AZZAN YADIN

AZZAN YADIN received his B.A. in Philosophy and Jewish Thought from the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and his Ph.D. in Rabbinic Literature from University of California, Berkeley and the Graduate Theological Union, and is an assistant professor in the Department of Jewish Studies of Rutgers University.

Professor Yadin's research focuses on early rabbinic legal interpretation (midrash halakhah), and particularly the relationship between midrash and non-interpretive legal traditions in Tannaitic literature. His first book, Scripture as Logos: Rabbi Ishmael and the Origins of Midrash (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004) explores Rabbi Ishmael hermeneutic within the religious landscape of Second Temple and post-Temple literature. The result is a series of surprising connections between these rabbinic texts and Wisdom literature, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Church Fathers, all of which lead to a radical rethinking of the origins of rabbinic midrash and, indeed, of the Rabbis as a whole. In addition to his work in rabbinics, Professor Yadin has written on the cultural and intellectual context of Jewish literature. His first published article argues that one of the modern Hebrew poet H. N. Bialik's seminal essays is best understood against the backdrop of one of Nietzsche's early works; his most recent article argues that certain sections of the Bible - the David and Goliath story - are in dialogue with the Homeric epic tradition.

Professor Yadin has also translated a number of books into Hebrew, including God in Search of Man by Abraham Joshua Heschel; and Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic and Golem: Jewish Magical and Mystical Traditions on the Artificial Anthropoid, both by Moshe Idel.

He is married and has three children.