“Different texts speak with different voices. Paying attention to these differences between different writings really helps to illumine the history of early Judaism,” said Gary Knoppers, John A. O’Brien Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame.
Knoppers, whose research focuses on ancient Israelite history, is currently writing commentaries of 2 Chronicles and 1 and 2 Kings, Biblical texts authored during the Babylonian exile. Those writings, he said, portray “people wrestling with issues of imperial control, with relations between religion and politics and society—and I think, in some ways, (these issues) are important in an ancient context but also are important today.”
He is a past president of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies and past president of the Biblical Colloquium. His recent monograph, Jews and Samaritans: The Origins and History of Their Early Relations (Oxford University Press, 2013) received the 2014 R.B.Y Scott Award for Outstanding Book in Old Testament and Ancient Near Eastern Studies.
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