Tessa Rajak (née Goldsmith, born 2 August 1946 in London)[1] is a British historian and Emeritus Professor of Ancient history at the University of Reading.[2] She is also a Senior Associate of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies[3] and Fellow of Somerville College, Oxford.[4] Her research focuses primarily on Judaism in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, and she is an expert on the writings of Josephus.
Tessa Rajak | |
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Born | London, England | 2 August 1946
Known for | Judaism in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. The writings of Josephus. |
Scientific career | |
Fields | History Ancient history |
Institutions | University of Reading |
Tessa Rajak was educated at Somerville College, Oxford, submitting her D.Phil. thesis on 'Flavius Josephus: Jewish History and the Greek World' in the Faculty of Literae Humaniores (Classics) in 1974.[5] She later became Professor of Ancient History at the University of Reading.[6] From 1995–6 she was Grinfield Lecturer on the Septuagint at Oxford; her book Translation and Survival: The Greek Bible of the Ancient Jewish Diaspora (Oxford University Press 2009) is based on the six lectures which she gave during this time.[7] Rajak was editor of the Journal of Jewish Studies from 2000 to 2003.[8] She retired from the University of Reading in December 2008.[9] A symposium in her honour, entitled 'Jews, Christians, Greeks, Romans: Cultural and Religious Interactions', was held at Reading on 25 June 2009.[10] From 2012 to 2015 she was co-investigator (with Professor Martin Goodman and Dr. Andrea Schatz) on a project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and entitled 'The Reception of Josephus in Jewish Culture from the 18th Century to the Present'.[11]
Monographs
Edited volumes
Rajak is the daughter of Lithuanian-English journalist S. J. Goldsmith. She is married to Harry Rajak, Professor Emeritus of Law at the University of Sussex.[12]