Associate Professor of Classical and Near Eastern Studies and of Law
245 Nicholson Hall (Classical & Near Eastern Studies)
612-625-4323
612-624-4894
levinson(at)umn.edu
York University, Toronto, B.A.
McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, M.A.
Brandeis University, Ph.D.
Professor Bernard M. Levinson is Associate Professor of Classical and Near Eastern Studies and of Law at the University of Minnesota and holds the Berman Family Chair in Jewish Studies and Hebrew Bible. His research focuses on Hebrew Bible and ancient Near Eastern studies, specializing in biblical and cuneiform law (particularly the role of the ancient Near East in the emergence of constitutional thought); Deuteronomy and the history of interpretation; and literary approaches to biblical studies.
Professor Levinson teaches graduate courses in "Biblical Law and Jewish Ethics" and "Scripture and Interpretation in Israelite Religion and Judaism." He is on the editorial boards of Zeitschrift für Altorientalische und Biblische Rechtsgeschichte, Orientalia Biblica et Christiana, and International Commentary on the Old Testament. He presents regularly at national and international conferences.
Professor Levinson received his B.A. degree in English and Intellectual History with First Class Honors in 1974 from York University in Toronto. He earned a M.A. degree in Religious Studies from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario in 1978 and a Ph.D. in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies from Brandeis University in 1991. He was a Visiting Scholar at the School of Theology, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz/Germany (92-93) and also received an appointment in 1997 to the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton), School of Social Science. He spent academic year 2007-2008 as Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (Berlin Institute of Advanced Study).
Judge and Society in Antiquity, edited by Aaron Skaist and Bernard M. Levinson, special double issue of "MAARAV: A Journal for the Study of the Northwest Semitic Languages and Literatures" 12.1–2 (2005).
'Du sollst nichts hinzufügen und nichts wegnehmen' (Dtn 13,1): Rechtsreform und Hermeneutik in der Hebräischen Bibel. Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 102 (2006): 157–183.
The Manumission of Hermeneutics: The Slave Laws of the Pentateuch as a Challenge to Contemporary Pentateuchal Theory, in Congress Volume Leiden 2004. Edited by André Lemaire. Vetus Testamentum Supplements 109. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2006, 281–324.
Deuteronomy's Conception of Law as an "Ideal Type": A Missing Chapter in the History of Constitutional Law, in Judge and Society in Antiquity. Edited by Bernard M. Levinson and Aaron Skaist = Maarav: A Journal for the Study of the Northwest Semitic Languages and Literatures 12:1–2 (2005): 83–119.
The Birth of the Lemma: Recovering the Restrictive Interpretation of the Covenant Code's Manumission Law by the Holiness Code (Lev 25:44–46), Journal of Biblical Literature 124 (2005): 617–639.
Is the Covenant Code an Exilic Composition? A Response to John Van Seters, in In Search of Pre-Exilic Israel: Proceedings of the Oxford Old Testament Seminar (John L. Day, ed., 2004).
The Metamorphosis of Law into Gospel: Gerhard von Rad's Attempt to Reclaim the Old Testament for the Church (with Douglas Dance), in Recht und Ethik im Alten Testament (Bernard M. Levinson & Eckart Otto, eds., 2004).
Deuteronomy, in The Jewish Study Bible (Adele Berlin & Marc Zvi Brettler, eds., 2003).
You Must Not Add Anything to What I Command You: Paradoxes of Canon and Authorship in Ancient Israel, in 50:1 Numen: International Review for the History of Religions 1 (2003).
Revelation Regained: The Hermeneutics of and in the Temple Scroll (with Molly M. Zahn), in Dead Sea Discoveries: A Journal of Current Research on the Scrolls and Related Literature 9:3 (2002) 295–346.
Goethe's Analysis of Exodus 34 and Its Influence on Julius Wellhausen: The Pfropfung of the Documentary Hypothesis, in Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 114 (2002) 212-23.
The Seductions of the Garden: The Genesis of Hermeneutics as Critique, in On Interpretation: Studies in Culture, Law, and the Sacred = 5 Graven Images 95 (2002).
The Reconceptualization of Kingship in Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic Historys Transformation of Torah, 51 Vetus Testamentum 511 (2001).
Textual Criticism, Assyriology, and the History of Interpretation: Deuteronomy 13:7a as a Test Case in Method, 120 Journal of Biblical Literature 211 (2001).
The Hermeneutics of Tradition in Deuteronomy, in 119 Journal of Biblical Literature 296 (2000).
The Covenant at Mount Sinai: The Argument of Revelation, in The Jewish Political Tradition, Vol. 1: Authority, (2000) (Michael Walzer et al., eds.).
Biblical Law, Reader's Guide to Judaism, (2000).
Journal of Near Eastern Studies (reviewing Martha T. Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor (2000)).
Deuteronomy, The New Oxford Annotated Bible (2000).
Recovering the Lost Original Meaning of (Deut 13:9), in 115 Journal of Biblical Literature 601 (1996).
'But You Shall Surely Kill Him!': The Text-Critical and Neo-Assyrian Evidence for MT Deuteronomy 13:10, in Bundesdokument und Gesetz: Studien zum Deuteronomium (Georg Braulik, ed., 1995).
The Case for Revision and Interpolation within the Biblical Legal Corpora, in Theory and Method in Biblical and Cuneiform Law: Revision, Interpolation and Development (Bernard M. Levinson, ed., 1994).
The Human Voice in Divine Revelation: The Problem of Authority in Biblical Law, in Innovation in Religious Traditions: Essays in the Interpretation of Religious Change (Michael A. Williams, et al., eds., 1992).
'The Right Chorale': From the Poetics of Biblical Narrative to the Hermeneutics of the Hebrew Bible, in "Not in Heaven": Coherence and Complexity in Biblical Narrative (Jason P. Rosenblatt & Joseph C. Sitterson, eds., 1991).
Calum M. Carmichael's Approach to the Laws of Deuteronomy, in 83 Harvard Theological Review 227 (1990).
The Case for Grounding Biblical Hermeneutics upon the Diachronic Method, in Literary Theory and Biblical Hermeneutics (Tibor Fabiny, ed., 1992).
McConville's Law and Theology in Deuteronomy, in 80 Jewish Quarterly Review 396 (1990).
and 
in the Temple Scroll (with Molly M. Zahn), in Dead Sea Discoveries: A Journal of Current Research on the Scrolls and Related Literature 9:3 (2002) 295–346.
(Deut 13:9), in 115 Journal of Biblical Literature 601 (1996).
