Athalya Brenner


Athalya Brenner-Idan is a Dutch-Israeli biblical scholar known for her contribution to feminist biblical studies.

Academic career

Brenner studied at Haifa University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem before doing a PhD at the University of Manchester under the supervision of James Barr. She taught for a time at Oranim Academic College.
She is Professor Emerita of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament at the University of Amsterdam and Professor in Biblical Studies at Tel Aviv University.
In 2007, Brenner was described as being at the forefront of feminist biblical studies. Alice Ogden Bellis states in her book I Am: Biblical Women Tell Their Own Stories, that Brenner is "erudite, witty, clever, feisty, and not at all religious."
Brenner was president of the Society of Biblical Literature in 2015. Her presidential address at the society's annual meeting was titled "On Scholarship and Related Animals: A Personal View from and for the Here and Now."
She has published many books, articles, and book reviews in the field of Old Testament studies and feminist biblical criticism. She served as editor for the Feminist Companion to the Bible series, the Bible in the 21st Century series, and the Amsterdam Studies in Bible and Religion from Sheffield Academic Press and the Texts@Contexts series from Fortress Press.
She received an honorary doctorate from the University of Bonn in 2002.

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