Alex P. Jassen is the Ethel and Irvin Edelman Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies and Chair of the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University. He holds a B.A. in Jewish Studies and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from the University of Washington and a Ph.D. in Hebrew and Judaic Studies from New York University. Dr. Jassen previously taught at the University of Minnesota, where he was the recipient of the university’s prestigious McKnight Land-Grant Fellowship. He has published widely on the Dead Sea Scrolls and ancient Judaism and is a member of the international editorial team responsible for publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls. He is the author of Violence, Power, and Society in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Cambridge University Press, in press); Scripture and Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Cambridge University Press, 2014); Mediating the Divine: Prophecy and Revelation in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Second Temple Judaism (Brill, 2007), winner of the 2009 John Templeton Award for Theological Promise; as well as many articles and reviews; and co-editor of Scripture, Violence, and Textual Practice in Early Judaism and Christianity (Brill, 2010). He served as academic advisor for The Dead Sea Scrolls: Words that Changed the World exhibit at the Science Museum of Minnesota. He is a popular lecturer at community centers, synagogues, churches, and museums. Dr. Jassen was featured in CNN’s Finding Jesus: Faith, Fact, Forgery (2017). His work on religious violence has been recognized with a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Full CV is available here.
I consider myself an historian of ideas and of texts in transmission and the social worlds that produced them. The primary object of my investigation is the Dead Sea Scrolls, which are employed as a focal point for further inquiries into the literature of the Hebrew Bible, Second Temple Judaism, early Christianity, and rabbinic Judaism. My research draws on these texts to illuminate how Jews in antiquity adapted biblical ideas and institutions in order to carve out new cultural and religious identities in a world much different from that of their inherited sacred writings. For example, how would Judaism re-envision the biblical promise to King David of a perpetual monarchy, when no Davidic king had ruled for half a millennium and Jews were perennially subject to imperial authority? Jews in antiquity deliberated over this and similar questions as the writings of ancient Israel crystallized into the sacred scripture of ancient Judaism. I am particularly interested in the interplay of authoritative scripture and its reinterpretation. The Dead Sea Scrolls community regarded ancient writings not as static artifacts, but as texts that can—and indeed, must—be enlivened through exegesis. Through this process of creative reinterpretation, readers constructed a new meaning for their sacred texts. In turn, ancient texts retained a central position in social settings much different than those in which they were first produced. My research always begins with careful philological analysis of the relevant textual material. At the same time, I regard the technical aspects of the philological approach as foundational for broader inquiries related to the religious and cultural history of ancient Judaism.
Violence, Power, and Society in the Dead Sea Scrolls
I recently completed a monograph entitled Violence, Power, and Society in the Dead Sea Scrolls (in press with Cambridge University Press). Religious violence, both real and imagined, frames much of the history and worldview of the community associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls. In fall 2007, I co-organized a conference at the University of Minnesota entitled “Sanctified Violence in Ancient Mediterranean Religions.” As I prepared my own paper for the conference, I was surprised to find that nearly all treatments of violence in the scrolls followed more general trends in Dead Sea Scrolls studies—philological and historical analysis of the relevant texts. The few discussions of violence in the Dead Sea Scrolls have tended to generate a synthetic portrait of end-time violence in the scrolls and examine its possible scriptural background and contemporary apocalyptic setting. Treatments of present-time violence directed at the sectarian community generally draw on the relevant texts in order to reconstruct the origins and history of the sectarian community. There is virtually no engagement with important studies on religious violence undertaken in the Social Sciences and the Humanities. As the work of deciphering the scrolls is only now coming to a close, scholars must now look outside the insular world of Dead Sea Scrolls scholarship. My research conducted thus far has identified a number of critical issues and research trajectories that integrate close analysis of the textual data with current scholarship on religious violence and resistance literature. In this project, I hope to move the conversation beyond the prevailing literary and historical emphases in order to examine the social, theological, and ideological setting of violence and power in the Dead Sea Scrolls. In so doing, my goal is determine what this evidence tells us about the rhetorical function of violence as the sectarian community negotiated its disempowered status.
The comprehensive treatment of violence in the Dead Sea Scrolls that I seek to achieve in this study merges the historical-philological approach—the backbone of Dead Sea Scrolls scholarship—with social-scientific approaches. It integrates close analysis of the textual data with important theoretical models drawn from sociology, anthropology, social-psychology, and related fields. In addition to the forthcoming book, I have published several articles that address aspects of my approach. "Violence and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Sectarian Formation and Eschatological Imagination" appeared in a collection of papers from the conference that I co-edited in a special volume of the journal Biblical Interpretation: A Journal of Contemporary Approaches 17:1-2 (2009), re-printed as Violence, Scripture, and Textual Practice in Early Judaism and Christianity (Brill, 2010). I have written a general article on "War and Violence" for the Companion to the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. George J. Brooke and Charlotte Hempel; T & T Clark, 2018). Other published articles devoted to this subject include "Violent Imaginaries and Practical Violence in the War Scroll,” in The War Scroll, War and Peace in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature (ed. Kyung S. Baek, Kipp Davis, Peter W. Flint and Dorothy M. Peters. Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah; Leiden: Brill, 2015), 175–203; and “Prophecy, Power, and Politics in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Second Temple Judaism,” in Divination, Politics, and Ancient Near Eastern Empires (ed. Alan Lenzi and Jonathan Stökl; Ancient Near Eastern Monographs. Atlanta: Society for Biblical Literature, 2014), 171–98.
Stories from the Dead Sea
The major focal point of my current research is the history of scholarship on the Dead Sea Scrolls and Second Temple Judaism. This research project takes as its point of departure the assumption that what is important to a scholarly field is not only the specific objects of inquiry, but also how and why we study those aspects of our field. Of particular significance in this approach is reconstruction of the history of scholarship and the social and often personal factors that lead scholars into particular research agendas and scholarly conclusions. The world of the scholars who once dominated or continue to dominate our fields—and of course the always entertaining academic “gossip”—is itself part of the story of the scholarly process. Moreover, serious inquiry into past research agendas and their intellectual and social settings also has implications for charting future directions of research—either capitalizing on successful approaches of the past or redirecting misguided ones. This line of inquiry has been undertaken quite successfully in fields such as Archaeology, Assyriology, Biblical Studies, and Jewish Studies. In recent years, we have seen the growth of a new subfield within Dead Sea Scrolls scholarship that seeks to tell the story of the scholarly process and the uniquely human backdrop in which we have and continue to study the Dead Sea Scrolls.
My research in this area seeks to illuminate the topics of scholarly inquiry and the scholars engaged in these scholarly pursuits. I have two specific articles that apply this method. “The Early Study of Jewish Law in the Damascus Document: Solomon Schechter and Louis Ginzberg in Conversation and Conflict” tells a story about several intersecting narratives regarding the first Dead Sea Scroll discovered – the Damascus Document. This story involves a colorful cast of scholars who grappled with trying to understand the text’s complex presentation of Jewish law and how this particular issue related to the text’s authorship. I focus on the treatment of these issues by Solomon Schechter and Louis Ginzberg. Several other prominent scholars both in America and elsewhere play supporting roles in the storyline centered around Schechter and Ginzberg. A second article "Violence in the Dead Sea Scrolls in Scholarship and Popular Media" examines the many different ways that both scholars and the popular media tried to understand depictions of violence in the Dead Sea Scrolls. For both articles, my aim is to use storytelling to bring the scrolls and scholars to life. In this sense, the title of my project—Stories from the Dead Sea—hearkens back to Edmund Wilson's article “A Reporter at Large: Scrolls from the Dead Sea” that appeared in the May 14, 1955 issue of The New Yorker. This article was instrumental in bringing the Dead Sea Scrolls to the attention of the general public. My project seeks to illuminate this process while also bringing the story of the scrolls to a new generation of readers.
“Jewish Biblical Interpretation and the Dead Sea Scrolls.” Archaeology Discovery Weekend: The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible, Center for Near Eastern Archaeology, La Sierra University. Riverside, CA. Nov 12, 2023.
“Persecution and Storytelling in the Dead Sea Scrolls.” Biblical Studies in Memory of Baruch A. Levine. New York University. April 7, 2022.
“Publishing in Religious Studies Journals.” Annual Meeting of the American Academic of Religion. San Antonio, TX. November 20, 2021.
“From Qumran to Waco: A Cross-Cultural Understanding of Violence in the Dead Sea Scrolls.” Oxford University. Early Biblical Interpretation Seminar. October 28, 2021.
“The Origins of Violence in the Dead Sea Scrolls: A Sociological Perspective.” The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Second Public Conference. New York University. June 9, 2021.
“Demystifying the Publication Process: What Happens When Your Article is Under Review.” Department of Religion Roundtable Discussion on Journal Publications.” Florida State University. May 7, 2021.
“From Contextless Accounts to Holistic Portraits of Violence: A Sociological Understanding of Violence in the Dead Sea Scrolls.” University of St. Andrews. Hebrew Bible Research Seminar. April 22, 2021.
“The Early Study of Jewish Law in the Damascus Document.” The Dead Sea Scrolls in Recent Scholarship: A Virtual Conference. New York University. May 20, 2020.
“The Discourse of Violence and the Ordering of Sectarian Life.” International Organization for Qumran Studies Congress. Aberdeen, Scotland. August 6, 2019.
“Feeling Persecuted in the Wilderness: The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Narrative of Victimhood.” 16th International Orion Symposium: The Dead Sea Scrolls at Seventy: “Clear a Path in the Wilderness.” Jerusalem, Israel. May 2, 2018.
Participant: Review session on Nathan Mastnjak, Deuteronomy and the Emergence of Textual Authority in Jeremiah (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016). Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting. Boston, MA. November 21, 2017.
“Violence and the Dead Sea Scrolls in Scholarship and Popular Media.” The Dead Sea Scrolls at 70, Lewent Colloquium in Ancient Studies. New York University. November 16, 2017.
“On the Emergence of Jewish Cultural Practice in the Second Century BCE.” Bard Graduate Center. October 11, 2017. Part of Leon Levy Foundation Lectures in Jewish Material Culture: Beyond the Temple: Jewish Households from the Maccabees to the Great Revolt against Rome.
“Respondent” to Andrea Berlin “Mediterranean Cosmopolitans and the Maccabees.” Bard Graduate Center. October 10, 2017. Part of Leon Levy Foundation Lectures in Jewish Material Culture: Beyond the Temple: Jewish Households from the Maccabees to the Great Revolt against Rome.
“Fantasies of Violence in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament.” Reading the New Testament as Second Temple Literature Colloquium. Nyack College. February 10, 2016.
“Violence and the Dead Sea Scrolls.” Yale Divinity School. Yale University. January 27, 2016.
“Prophecy, Priests, and the Temple in the Second Temple Period.” Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. Prophetic Texts and Their Ancient Contexts Section. San Antonio, TX. November 21, 2016.
“The Rise of Authoritative Scripture and Its Interpretation in Ancient Judaism.” Integrating Judaism and Christianity into the Study of the Ancient World. Annual Ranieri Colloquium in Ancient Studies. New York University. March 27, 2015.
“Present-Time Violence in/against the Dead Sea Scrolls Community: Historical Reality or a Narrative of Victimhood?” Humanities Initiative. New York University. February 24, 2015.
"Jeremiah's Lineage in Rabbinic Midrashic Tradition." International Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. Vienna, Austria. July 7, 2014.
“Was There a Biblical Canon in Second Temple Judaism?” Response to Cana Werman, “Canon and Scripture in Light of a Passage in the Damascus Document.” Yeshiva University. Yeshiva University Dead Sea Scrolls Seminar. March 25, 2014.
“Violence, Power, and Resistance in the Dead Sea Scrolls.” Yeshiva University Dead Sea Scrolls Seminar. Yeshiva University. March 12, 2013.
“The Legacy of Prophecy in Early Judaism.” The Trouble with the Prophets, Prophecy, and Prophetic Literature of the Hebrew Bible. University of Chicago. February 7, 2013.
“Rethinking the Origins of the Bible in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls.” University of British Columbia. Vancouver, BC. November 8, 2012.
“The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Lost Library of Qumran: The Bible and Its Reception.” The Buried Book: The Surprising Impact of the Folded, Spindled, and Mutilated. University of Minnesota. April 5, 2012.
“The Laws of the Damascus Document in Literary and Exegetical Context: The Restriction on Sabbath Speech in CD 10:17-19 and 4Q264a 1 i 5-8.” Annual Meeting of the Association for Jewish Studies. Washington, D.C. December 20, 2011
“The Exegetical Foundations of the Wood and Oil Festivals in 4QReworked Pentateuch (4Q365 23) and the Emergence of Scripture in the Second Temple Period.” Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. Qumran Section. San Francisco, CA. November 20, 2011.
“Panel Respondent,” Text, Authority, and Interpretation in the Worlds of Hellenism and Early Judaism: A panel discussion in Classical and Near Eastern Studies. University of Minnesota. April 29, 2011.
“The Study of Jewish Law (Halakhah) in the Dead Sea Scrolls: From Schechter to Schiffman.” Teaching Texts and Traditions: A Special Colloquium and Celebration in Honor of Lawrence H. Schiffman. New York University. April 6, 2011.
“What are the Dead Sea Scrolls and Why are They Important.” Gustavus Adolphus College. March 10, 2011.
“Exegesis and Eschatology in Pesher Isaiah A (4Q161).” Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. Qumran Section. Atlanta, GA. November 23, 2010.
“The Dead Sea Scrolls and the History of Judaism.” Gustavus Adolphus College. November 1, 2010.
“Toward a History of Jewish Law and Legal Exegesis: The Restriction on Thoughts on the Sabbath in Historical and Comparative Perspective." New York University. October 21, 2010.
"A History of Jewish Law and Legal Interpretation from Ezra to the Rabbis: The Case of the Wood Offering Festival.” Yeshiva University. October 21, 2010.
“Prohibited Speech on the Sabbath in the Dead Sea Scrolls: The Damascus Document and 4QHalakha B in Comparison.” International Organization for Qumran Studies Congress. Helsinki, Finland. August 4, 2010.
“What are the Dead Sea Scrolls and Why are they Important.” Institute for Advanced Study. The University of Minnesota. March 24, 2010.
“The Dead Sea Scrolls and the History of Halakhah (Jewish Law): The Restriction on Thoughts about Labor on the Sabbath.” Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion. March 22, 2010.
“The Origins and Development of Sabbath Law in Second Temple Judaism.” Annual John Cardinal Cody Colloquium. Loyola University Chicago. March 16, 2010.
“The Origins of Rabbinic Judaism.” Judson University. March 16, 2010.
“What Happens to Prophecy after ‘The Prophets’” University of Washington. February 18, 2010.
“Prophecy and Law in Ancient Judaism.” Philadelphia Seminar on Christian Origins. University of Pennsylvania. January 14, 2010.
“The Dead Sea Scrolls and the History of Prophecy in Judaism.” University of Pennsylvania. January 14, 2010.
“Connecting the Dots in the History of Halakhah: The Restriction on Thinking about Labor on the Sabbath in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Ancient Judaism.” Annual Meeting of the Association for Jewish Studies. Los Angeles, CA. December 20, 2009.
“From Malachi to Matthew: What Happens to Prophecy between the Testaments?” St. Mary’s University. October 19, 2009.
“Rereading 4QpIsa A (4Q161) Forty Years after DJD 5.” Qumran Cave 4 Texts Reconsidered: International Symposium on Dead Sea Scrolls. Copenhagen, Denmark, June 17, 2009.
“New Models for Understanding Violence in the Dead Sea Scrolls.” John Templeton Award for Theological Promise Colloquium. Heidelberg, Germany. May 25, 2009.
“Deciphering a Dead Sea Scroll and Reconstructing the History of Jewish Liturgy.” Center for Jewish Studies Colloquium. University of Minnesota. Minneapolis, MN. April 22, 2009.“Reading the Binding of Isaac in the Classroom” (With Thomas Pepper—professor of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature). Religious Studies Teaching Colloquium. University of Minnesota. March 26, 2009.
“A New Suggestion for the Reconstruction of 4Q370 1 2 and Its Implications for the Blessing of the Divine Name in the Birkat Hammazon (Grace after Meals).” Annual Meeting of the Association for Jewish Studies. Washington, D.C. December 21, 2008.
“What Word Exactly Cannot be Spoken? Isaiah 58:13 and the Sabbath Prohibition on Business Related Speech in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Jubilees, and Rabbinic Literature.” Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. Biblical Law Section. Boston, MA. November 25, 2008.
“Transformative Hermeneutics and Violence in the Dead Sea Scrolls.” Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. Qumran Section. Boston, MA. November 24, 2008.
“Jewish Legal Exegesis in Comparative Context: Restriction of Mental Thoughts on the Sabbath in Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism.” Midwest Jewish Studies Association Annual Conference with DePaul University College of Law Center for Jewish Law and Judaic Studies. Chicago, IL. October 29, 2008.
“Gender and Sexuality in Medieval Kabbalah.” Annual Goodman Lecture. The College of St. Catherine. April 2, 2008.
“What’s in a Parallel? Comparative Midrash and the Origins of the Flood.” Annual Meeting of the Upper Midwest Regional Society of Biblical Literature. Early Judaism Section. St. Paul, MN. March 28, 2008.
“The Contribution of the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Study of Prophecy in Ancient Judaism.” Dead Sea Scrolls at 60: The Scholarly Contributions of NYU Faculty and Alumni. New York University. March 7, 2008.
“Prophecy after “The Prophets”: The Dead Sea Scrolls and the History of Prophecy in Judaism.” The Dead Sea Scrolls in Context. Vienna, Austria. February 12, 2008.
“Law and Exegesis at Qumran: The Sabbath Carrying Prohibition in Comparative Perspective.” Annual Meeting of the Association for Jewish Studies. Toronto, ON. December 17, 2007.
“The Origins of the Flood in Second Temple and Rabbinic Traditions.” Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. Midrash Section. San Diego, CA. November 18, 2007.
“Scripture, Tradition, and the Hermeneutics of Violence in the Dead Sea Scrolls.” Sanctified Violence in Ancient Mediterranean Religions: Discourse, Ritual, Community. University of Minnesota. Minneapolis, MN. October 7, 2007.
“The Messianic Herald Once More: The Evidence from Qumran.” Annual Meeting of the Upper Midwest Regional Society of Biblical Literature. Gospels Section. St. Paul, MN. April 14, 2007.
“Toward the Study of Prophecy in Judaism: Prophets and Prophecy in the Qumran Community.” Annual Meeting of the Association for Jewish Studies. San Diego, CA. December 17, 2006.
“‘As it is Written in the Prophets’: The Use and Application of Prophetic Scripture in Qumran Legal Texts.” Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. Qumran Section. Washington, D.C. November 19, 2006.
“Mediating the Divine: Prophets, Prophecy and Revelation at Qumran.” Coffee Hour Presentation. The Orion Center for Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, the Hebrew University. Jerusalem, Israel. January 10, 2006.
“The ‘Re’–presentation of Prophecy in the Parabiblical Texts from Qumran.” Annual Meeting of the Association for Jewish Studies. Washington D.C. December 19, 2005.
“Law and Prophecy at Qumran: The Conceptualization of the Classical Prophets as Lawgivers in the Dead Sea Scrolls.” Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. Qumran Section. Philadelphia, PA. November 20, 2005.
“Prophets and Prophetic Traditions in the Dead Sea Scrolls.” American Academy of Jewish Research Summer Graduate Seminar. Yale University. June 28, 2005.
“Literary and Historical Studies in the Samuel Apocryphon (4Q160).” Annual Meeting of the Association for Jewish Studies. Chicago, IL. December 20, 2004.
“Modes of Biblical Interpretation in the Samuel Apocryphon (4Q160).” Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. Qumran Section. San Antonio, TX. November 21, 2004.