Scriptural Vitality and the Shaping of Jewish Tradition

Hindy Najman at UC Berkeley, October 16, 2025.

This talk focuses on rethinking methodological presuppositions that are central to the field of biblical studies. A central theme is the importance and centrality of the Hellenistic period for understanding the vitality of Judaism. In contrast to standard views, Najman claims that this period is one of the most important and formative periods for the history of Judaism. The language she employs is that of vitality; this is intended to signal the transformative and life-giving dynamic of a Judaism that continued to configure itself and its texts over time and in the face of great loss and the threat of destruction. This dynamic and resilient nature is exemplified by a whole host of texts across the Second Temple period. Judaism is framed by a past and a future which are textual. Through the convergence of cultures in the Hellenistic period, Scriptural traditions create patterns for the shaping of law, interpretation, and new conceptual innovation.

Hindy Najman (MA and PhD Harvard, NELC 1998) is the Oriel and Laing Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture and a fellow at Oriel College. She is the director and founder of the Centre for the Study of the Bible in Oriel College. In the University of Oxford, she is a member of the faculty of Theology and Religion, Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, and member of the Sub-faculty Classics, and a member of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. Prior to her joining the faculty in Oxford, she has held posts at the University of Notre Dame, University of Toronto, and Yale University. Her areas of research are entanglement of Ancient Culture; Reading Practices in Jewish Antiquity; Comparative Philology; Performance; Formation of the Self and the Subject; Collection and Canon; Authority and Author Function; Biblical Figures and Exemplarity; Practices of Pseudepigraphy and Pseudonymous Attribution; Revelation; Diaspora and Exile; Trauma Studies; and Nature and Law. Her major publications include Scriptural Vitality: Rethinking Hermeneutics and Philology (Oxford University Press, 2025); Losing the Temple and Recovering the Future: An Analysis of 4 Ezra (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014); Past Renewals: Interpretive Authority, Renewed Revelation, and the Quest for Perfection (Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 53. Leiden: Brill, 2010); Seconding Sinai: The Development of Mosaic Discourse in Second Temple Judaism (Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 77. Leiden: Brill, 2003). She has published 65 articles and has edited 24 volumes. She has contributed as editor and associate editor to a variety of journals and book series, among them are Journal of Biblical Literature; Dead Sea Discoveries and the Journal for the Study of Judaism Supplement Series. Her current projects are on Pluriformity and Hermeneutics, Metathinking in Ancient Judaism, and Aesthetics and Poetics in ancient Jewish Song.