Richard Elliott Friedman

Richard Elliott Friedman earned his doctorate at Harvard University, after which he was a Visiting Fellow at Cambridge and Oxford as well as a Senior Fellow of the American Schools of Oriental Research in Jerusalem. He has participated in the City of David Project, and is currently the Ann and Jay Davis Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Georgia as well as the Katzin Professor of Jewish Civilization Emeritus of the University of California, San Diego. He has been an American Council of Learned Societies Fellow, was elected to membership in the Biblical Colloquium and was president of the Biblical Colloquium West.

Professor Friedman is the author of seven books and the editor of four; he has also authored over sixty-five articles, reviews, and notes in academic books and journals. His books have been translated into Hebrew, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, Polish, Hungarian, Dutch, Portuguese, Czech, Turkish, Korean and French. He has been interviewed by CNN’s Larry King and has appeared on NPR’s “All Things Considered” and “Talk of the Nation.” Articles and citations of his work have appeared in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, U.S. News & World Report, Time, New York Daily News, Newsweek, Commentary, Commonweal, The Atlantic Monthly, The Forward, Moment, The Jerusalem Post, and Ha’aretz. He was a consultant for the Dreamworks film The Prince of Egypt for NBC, The Eternal Light and Mysteries of the Bible for A&E, Who Wrote the Bible? for the PBS series “Nova,” The Bible Revealed for European television’s ARTE, and The Kingdom of David for PBS.

Presenter at

Bible and Archaeology Fest XIII, November 19-21, 2010

The Death of the Gods—or Why a Monotheistic God Speaks in the Plural.
This presentation is concerned with how the ancient Israelites made the transition from pagan religion to monotheism, and will examine such questions as: How did it come to pass that they rejected the religion of their ancestors? What did the Israelites who accepted monotheism think about the rest of the world’s pagan beliefs? What did they think about their own grandparents’ beliefs? What happened to the gods that virtually the whole known world had worshipped for millennia? And when did Israel’s monotheism begin? Was it as late as most scholars have thought? And why would a religion that is promoting monotheism picture its God speaking in the plural?