Professor Manisha Rajak (née Goldsmith, born 2 August 1946 in London) is a British historian and

Emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

Professor of

Ancient history Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history to as far as late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient history cove ...

at the

University of Reading The University of Reading is a public university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as University College, Reading, a University of Oxford extension college. The institution received the power to grant its own degrees in 192 ...

. She is also a Senior Associate of the

Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies The Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies (OCHJS) is a recognised independent centre of the University of Oxford, England. Its research fellows teach on a variety of undergraduate and master's degrees in Oriental studies, and it publishes ...

and Fellow of

Somerville College, Oxford Somerville College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England, was founded in 1879 as Somerville Hall, one of its first two women's colleges. Among its alumnae have been Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Dorothy Hodgkin, Ir ...

. Her research focuses primarily on

Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...

in the

Hellenistic In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...

and Roman periods, and she is an expert on the writings of

Josephus Flavius Josephus (; grc-gre, Ἰώσηπος, ; 37 – 100) was a first-century Romano-Jewish historian and military leader, best known for ''The Jewish War'', who was born in Jerusalem—then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly d ...

Career

Tessa Rajak was educated at the

, submitting her

D.Phil A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

. thesis on 'Flavius Josephus: Jewish History and the Greek World' in the Faculty of Literae Humaniores (

Classics Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

) in 1974. She later became Professor of Ancient History at the University of Reading. From 1995–6 she was

Grinfield Lecturer Edward William Grinfield (1785–1864) was an English biblical scholar. Life He was the son of Thomas Grinfield and Anna Joanna, daughter of Joseph Foster Barham of Bedford, and brother of Thomas Grinfield. He was a schoolfellow of Thomas de ...

on the

Septuagint The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond th ...

at Oxford; her book ''Translation and Survival: The Greek Bible of the Ancient Jewish Diaspora'' (Oxford University Press 2009) is based on the six lectures which she gave during this time. Rajak was editor of the ''Journal of Jewish Studies'' from 2000 to 2003. She retired from the University of Reading in December 2008. A symposium in her honour, entitled 'Jews, Christians, Greeks, Romans: Cultural and Religious Interactions', was held at Reading on 25 June 2009. From 2012 to 2015 she was co-investigator (with Professor Martin Goodman and Dr. Andrea Schatz) on a project funded by the

Arts and Humanities Research Council The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), formerly Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB), is a British research council, established in 1998, supporting research and postgraduate study in the arts and humanities. History The Arts an ...

and entitled 'The Reception of Josephus in Jewish Culture from the 18th Century to the Present'.

Selected publications

Monographs * ''Flavius Josephus. Jewish History and the Greek World.'' Dissertation, University of Oxford 1974. * ''Josephus. The Historian and his Society.'' Fortress Press, Philadelphia 1984, . * ''The Jewish Dialogue with Greece and Rome. Studies in Cultural and Social Interaction'' (= ''Arbeiten zur Geschichte des antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums.'' Band 48). Brill, Leiden 2000, . * ''Translation and survival. The Greek Bible of the Ancient Jewish Diaspora.'' Oxford University Press, Oxford 2009, . Edited volumes * with John North and

Judith Lieu Judith Margaret Lieu (born 1951) is a British theologian and historian of religion. She specialises in the New Testament and early Christianity. Her research includes a focus on early Christian identity in its historical context, and literary ana ...

: ''The Jews Among Pagans and Christians in the Roman Empire.'' Routledge, London 1992, . * with Gillian Clark: ''Philosophy and Power in the Graeco-Roman World. Essays in Honour of

Miriam Griffin Miriam Tamara Griffin (née Dressler; 6 June 1935 – 16 May 2018) was an American classical scholar and tutor of ancient history at Somerville College at the University of Oxford from 1967 to 2002. She was a scholar of Roman history and ancien ...

.'' Oxford University Press, Oxford 2002, . * with

Sarah Pearce Sarah J. K. Pearce is Ian Karten Professor of History and Head of the School of Humanities at the University of Southampton. She is known in particular for her work on Jews in the Hellenistic world and the Roman Empire, especially the life and w ...

, James Aitken and Jennifer Dines: ''Jewish Perspectives on Hellenistic Rulers.'' University of California Press, Berkeley 2007, .

Personal life

Rajak is the daughter of Lithuanian-English journalist S. J. Goldsmith. She is married to Harry Rajak, Professor Emeritus of Law at the

University of Sussex , mottoeng = Be Still and Know , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £14.4 million (2020) , budget = £319.6 million (2019–20) , chancellor = Sanjeev Bhaskar , vice_chancellor = Sasha Roseneil , ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rajak, Tessa Alumni of Somerville College, Oxford 1946 births British historians of religion Academics of the University of Reading Fellows of Somerville College, Oxford Classical scholars of the University of Reading Academics from London Living people