George J. Brooke

George John Brooke is an English academic, and is Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis Emeritus at The University of Manchester.

Biography

Brooke was born in Chichester, England, on 27 April 1952. He attended secondary school as an exhibitioner at Wellington College. He studied Theology at St Peter's College, Oxford ; he was awarded a B.A. in 1973 and was awarded both the Junior and Senior Pusey and Ellington Prizes for Biblical Hebrew. After a year at St John's College, Cambridge, where he completed the PGCE, he was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to study for a doctorate at Claremont Graduate School, Claremont, California. He completed his Ph.D. studies in 1977 and graduated in 1978. For 1977-1978 he was Junior Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies. From 1978-1984 he taught the New Testament at Salisbury and Wells Theological College, Salisbury, England, where he also acted as examining chaplain to the Bishop of Salisbury. He was Vice-Principal of the College from 1982-1984.
In 1984 he was appointed as a Lecturer in Intertestamental Literature at The University of Manchester, being promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1994, and to Professor of Biblical Studies in 1997. In 1998 he became the seventh Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis, a post he held until the end of January 2016. He is now Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis Emeritus. He was awarded the D.D. by Oxford University in 2010. He was given an honorary doctorate by the University of Lausanne in 2018. He was awarded the 2024 Burkitt Medal for Biblical Studies by the British Academy.
Since 2015 he has been an Honorary Visiting Professor of Biblical Studies at the University of Chester and since 2024 an External Member of the University of Sheffield Centre for Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies. During his career he has held various visiting appointments. In 1983 he was a Research Scholar at the Ecumenical Institute for Advanced Theological Studies, Tantur, Jerusalem, Israel. In 1992, he was a Senior Research Fellow at the Annenberg Institute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. In 2018 he was the Dirk Smilde Fellow at the Qumran Institute in the Faculty of Religion, Culture and Scoiety, University of Groningen, The Netherlands. In 2018 he was a Visiting Professor in the Faculté de Théologie et Sciences des Religions at the Université de Lausanne, Switzerland. He delivered the Schweich Lectures at the British Academy in 2019.
He has been a member of several professional societies and held positions of responsibility in them. He was President of the British Association for Jewish Studies in 1999, President of the Society for Old Testament Study in 2012, and President of the European Association for Biblical Studies for 2021-2024. He was a member of the Steering Committee of the International Organization for Qumran Studies from 1989 until 2016.
He has participated in consultancy and research assessment, both in the UK and other countries. For 2011–2014 he was a member of HEFCE Research Excellence Framework Sub-Panel 33 for Theology and Religious Studies. For 2013 he was the representative of the Church of England Ministry Division and Archbishops’ Council at the University of Durham Validation Process for Theological Colleges and Courses. For 2017–2022 he was a member and then chair of the International Committee on Scientific and Strategic Orientation, Collège de France, Paris.
He has been on several editorial boards. In 1993 he was a founding editor of the journal Dead Sea Discoveries. Since 1998 he has been on the editorial board of Revue de Qumrân. From 1991-2019 he was an editor of the Journal of Semitic Studies. Since 2012 he has been the Senior Editor of the leading monograph series for the publication of scholarship on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah.
His research has had its focus on the Dead Sea Scrolls. He has published widely on the use of the Jewish scriptures in the Scrolls, on the scriptural manuscripts themselves, on the materiality of the Scrolls, on the relationships between the Scrolls and the New Testament, and on the application of modern methodologies to the study of the Scrolls. He was a member of the Israel Antiquities Authority team of editors of the unpublished Dead Sea Scrolls from 1992-1998. He has supervised more than thirty doctoral and postdoctoral students, seventeen of whom have published their revised theses as monographs.

Principal publications

Authored and co-authored books
The Dead Sea Scrolls and German Scholarship: Thoughts of an Englishman Abroad, xi + 32 pp.
Reading the Dead Sea Scrolls: Essays in Method, xxii + 286
The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament: Essays in Mutual Illumination, xxii + 314 pp. ; US edition: The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament
Qumran and the Jewish Jesus: Reading the New Testament in the Light of the Scrolls, 28 pp.
The Complete World of the Dead Sea Scrolls with Philip R. Davies and Phillip R. Callaway, 216 pp. + 216 illustrations ; German edition: Qumran: Die Schriftrollen vom Toten Meer ; Spanish edition: Los Rollos del Mar Muerto y su mundo ; Dutch edition: De Wereld de Dode Zeerollen ; Hungarian edition: A holt-tengeri tekercsek világa ; Japanese edition: Shikai Bunsho Daihyakka . Revised edition in paperback, 2011.
Isaiah at Qumran: Updating W.H. Brownlee’s ''The Meaning of the Qumrân Scrolls for the Bible, 20 pp.
The Allegro Qumran Collection: Introduction and Catalogue; Microfiches in collaboration with Helen K. Bond, 51 pp. + 30 microfiches.
A Further Fragment of 1QSb: The Schøyen Collection MS 1909 with J.M. Robinson, 19 pp., 2 plates
Exegesis at Qumran: 4QFlorilegium in its Jewish Context, xii + 390 pp.. Reprinted: Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2006
Edited and co-edited books
Missing Pieces: Essays in Honour of Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar, Editor with Arjen Bakker, Bärry Hartog, Hindy Najman, Mladen Popović, and Pierre Van Hecke, xxxviii + 631 pp., 39 figures, 30 tables
Materiality and Textuality in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Essays in Honour of Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar, Editor with Hindy Najman, 142 pp. Special theme issue of Dead Sea Discoveries 30/3
T&T Clark Companion to the Dead Sea Scrolls, Editor with Charlotte Hempel, xiv + 657 pp., 14 illustrations. Reprinted in paperback 2025.
Near Eastern and Arabian Essays: Studies in Honour of John F. Healey, Editor with Adrian H.W. Curtis, M. Al-Hamad, and G. Rex Smith, xx + 313 pp.
Hā-îsh Mōshe: Studies in Scriptural Interpretation in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature in Honor of Moshe J. Bernstein, Editor with B. Goldstein and Michael Segal, xix + 399 pp.
Jewish Education from Antiquity to the Middle Ages: Studies in Honour of Philip S. Alexander, Editor with Renate Smithuis, x + 461 pp.
Goochem in Mokum—Wisdom in Amsterdam: Papers on Biblical and Related Wisdom Read at the Fifteenth Joint Meeting of the Society for Old Testament Study and the Oudtestamentisch Werkgezelschap, Amsterdam, July 2012, Editor with Pierre Van Hecke and with the assistance of Bob Becking and Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar, viii + 182 pp.
On Prophets, Warriors, and Kings: Former Prophets Through the Eyes of Their Interpreters Editor with Ariel Feldman, vi + 268 pp.
The Scrolls and Biblical Traditions: Proceedings of the Seventh Meeting of the IOQS in Helsinki, Editor with Daniel K. Falk, Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar and Molly M. Zahn, viii + 275 pp.
The Mermaid and the Partridge: Essays from the Copenhagen Conference on Revising Texts from Cave Four, Editor with Jesper Høgenhaven, ix + 309 pp..
The Significance of Sinai: Traditions about Divine Revelation in Judaism and Christianity, Editor with Hindy Najman and Loren T. Stuckenbruck, xiv + 386 pp.
Ancient and Modern Scriptural Historiography–L’Historiographie biblique, ancienne et moderne, Editor with Thomas Römer, xxxvii + 371 pp.
Society for Old Testament Study Book List 2006, Editor, vi + 225 pp.
Society for Old Testament Study Book List 2005, Editor with the assistance of Anna Turton, vi + 237 pp.
Studia Semitica: The Journal of Semitic Studies Jubilee Volume, Editor with Philip S. Alexander, Andreas Christmann, John F. Healey, and Philip C. Sadgrove, vii + 303 pp.
Society for Old Testament Study Book List 2004, Editor with the assistance of Anna Turton, vi + 260 pp.
Society for Old Testament Study Book List 2003, Editor with the assistance of Simon G. Adnams, vi + 222 pp.
Society for Old Testament Study Book List 2002, Editor with the assistance of Julie A. Hughes, vi + 271 pp.
Copper Scroll Studies, Editor with Philip R. Davies, xvi + 344 pp.; reprinted in paperback
Society for Old Testament Study Book List 2001, Editor with the assistance of Julie A. Hughes, 190 pp.
Narrativity in Biblical and Related Texts/La Narrativité dans la Bible et les textes apparentés, Editor with Jean-Daniel Kaestli, xxi + 307 pp.
Jewish Ways of Reading the Bible, Editor, vi + 326 pp., 2 plates.
The Birth of Jesus: Biblical and Theological Reflections, Editor, xiii + 141 pp. Published with the aid of a grant from the University of Manchester Research Support Fund.
Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Area Editor, xiv + 1132 pp. in 2 volumes.
Ugarit and the Bible: Proceedings of the International Symposium on Ugarit and the Bible, Manchester, September 1992, Editor with Adrian H.W. Curtis and John F. Healey, x + 470 pp.
New Qumran Texts and Studies: Proceedings of the First Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies, Paris 1992, Editor with the assistance of Florentino García Martínez, xx + 328 pp., 9 plates.
Women in the Biblical Tradition, Editor, ix + 297 pp.
Septuagint, Scrolls and Cognate Writings: Papers Presented to the International Symposium on the Septuagint and Its Relations to the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Writings , Editor with Barnabas Lindars, viii + 657 pp.
Temple Scroll Studies: Papers Presented at the International Symposium on the Temple Scroll '', Editor, 299 pp.