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Our new knowledge of Torah in this extraordinary generation, thanks to archaeology and new understandings in almost every area of the Bible, can be a comfort in this moment – and for long into the future. An opportunity to learn from one of the great teachers of our time. Author of the bestselling, most-assigned book on the Bible (Who Wrote the Bible?). A scholar who “addresses the fundamental moral and religious issues that confront the present malaise and future survival of our species.”
All episodes of “Richard Elliott Friedman: Return to Torah” © 2020 Richard Elliott Friedman
RICHARD ELLIOTT FRIEDMAN is one of the premier bible scholars in the country. He earned his doctorate at Harvard and was a visiting fellow at Oxford and Cambridge, a Senior Fellow of the American Schools of Oriental Research in Jerusalem, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Haifa. He is the Ann & Jay Davis Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Georgia and the Katzin Professor of Jewish Civilization Emeritus of the University of California, San Diego. He is the author of Commentary on the Torah, The Exodus, The Disappearance of God, The Hidden Book in the Bible, The Bible with Sources Revealed, The Bible Now, The Exile and Biblical Narrative, and the bestselling Who Wrote the Bible? He was a consultant for the Dreamworks film “The Prince of Egypt,” for Alice Hoffman’s The Dovekeepers, and for NBC, A&E, PBS, and Nova.
To learn more with and from Richard Elliott Friedman, check out these resources:
The single most interesting mind working on the Bible in any language today.” —Jacob Neusner
“Friedman is one of the greatest biblical scholars of our age.” —Conservative Judaism
“Friedman has had a place in the company of the great scholars of the recent past; now we find him another place of equal value and importance among an older generation of legendary commentators on the Hebrew Scriptures: Kimhi and Abarbanel, Rashbam and Nachmanides, and that perennial master of the written Word, Rashi.” —David Noel Freedman
“As exceptional for the 2000’s as Rashi was for the 1000’s, this is the definitive Jewish commentary on the Five Books of Moses.”—Baruch Halpern
“Like the prototypical commentator, Rashi, Richard Friedman conveys a vast amount of learning with a light touch. His translations are fresh and vibrant. His masterful commentary blends scholarly precision, literary sensitivity and spiritual reflection.” —Daniel Matt
“This is the way to study Torah! Friedman models for us the most intelligent—and traditional—way to make the Torah live in our own lives.”
—Elliot Dorff
“Richard Elliott Friedman is that rare biblical scholar who is both able to address a broad audience and willing to raise large speculative issues about the Bible.” —Robert Alter
“With a dazzling display of deep learning lightly presented, Friedman addresses the fundamental moral and religious issues which confront the present malaise and future survival of our species. If we listen, there is hope.”
—H.G.M. Williamson, Regius Professor of Hebrew Emeritus, Oxford University