection of careful investigation, detailed analysis of Hebrew Bible and rich biblical archaeology. The hypothesis is intact, but the question for this lecture is: Why is there this issue about the name of God?

Where did two authors of the Torah get the idea that God’s name wasn’t known until Moses? What happened to the gods that virtually the whole known world had worshipped for millennia? But it is consistent; there only three exceptions in over 2,000 occurrences of the terms for “God” in the Torah. Belief in the afterlife in Biblical times was not what we thought.

Friedman was also a visiting fellow at Oxford and Cambridge, a Senior Fellow of the American Schools of Oriental Research in Jerusalem, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Haifa.

Background

Richard Elliott Friedman was born on May 5, 1946, in Rochester, New York. He has been interviewed by CNN’s Larry King and has appeared on NPR’s “All Things Considered” and “Talk of the Nation.” Articles and citations of his work have appeared in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, U.S.

News & World Report, Time, New York Daily News, Newsweek, Commentary, Commonweal, The Atlantic Monthly, The Forward, Moment, The Jerusalem Post, and Ha’aretz. What did the Israelites who accepted monotheism think about the rest of the world’s pagan beliefs? Pagans didn’t worship idols or sacrifice their children or have temple prostitution.

The other is the birth of critical scholarship.