Religionמשה גרינברג

Moshe Greenberg

Moshe Greenberg was an American-born rabbi and Bible scholar who taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and received the Israel Prize in 1994.

1928 to 2010Research on biblical religion and lawCommentaries on Exodus and EzekielThe 1994 Israel Prize

Born: 10 July 1928, Philadelphia
Died: 15 May 2010, Jerusalem
Occupation: Judaic scholar, translator, university teacher, biblical scholar
Education: Jewish Theological Seminary of America

Moshe Greenberg was born in 1928 in Philadelphia

Moshe Greenberg was born in Philadelphia in 1928. He grew up in a Hebrew-speaking Zionist home. His father, Rabbi Simon Greenberg, was a leader of the Conservative movement, and a private tutor taught him Hebrew, Bible and Hebrew literature from a young age.

He studied Bible and Assyriology at the University of Pennsylvania under E. A. Speiser and earned his doctorate there in 1954. At the same time he studied Judaica at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, where he was ordained as a rabbi.

He taught Bible and Judaica at the University of Pennsylvania from 1964 to 1970. In 1970 he moved to Jerusalem and joined the Hebrew University, where he held a chair in Jewish studies. He also taught at Swarthmore College, the Jewish Theological Seminary and the University of California, Berkeley.

His research dealt with religion and law in the Bible, methods of interpreting biblical texts, and the place of the Bible in Jewish thought. In his commentaries on Exodus and Ezekiel he read biblical books as complete, planned works. He was editor-in-chief of the Ketuvim section of a new English Bible translation by the Jewish Publication Society.

He was married to Evelyn and had three sons. He died at his home in Jerusalem in 2010.