Bernard Levinson
Berman Family Chair of Jewish Studies and Hebrew Bible
Professor of Classical and Near Eastern Studies
Affiliated Professor of Law
University of Minnesota

Bernard M. Levinson serves as Professor of Classical and Near Eastern Studies and of Law at the University of Minnesota, where he holds the Berman Family Chair in Jewish Studies and Hebrew Bible. His research focuses on biblical and cuneiform law, textual reinterpretation in the Second Temple period, and the relation of the Bible to Western intellectual history. Additional research interests include constitutional theory, the history of interpretation, and literary approaches to biblical studies. The interdisciplinary significance of his work has been recognized with appointments to the Institute for Advanced Study (1997); the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2007); the National Humanities Center (2010), the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies (2011); and the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies in Jerusalem, where he co-directed an international research team of eight scholars. 

Selected Publications

The Betrayal of the Humanities: The University during the Third Reich.  Edited by Bernard M. Levinson and Robert P. Ericksen. Studies in Antisemitism. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2022. vi + 630 pages. ISBN: 9780253060785. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv2gjx1bm

The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Academic Discourses of Europe, Israel, and North America.  Co-edited with Jan Christian Gertz, Konrad Schmid, and Dalit Rom-Shiloni.  FAT 111. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016.  Pp. xi + 1204.

The Pentateuch as Torah: New Models for Understanding Its Promulgation and Acceptance.  Co-edited with Gary. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2007. Pp. xvi + 352.  

Legal Revision and Religious Renewal in Ancient Israel.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Pp. xxviii + 206.  Paperback edition, 2010.  

A More Perfect Torah: At the Intersection of Philology and Hermeneutics in Deuteronomy and the Temple Scroll. Critical Studies in the Hebrew Bible, vol. 1. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2013. Pp. xx + 142.

“The Right Chorale”: Studies in Biblical Law and Interpretation. Forschungen zum Alten Testament, vol. 54. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008.  Pp. xxiii + 432. Paperback edition, Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2011.

Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation.  Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Paperback edition, 2002.  Pp. xiv + 205.