Lawrence H. Schiffman Also Scheduled to Teach a Class on Dead Sea Scrolls

One of the world’s leading authorities on Dead Sea Scrolls scholarship, Lawrence H. Schiffman of New York University (NYU), will lecture at DePaul University at 3 p.m., Feb. 27 in the Schmitt Academic Center, 2320 N. Kenmore Ave., Room 154.

Schiffman is the current chair of NYU’s Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies and the Ethel and Irvin A. Edelman Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies. He will serve as guest lecturer for an undergraduate course on the Dead Sea Scrolls on the morning of his visit to DePaul, and he will have lunch with a group of students who are members of the DePaul chapter of Hillel, a national association of Jewish students.

A member of NYU’s centers for Near Eastern Studies and Ancient Studies, Schiffman was a fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem as part of a research group dealing with the Dead Sea Scrolls. He was featured in the Public Broadcasting Service’s “Nova” documentary series, “Secrets of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” as well as four British Broadcast Company documentaries, a “McNeil-Lehrer NewsHour,” a Discovery Channel special on the scrolls, and has regularly appeared on the Arts and Entertainment television series “Mysteries of the Bible.” He served as an editor-in-chief of the “Oxford Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls” (2000) and is an editor of the journal “Dead Sea Discoveries” published by Brill.

Also a specialist in Judaism in the late antiquity, Jewish law and Talmudic literature, Schiffman received his undergraduate, master’s and doctoral degrees from Brandeis University’s, department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies. He has published more than a half- dozen books, including his latest, “Texts and Traditions: A Source Reader for the Study of Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism” (1998).

The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in caves in the hills surrounding the Dead Sea by Bedouin shepherds in 1947. More than 20 centuries old, they are the largest and oldest body of manuscripts relating to the Bible. The more than 1,000 fragments of the surviving manuscripts have fueled great debate among a growing number of scholars who continue to assess their impact on the foundations of Judaism and Christianity.

Schiffman’s lecture will focus on current trends in Dead Sea Scrolls scholarship. His visit to DePaul is sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The lecture is free and open to the public. For more information about this event or to reserve a seat at the lecture, call 773-325-1288 or 773-325-4988.