Edward L. Greenstein


Edward L. Greenstein is an American–Israeli bible scholar and professor emeritus of Bible at Bar‑Ilan University. Known for his philological and literary analysis of the Hebrew Bible within its Ancient Near Eastern context, Greenstein’s work spans translations, academic publications, and mentorship of future scholars.
Greenstein is best known for his studies on the Book of Job, for which he was awarded Israel’s EMET Prize in Biblical Studies in 2020.

Education

Greenstein attended Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary where he earned dual B.A. and B.H.L. degrees in 1970. He completed an M.A.,and M.Phil, and his Ph.D. in Ancient Semitic Languages and Cultures at Columbia. He wrote his dissertation entitled Phonological Studies in Akkadian under the direction of Moshe Held, Professor of Semitic languages and cultures at Columbia University, and guidance from professor Joseph L. Malone, a Semitic linguist at Columbia University and Barnard College, and professor David Marcus, a scholar of Bible and Masorah at JTS.

Academic career

Greenstein joined the faculty of the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1976 rising through the ranks to become Full Professor of Bible. Greenstein served as Chair of the Department of Bible. Greenstein moved to Tel Aviv University in 1996 as Professor of Bible where he served as Chair. Greenstein joined Bar‑Ilan University as Full Professor of Bible in 2006, and he also directed the Institute for Jewish Biblical Interpretation and held the Meiser Chair in Biblical Studies.
Greenstein taught as a guest lecturer at Yale, Princeton, Hebrew University, Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary.
Greenstein retired from Bar-Ilan University in 2017 but continued to head the interdisciplinary graduate Program in Hermeneutics and Cultural Studies until 2019.
Greenstein's research spans numerous areas, including ancient textual studies, the literary and linguistic study of ancient Semitic and biblical literature, postmodern interpretation, biblical philology, ancient Semitic languages, and literary criticism. Greenstein pioneered the application of newly developing disciplines, such as reader response theory, psycholinguistics, and deconstruction and for integrating them into biblical interpretation. Greenstein edited the Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society for several years as well as the Society of Biblical Literature’s Semeia Studies book series.
Greenstein is best known for his studies on the Book of Job, culminating decades of research with a newly annotated translation of Job published in 2019.
In 2020, he was awarded Israel’s prestigious EMET Prize in Biblical Studies, citing his “revolutionary” work on Job and his studies on the Canaanite background of biblical literature.
In recognition of his extensive work, Greenstein was presented with a two-volume Festschrift entitled Ve-’Ed Ya‘aleh : Essays in Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies Presented to Edward L. Greenstein in 2021, written by over fifty colleagues.
His research has been supported by the National Endowment of the Humanities, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, and the Israel Science Foundation.
Greenstein has supervised over 37 doctoral theses across a spectrum of fields including wisdom literature, narrative, law, and ancient Near Eastern texts.
Greenstein continues to write and lecture on a variety of topics for various print and online publications including 929, myJewishlearning, and Beit Avichai. Greenstein has produced several video lectures and podcasts on Biblical interpretation, among them is his most viewed lecture on the interpretation of the Gilgamesh Epic, on the Bar-Ilan YouTube channel.

Awards and honors

  • EMET Prize in the Humanities – Biblical Studies
  • Jordan Schnitzer Book Award for Job
  • Honorary Doctorate in Hebrew Letters from the Jewish Theological Seminary
  • Fellowships: National Endowment for the Humanities, Guggenheim Foundation, Institute for Advanced Studies, Israel Science Foundation
  • Rector’s Prize for Innovative Research, Bar‑Ilan University.

    Service and Editorial Roles

  • Editor of the Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society
  • Edited the Society of Biblical Literature’s Semeia Studies series
  • Chaired various academic bodies including Ugaritic Studies Group, Columbia Hebrew Bible seminar, and Israel’s Assyriology association

    Selected Podcasts

  • “Shemot” , , with Simon Eder.
  • “Noach” . with Simon Eder.
  • “Shemini” , .
  • “Learning as a Lifelong Experience” , Jewish Theological Seminary.
  • “, with Joshua Noel and Pastor Will Rose, Episode 148.
  • “A New Interpretation of the Book of Job,” Bar-Da’at, Bar-Ilan University.
  • “ with Nathan Gilmour.
  • “The Right Job for the Task,” Conversations on the Edge with Rami Shapiro.
  • “ ,  
  • Feminist Interpretation of the Bible—Peshat or Derash?”
  • ,
  • , Sefaria
YouTube Lectures
  • .
  • / Tanakh 929.
  • “Fugitive Hero Narratives in the Bible and the Ancient Near East,” a 10 part series, Beit Avi Chai, Jerusalem.
  • / Tanakh 929.
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  • “Feminist Interpretation of the Bible—Peshat or Derash?”.
  • ““On Dream Interpretation in the Ancient Near East and the Bible”.
  • . “The Enumeration of Divine Attributes and their Parody in the Discourses of Job”.
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  • “The Postmodern Study of the Bible and Jewish Hermeneutics”.