Education

• PhD, MA, Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, Brandeis University
• MA, Historical Geography of Ancient Israel, Jerusalem University College
• BA, Religion, George Fox University

Research

William Schniedewind is Professor of Biblical Studies and Northwest Semitic Languages. He was the inaugural holder of the Kershaw Term Chair in Ancient Eastern Mediterranean Studies, and he served as the NELC Department Chair for many years. His books and articles cover a wide range of topics relating to biblical studies, Dead Sea Scrolls, and ancient languages and inscriptions. His research and teaching combines the study of literature, language, and archaeology. At UCLA, he teaches undergraduate classes on “Introduction to Biblical Literature,” “Jerusalem, the Holy City,” “Ancient Israelite Religion,” and “Dead Sea Scrolls and Early Judaism.” His graduate seminars cover the various biblical literature and Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient inscriptions, History of the Hebrew Language, and the Ugaritic language. He has supervised over thirty dissertations for a diverse cohort of students now teaching at colleges and universities throughout the world.

Books

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  Torah: Functions, Meanings, and Diverse Manifestations in Early Judaism and Christianity

  Society of Biblical Literature, 2021

• 

  The Finger of the Scribe: How Scribes Learned to Write the Bible

  Oxford University Press, 2019

• 

  Social History of Hebrew: Its Origins Through the Rabbinic Period

  Yale University Press, 2013

• 

  A Primer on Ugaritic: Language, Culture and Literature

  Cambridge University Press, 2007

• 

  How the Bible Became a Book

  Cambridge University Press, 2004

Additional Books

• Society and the Promise to David: A Reception History of 2 Samuel 7:1-17, Oxford University Press, 1999.
• The Word of God in Transition: From Prophet to Exegete in the Second Temple Period. JSOTSS, 197. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1995.
• Editor, The Tel El-Amarna Correspondence, Volume 1, by Anson F. Rainey. Leiden: Brill, 2015.