Scienceמאיר שטרנברג

Meir Sternberg

Meir Sternberg is an Israeli literary critic and biblical scholar known for his work on narrative theory and the poetics of biblical narrative.

born 1944The Poetics of Biblical NarrativeThe theory of gapsLiterary approach to the BibleEditing Poetics Today

Born: 3 October 1944
Occupation: biblical scholar, literary critic, literary theorist, university teacher

Meir Sternberg was born in 1944

Meir Sternberg was born on October 3, 1944. He is married to Dr. Tamar Yacobi, who also teaches literature at Tel Aviv University, and the couple has 2 children.

Sternberg taught at Tel Aviv University, where he held the Artzt Professorship of Poetics and Comparative Literature. He later became professor emeritus in the departments of literature and Bible. His research covers narratology, poetics, and English and American literature.

In 1978 he published Expositional Modes and Temporal Ordering in Fiction, a study of how the order of information in a text creates curiosity, suspense and surprise. His 1985 book The Poetics of Biblical Narrative presents the Bible as a work shaped by aesthetics, history and ideology, and gives weight to gaps in the narration. With Menahem Perry he wrote essays including a reading of the story of David and Bathsheba that first presented the theory of gaps.

From 1994 to 2016 he edited the academic journal Poetics Today. In 1996 he received the Israel Prize for his work in literary theory.