Peter Machinist

Peter Machinist

Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages, Emeritus
Peter Machinist

Education

  • AB, Harvard University
  • MPhil, PhD, Yale University

Profile

Peter Machinist came to Harvard University in 1991. He is a member of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, serving the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, the Committee on the Study of Religions, and the Harvard Divinity School.

Earlier, he taught in departments of religion or Near Eastern Studies at Case Western Reserve University (1971–77), the University of Arizona (1977–86), and the University of Michigan (1986–90). He also served as visiting lecturer (1981) and Lady Davis Visiting Professor in Jewish History (2003) at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and he was Visiting Professor at the Munich Center for Ancient Worlds of the University of Munich, Germany in 2013–14.

The University of Zurich, Switzerland, awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2009. Peter Machinist retired as of January 1, 2017, and is now the Hancock Research Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages.

His primary interest is in the cultural, intellectual, and social history of the ancient Near East, focusing particularly on ancient Israel and the Hebrew Bible, and ancient Mesopotamia. Within this framework, his research and teaching topics include the ideology of imperialism and other forms of group identification; ancient historiography; mythology; prophecy; Assyrian history; and the history of modern biblical and other Near Eastern scholarship.

Among his publications are Provincial Governance in Middle Assyria, “Assyria and Its Image in the First Isaiah,” “Outsiders and Insiders: The Biblical View of Emergent Israel and Its Contexts,” “Fate, Miqreh, and Reason: Reflections on Qohelet and Biblical Thought,” “The Fall of Assyria in Comparative Ancient Perspective,” “Biblical Traditions: The Philistines and Israelite History,” “The Voice of the Historian in the Ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean World,” “How Gods Die, Biblically and Otherwise,” and “The Road Not Taken: Wellhausen and Assyriology.” Among his current projects is a volume of commentary on the prophetic book of Nahum.

Contact Information

6 Divinity Avenue #301
p: 617.495.0333

Affiliation

Alpha Grouping