Geza Vermes

Geza Vermes, born 22 June 1924 to Mako ( Hungary ), is a specialist in the history of religions , holds a doctorate in theology and literature, former professor at the University of Oxford. Author of numerous essays on Judaism and Christianity , he is an authority in the field of Essenes , text Aramaic and Jesus of Nazareth. Considered one of the leading connoisseurs of life and teachings of Jesus ^Biography

Geza Vermes's parents were Hungarian Jews. His father was a journalist. In 1931, they decided to convert to Catholicism and were baptized their son, aged seven. They disappeared in the Holocaust in 1944.

After the Second World War , Geza Vermes was ordained priest and was educated first in Budapest and then to the College of Saint Albert and the Catholic University of Louvain , where he studied history and languages of the Middle East. In 1953, his doctorate in theology bore the Dead Sea Scrolls.

He left the Catholic Church in 1957 and, finding his Jewish identity, he moved to the United Kingdom , where he taught at the University of Newcastle. He married Pamela Hobson in 1958. In 1965, he joined the Faculty of Oriental Studies of the University of Oxford , where he became the first Professor of Jewish Studies, a position he held until his retirement in 1991. After the death of his wife in 1993, he remarried in 1996 with Margaret Unarska. He has a son.

Career

Professor Vermes was one of the foremost experts to review the Dead Sea Scrolls shortly after their discovery in 1947, and is the author of their English translation .

Geza Vermes is now Professor Emeritus of Jewish Studies and Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College (Oxford) while continuing to teach at the Oriental Institute of Oxford. Editor of the Journal of Jewish Studies Since 1971 he has headed since 1991 the Oxford Forum for Qumran Research at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish studies .

Member of the British Academy and the European Academy of Arts, Sciences and Humanities, Professor Vermes is doctor honoris causa of the University of Edinburgh (1989), the University of Durham (1990) and the University Sheffield (1994). He was awarded the Wilhelm Bacher of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1996).

Publications

In French

• Manuscripts from the Judean Desert, Descle and Co., 1953
• Jesus the Jew, Descle, 1978
• Investigation into the identity of Jesus, Bayard, 2003
• The Gospel origins, Bayard, 2004
• The Riddles of the Passion: The Story That Changed the World, Bayard, 2006
• Dictionary of Jesus' contemporaries, Bayard, 2008

English

• Scripture and tradition in Judaism: Haggadic Studies (Studia post-Biblica), Brill, Leiden 1961 ISBN 90-04-03626-1
• Jesus the Jew: A Historian's Reading of the Gospels, Minneapolis, Fortress Press 1973 ISBN 0-8006-1443-7
• The Dead Sea Scrolls: Qumran in Perspective, Minneapolis, Fortress Press 1977 ISBN 0-8006-1435-6
• Jesus and the World of Judaism, Minneapolis, Fortress Press 1983 ISBN 0-8006-1784-3
• The Essenes According To the Classical Sources (with Martin Goodman), Sheffield Academic Press 1989 ISBN 1-85075-139-0
• The Religion of Jesus the Jew, Minneapolis, Fortress Press 1993 ISBN 0-8006-2797-0
• The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in Franais, Penguin 1997 ISBN 978-0140449525 (2004 ed.)
• The Changing Faces of Jesus, London, Penguin 2001 ISBN 0-14-026524-4
• Jesus in His Jewish Context, Minneapolis, Fortress Press 2003 ISBN 0-8006-3623-6
• The Authentic Gospel of Jesus, London, Penguin 2004 ISBN 0-14-100360-X
• The Passion, London, Penguin 2005 ISBN 0-14-102132-2.
• Who's Who in the Age of Jesus, London, Penguin 2005 ISBN 0-14-051565-8
• The Nativity: History and Legend, London, Penguin 2006 ISBN 0-14-102446-1
• The Resurrection: History and Myth, Doubleday Books 2008 ISBN 0-385-52242-8.

Autobiography: providential Accidents, London, SCM Press, 1998 ISBN 0-334-02722-5 ; Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham MD, 1998 ISBN 0-8476-9340-6.

Notes

Source

• (In) This article is partially or entirely from the article in English entitled " Geza Vermes "(see the list of authors )

Related articles

• Rene Bloch
• Paul Demannez
• Paula Fredriksen
• Jewish historiography of the New Testament

• Portal of Jewish culture and Judaism
• Christianity portal