About the Speaker: J. Edward Wright is Professor of Hebrew Bible and Early Judaism and has served as the Director of the Arizona Center for Judaic Studies at The University of Arizona since 2000. Wright received his Ph.D. from Brandeis University and did additional graduate study at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Harvard Divinity School.
Prof. Wright has received several national and international research fellowships, including a Yad Hanadiv/Barecha (Rothschild) Foundation Fellowship at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Wright has been a Visiting Professor at Dartmouth College, Duke University, and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the immediate past President of the W. F. Albright Institute for Archaeological Research in Jerusalem, and a past President of the Society of Biblical Literature, Pacific Coast Region. Wright is a member of the Board of Advisors of the Museum of Biblical Archaeology. He also serves as a Co-Editor of The Bible and Interpretation website.
Dr. Wright’s area of expertise is early Jewish history and religion with particular interest in early Jewish apocryphal texts. These texts shed light on the non-traditional aspects of early Jewish thought and culture, and through his research Dr. Wright hopes to depict more accurately the rich diversity of Early Judaism. He has written many scholarly and popular articles and is the author or editor of five scholarly volumes.
