Robert Eisenman
| Robert Eisenman | |
|---|---|
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| Born | 1937 (age 79–80) South Orange, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Cornell University (B.A., Physics and Philosophy, 1958) New York University (M.A., Hebrew and Near Eastern Studies, 1966) Columbia University (Ph.D., Middle East Languages and Cultures, 1971) |
| Occupation | author, professor, biblical scholar |
| Known for | works on Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls |
| Relatives | Peter Eisenman (brother) |
| Website | roberteisenman |
Robert Eisenman is an American biblical scholar, theoretical writer, historian, archaeologist, and "road" poet. He is currently Professor of Middle East Religions, Archaeology, and Islamic Law and director of the Institute for the Study of Judaeo-Christian Origins at California State University Long Beach.
Eisenman led the campaign to free up access to the Dead Sea Scrolls in the 1980s and 90s, and, as a result of this campaign, is associated with the theory that combines Essenes with Palestinian messianism (or what some might refer to as "Palestinian Christianity") — a theory opposed to establishment or consensus scholarship.
Before this, Eisenman spent five years "on the road" in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East as far as India, encapsulating all these things in his poetic travel Diario (1959–62), published in 2007 by North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, California and called The New Jerusalem, in which he describes the San Francisco "Beat" scene in 1958–59, Paris when still a "moveable feast", working on kibbutzim in Israel, the Peace Corps, and several voyages on the overland route to India.
Eisenman is from New Jersey. His brother is deconstructionist architect Peter Eisenman — best known for his design of the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, the Visitor’s Center at Santiago de Compostela in Spain, and the Arizona Cardinal Football Stadium.
Eisenman (like Thomas Pynchon) majored for two and a half years in Engineering Physics (a course which was intended to prepare students to enter nuclear physics), graduated B.A. from Cornell University in Physics and Philosophy in 1958. He received an M.A. Degree in Hebrew and Near Eastern Studies with Abraham Katsh from New York University in 1966. He received a Ph.D. Degree from Columbia University in Middle East Languages and Cultures in 1971 with a minor in Jewish Studies and a major in Islamic Law where he studied with Joseph Schacht. He was a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow at the American Schools of Oriental Research, Jerusalem, Israel, 1985–86 and, in 1986–87, he was a Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Oxford, England.
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