Christine Hayes
Encyclopedia
Christine Hayes is the Robert F. and Patricia Ross Weis Professor of Religious Studies at Yale University
, Chair of the Department of Religious Studies, and one of the foremost American academics focusing on talmudic-midrashic studies and Classical Judaica. She is also a specialist in the History and Literature of Judaism in Late Antiquity. Before her appointment at Yale, she served as the Assistant Professor of Hebrew Studies, Department of Near Eastern Studies, at Princeton University
from 1993 to 1996. She has published several books and numerous articles in American and international academic journals, and has received academic accolades. Her class on the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) was selected for the pilot program of “Yale University Open Courses,” (www.oyc.yale) and has subsequently been one of the most watched online courses about Classical Judaica.
in 1984. She subsequently received an M.A. with distinction from the University of California, Berkeley
in 1988 which included a year of graduate work at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
. She received her PhD. in Talmudic and Judaic Studies (Department of Near Eastern Studies) from the University of California, Berkeley in 1993. She won a New Directions Fellowship from the Mellon Foundation, and as a result Hayes spent 2005-2006 at the Yale Law School
, where she studied and worked on her forthcoming scholarly book. In 2008, Hayes was elected to the American Academy of Jewish Research and since 2009, she has been an Affiliated Scholar with the Center for Jewish Law and Contemporary Civilization, Cardozo Law School.
Gentile Impurities and Jewish Identities: Intermarriage and Conversion from the Bible to the Talmud, Oxford University Press, 2002, a finalist for the 2003 National Jewish Book Award in Scholarship.
The Emergence of Judaism, Greenwood Press, 2006.
The Emergence of Judaism: Classical Traditions in Contemporary Perspectives. Textbook with online component. Fortress Press, 2010.
In progress: What’s so Divine About Divine Law? Ancient Perspectives.
“Legal Realism and Sectarian Self-Fashioning in Jewish Antiquity,” in Sects and Sectarianism in Jewish History, University College London (2010).
“Legal Truth, Right Answers and Best Answers: Dworkin and the Rabbis” in Dine Yisrael: Studies in Halakhah and Jewish Law 25 (2008) 73-121.
“What is (the) Mishnah? Concluding Observations” in Association for Jewish Studies Review 32 (2008) 2:291-97.
“Rabbinic Contestations of Authority.” Cardozo Law Review 28:1 (2006) 123-141. Text, Tradition, and Reason in Comparative Perspective, ed. Suzanne Last Stone and Adam Seligmann.
“Golden Calf Stories: The Relationship of Ex 32 and Deuteteronomy 9-10” in The Idea of Biblical Interpretation, ed. Hindy Najman and Judith H. Newman (Leiden: Brill, 2004) 45-94.
"Genealogy, Illegitimacy, and Personal Status: The Yerushalmi in Comparative Perspective." The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-Roman Culture, III ed. P. Schäfer (Tubingen: J.C.B.Mohr, 2003) 73-90.
“Do Converts to Judaism Require Purification? M. Pes 8:8 -- An Interpretative Crux Solved.” Jewish Studies Quarterly, 9 (2002) 4: 327-352
"Halakhah le-Moshe mi-Sinai in Rabbinic Sources: A Methodological Case Study." The Synoptic Problem in Rabbinic Literature, ed. Shaye J. D. Cohen (Providence, RI: Brown Judaic Studies). 2000:61-118.
"Intermarriage and Impurity in Ancient Jewish Sources." Harvard Theological Review 92:1 (1999) 3-36.
"The Abrogation of Torah Law: Rabbinic Taqqanah and Praetorian Edict." The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-Roman Culture, ed. P. Schäfer (Tubingen: J.C.B.Mohr). 1998:643-674.
"Displaced Self-Perceptions: The Deployment of Minim and Romans in Bavli Sanhedrin 90b-91a." Religious and Ethnic Communities in Later Roman Palestine. Ed. Hayim Lapin. 1998:249-289.
"The Midrashic Career of the Confession of Judah (Genesis xxxviii 26), Part I: The Extra-Canonical Texts, Targums and Other Versions." Vetus Testamentum 45/1 (1995) 62-81.
"The Midrashic Career of the Confession of Judah (Genesis xxxviii 26), Part II: The Rabbinic Midrashim." Vetus Testamentum 45/2 (1995) 174-187.
2003 National Jewish Book Award finalist in the category of scholarship, for Gentile Impurities and Jewish Identities (Oxford, 2002).
The Salo Baron Prize for a first book in Jewish Thought and Literature, presented by the American Academy of Jewish Research, 1999.
Hilles Publication Grant, 2001
Lucius Littauer Foundation Publication Grant, 2001
Morse Research Fellowship, Yale University, 1998-1999 academic year.
U.C. Chancellor's Dissertation Year Fellowship, 1992-93.
Charlotte Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, 1991-92.
Taubman Fellowship for Talmudic Studies, 1990-91.
Elected to the American Academy of Jewish Research, June, 2008
Sidonie Miskimin Clauss Prize for Teaching Excellence in the Humanities at Yale, 2005
Editorial Board Member, Brown Judaic Studies (peer-reviewed monograph series)
Advisory Board, Yale Judaica Series, Yale University Press.
Affiliated Scholar, Center for Jewish Law and Contemporary Civilization, Cardozo Law School, 2009-present
Affiliated Fellow, The Tikvah Center for Law and Jewish Civilization, New York University, 2009-present
Editor (Rabbinics section), Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception, 2011-present
Editorial Board, Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum, 2010-present
Conference Program Committee Member, Association for Jewish Studies. 1994-present
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, Chair of the Department of Religious Studies, and one of the foremost American academics focusing on talmudic-midrashic studies and Classical Judaica. She is also a specialist in the History and Literature of Judaism in Late Antiquity. Before her appointment at Yale, she served as the Assistant Professor of Hebrew Studies, Department of Near Eastern Studies, at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
from 1993 to 1996. She has published several books and numerous articles in American and international academic journals, and has received academic accolades. Her class on the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) was selected for the pilot program of “Yale University Open Courses,” (www.oyc.yale) and has subsequently been one of the most watched online courses about Classical Judaica.
Early Education
Hayes received her B.A. summa cum laude in The Study of Religion from Harvard UniversityHarvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
in 1984. She subsequently received an M.A. with distinction from the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
in 1988 which included a year of graduate work at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...
. She received her PhD. in Talmudic and Judaic Studies (Department of Near Eastern Studies) from the University of California, Berkeley in 1993. She won a New Directions Fellowship from the Mellon Foundation, and as a result Hayes spent 2005-2006 at the Yale Law School
Yale Law School
Yale Law School, or YLS, is the law school of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Established in 1824, it offers the J.D., LL.M., J.S.D. and M.S.L. degrees in law. It also hosts visiting scholars, visiting researchers and a number of legal research centers...
, where she studied and worked on her forthcoming scholarly book. In 2008, Hayes was elected to the American Academy of Jewish Research and since 2009, she has been an Affiliated Scholar with the Center for Jewish Law and Contemporary Civilization, Cardozo Law School.
Books
Between the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds, Oxford University Press, 1997, awarded the Salo Baron Prize for a first book in Jewish Thought and Literature by the American Academy for Jewish Research, 1999.Gentile Impurities and Jewish Identities: Intermarriage and Conversion from the Bible to the Talmud, Oxford University Press, 2002, a finalist for the 2003 National Jewish Book Award in Scholarship.
The Emergence of Judaism, Greenwood Press, 2006.
The Emergence of Judaism: Classical Traditions in Contemporary Perspectives. Textbook with online component. Fortress Press, 2010.
In progress: What’s so Divine About Divine Law? Ancient Perspectives.
Other Publications
“Theoretical Pluralism in the Talmud: A Response to Richard Hidary,” in Dine Yisrael: Studies in Halakhah and Jewish Law 25 (2010).“Legal Realism and Sectarian Self-Fashioning in Jewish Antiquity,” in Sects and Sectarianism in Jewish History, University College London (2010).
“Legal Truth, Right Answers and Best Answers: Dworkin and the Rabbis” in Dine Yisrael: Studies in Halakhah and Jewish Law 25 (2008) 73-121.
“What is (the) Mishnah? Concluding Observations” in Association for Jewish Studies Review 32 (2008) 2:291-97.
“Rabbinic Contestations of Authority.” Cardozo Law Review 28:1 (2006) 123-141. Text, Tradition, and Reason in Comparative Perspective, ed. Suzanne Last Stone and Adam Seligmann.
“Golden Calf Stories: The Relationship of Ex 32 and Deuteteronomy 9-10” in The Idea of Biblical Interpretation, ed. Hindy Najman and Judith H. Newman (Leiden: Brill, 2004) 45-94.
"Genealogy, Illegitimacy, and Personal Status: The Yerushalmi in Comparative Perspective." The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-Roman Culture, III ed. P. Schäfer (Tubingen: J.C.B.Mohr, 2003) 73-90.
“Do Converts to Judaism Require Purification? M. Pes 8:8 -- An Interpretative Crux Solved.” Jewish Studies Quarterly, 9 (2002) 4: 327-352
"Halakhah le-Moshe mi-Sinai in Rabbinic Sources: A Methodological Case Study." The Synoptic Problem in Rabbinic Literature, ed. Shaye J. D. Cohen (Providence, RI: Brown Judaic Studies). 2000:61-118.
"Intermarriage and Impurity in Ancient Jewish Sources." Harvard Theological Review 92:1 (1999) 3-36.
"The Abrogation of Torah Law: Rabbinic Taqqanah and Praetorian Edict." The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-Roman Culture, ed. P. Schäfer (Tubingen: J.C.B.Mohr). 1998:643-674.
"Displaced Self-Perceptions: The Deployment of Minim and Romans in Bavli Sanhedrin 90b-91a." Religious and Ethnic Communities in Later Roman Palestine. Ed. Hayim Lapin. 1998:249-289.
"The Midrashic Career of the Confession of Judah (Genesis xxxviii 26), Part I: The Extra-Canonical Texts, Targums and Other Versions." Vetus Testamentum 45/1 (1995) 62-81.
"The Midrashic Career of the Confession of Judah (Genesis xxxviii 26), Part II: The Rabbinic Midrashim." Vetus Testamentum 45/2 (1995) 174-187.
Awards
New Directions Fellowship from the Mellon Foundation, to support a year of study at the Yale School of Law in 2005-2006.2003 National Jewish Book Award finalist in the category of scholarship, for Gentile Impurities and Jewish Identities (Oxford, 2002).
The Salo Baron Prize for a first book in Jewish Thought and Literature, presented by the American Academy of Jewish Research, 1999.
Hilles Publication Grant, 2001
Lucius Littauer Foundation Publication Grant, 2001
Morse Research Fellowship, Yale University, 1998-1999 academic year.
U.C. Chancellor's Dissertation Year Fellowship, 1992-93.
Charlotte Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, 1991-92.
Taubman Fellowship for Talmudic Studies, 1990-91.
Elected to the American Academy of Jewish Research, June, 2008
Sidonie Miskimin Clauss Prize for Teaching Excellence in the Humanities at Yale, 2005
Professional Affiliations and Service
Board Member, Association for Jewish Studies. 2001-2003Editorial Board Member, Brown Judaic Studies (peer-reviewed monograph series)
Advisory Board, Yale Judaica Series, Yale University Press.
Affiliated Scholar, Center for Jewish Law and Contemporary Civilization, Cardozo Law School, 2009-present
Affiliated Fellow, The Tikvah Center for Law and Jewish Civilization, New York University, 2009-present
Editor (Rabbinics section), Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception, 2011-present
Editorial Board, Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum, 2010-present
Conference Program Committee Member, Association for Jewish Studies. 1994-present