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David Flusser

David Flusser was an Israeli historian and professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who studied early Christianity and Judaism of the Second Temple period.

1917 to 2000Jewish roots of early ChristianityDead Sea Scrolls researchEdition of the Book of Yosippon

Born: 15 September 1917, Vienna
Died: 15 September 2000, Jerusalem
Occupation: historian of religion, university teacher, historian, religious studies scholar
Education: Charles University

David Flusser was born in 1917 in Vienna

David Flusser was born in Vienna in 1917. He grew up in Czechoslovakia, and his cousin was Vilém Flusser. As a boy his parents sent him to a Christian school.

From 1936 to 1939 he studied classical philology and German studies at the University of Prague. There a pastor, Josef Perl, drew his interest to Jesus and Christianity. In 1939 he moved to the Land of Israel, continued his studies at the Hebrew University and received his doctorate there in 1957.

He became an observant Orthodox Jew and taught comparative religion at the Hebrew University, becoming associate professor in 1962 and full professor in 1971. He studied the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Qumran sect and the Jewish roots of Christianity, and saw Jesus as a Jew. He published over 1,000 articles and edited the medieval Book of Yosippon, a task he finished in 1982.

He was a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and received the Israel Prize in 1980 and the Rothschild Prize. He was married to Chana and had 2 sons. He died in Jerusalem in 2000, and streets in Jerusalem and Beersheba bear his name.