Steven Fine
Encyclopedia
Steven Fine historian of Judaism in the Greco-Roman World
Greco-Roman world
The Greco-Roman world, Greco-Roman culture, or the term Greco-Roman , when used as an adjective, as understood by modern scholars and writers, refers to those geographical regions and countries that culturally were directly, protractedly and intimately influenced by the language, culture,...

, is professor of Jewish History
Jewish history
Jewish history is the history of the Jews, their religion and culture, as it developed and interacted with other peoples, religions and cultures. Since Jewish history is over 4000 years long and includes hundreds of different populations, any treatment can only be provided in broad strokes...

 at Yeshiva University
Yeshiva University
Yeshiva University is a private university in New York City, with six campuses in New York and one in Israel. Founded in 1886, it is a research university ranked as 45th in the US among national universities by U.S. News & World Report in 2012...

 in New York, director of Yeshiva University’s Center for Israel Studies and co-editor of Images: A Journal of Jewish Art and Visual Culture.

Education

Ph.D, Jewish History, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...

 (1993), under the direction of Lee I. Levine and Lawrence H. Schiffman; MA, Art History, University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...

, under the direction of Stephen S. Kayser and Selma Holo (1984); BA in Religious Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara
University of California, Santa Barbara
The University of California, Santa Barbara, commonly known as UCSB or UC Santa Barbara, is a public research university and one of the 10 general campuses of the University of California system. The main campus is located on a site in Goleta, California, from Santa Barbara and northwest of Los...

 (1979). In addition to his degree advisors, Fine's work has been particularly influenced by his studies with Dov Noy, Bezalel Narkiss, Richard Hecht, Pratapaditya Pal, Bruce Zuckerman, Elieser Slomovic, Amos Funkenstein, James A. Sanders, Menachem Stern, Avigdor Shinan and Joseph Yahalom.

Thought and writings

Fine's research focuses on relationships between the literature of ancient Judaism, art and archaeology. His blend of history, rabbinic literature, archaeology and the history of art is unique among scholars of Jewish antiquity, and is expressed in a broad range of publications. Fine is the author of academic monographs, museum catalogs, articles and even a book for children. Fine’s most recent book, Art and Judaism in the Greco-Roman World: Toward a New Jewish Archaeology (Cambridge, 2005, revised version 2009), was awarded the Joshua Schnitzer Book Award by the Association for Jewish Studies (2009). He is an editor of IMAGES: A Journal for the Study of Jewish Art and Visual Culture. He is also editor of a webportal at the Center for Online Judaic Studies, Jews and Judaism in the Greco-Roman World.

Steven Fine curated the pathblazing exhibition, 'Sacred Realm: The Emergence of the Synagogue in the Ancient World' at Yeshiva University Museum
Yeshiva University Museum
The Yeshiva University Museum is a teaching museum and the cultural arm of Yeshiva University. Along with the American Jewish Historical Society, the American Sephardi Foundation, the Leo Baeck Institute, and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, it is a member organization of the Center for...

 in 1996, and edited the accompanying catalog (published by Oxford University Press).

Fine's current projects include studies in Samaritan
Samaritan
The Samaritans are an ethnoreligious group of the Levant. Religiously, they are the adherents to Samaritanism, an Abrahamic religion closely related to Judaism...

-Jewish relations during late antiquity, polychromy in ancient Jewish art, and a cultural history of the biblical artisan, Bezalel son of Uri
Bezalel
In Exodus 31:1-6, Bezalel |transcribed]] as Betzalel and most accurately as Beẓal'el), is the chief artisan of the Tabernacle. Elsewhere in the Bible the name occurs only in the genealogical lists of the Book of Chronicles, but according to cuneiform inscriptions a variant form of the same,...

, in Judaism and Christianity. In 2013 he will curate The Samaritans: A Biblical People at the Museum of Biblical Art (MOBIA) in Manhattan.

Career

Fine has served as a visiting professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Goucher College
Goucher College
Goucher College is a private, co-educational, liberal arts college located in the northern Baltimore suburb of Towson in unincorporated Baltimore County, Maryland, on a 287 acre campus. The school has approximately 1,475 undergraduate students studying in 31 majors and six interdisciplinary...

 the American Jewish University and New York University, and was previously Jewish Foundation Professor of Judaic Studies at the University of Cincinnati and professor of Jewish History at Baltimore Hebrew College. He joined the faculty of Yeshiva University in 2005.

Steven Fine has lectured throughout the United States, Israel and in Europe, including presentations at the Pergamon Museum, Berlin, University of Basle, University of Haifa
University of Haifa
The University of Haifa is a university in Haifa, Israel.The University of Haifa was founded in 1963 by Haifa mayor Abba Hushi, to operate under the academic auspices of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem....

, Oxford University, Union Theological Seminary
Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York
Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York is a preeminent independent graduate school of theology, located in Manhattan between Claremont Avenue and Broadway, 120th to 122nd Streets. The seminary was founded in 1836 under the Presbyterian Church, and is affiliated with nearby Columbia...

, the Hebrew University, Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

, the Hebrew Union College
Hebrew Union College
The Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion is the oldest extant Jewish seminary in the Americas and the main seminary for training rabbis, cantors, educators and communal workers in Reform Judaism.HUC-JIR has campuses in Cincinnati, New York, Los Angeles and Jerusalem.The Jerusalem...

, UC Davis, Duke University
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...

, the J. Paul Getty Museum
J. Paul Getty Museum
The J. Paul Getty Museum, a program of the J. Paul Getty Trust, is an art museum. It has two locations, one at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California, and one at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, California...

 and the Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is an encyclopedia art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At 560,000 square feet, the museum holds New York City's second largest art collection with roughly 1.5 million works....

. Fine delivered the first Cecil Roth
Cecil Roth
Cecil Roth , was a British Jewish historian.He was educated at Merton College, Oxford and returned to Oxford as reader in Jewish Studies from 1939 to 1964...

 Memorial Lecture at the Jewish Museum in London and the Jerome Nemer Lecture at the University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...

.

Publications

  • This Holy Place: On the Sanctity of the Synagogue During the Greco-Roman Period, Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity Series, Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997.

  • Art and Judaism in the Greco-Roman World: Toward a New “Jewish Archaeology, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Second revised edition, 2009, Joshua Schnitzer Book Award by the Association for Jewish Studies (2009)

  • Sacred Realm: The Emergence of the Synagogue in the Ancient World, editor and author of the major essay. New York: Oxford University Press and Yeshiva University Museum, 1996, best book in its category, Society of Architectural Historians.

  • Jews, Christians and Polytheists in the Ancient Synagogue: Cultural Interaction During the Greco-Roman Period, Proceedings of a conference organized by Baltimore Hebrew University, May, 1997, edited by S. Fine, London: Routledge Press, 1999. Finalist, 1999 National Jewish Book Award, Charles H. Revson Foundation Award in Jewish-Christian Relations.

  • A Crown for a King: Studies in Memory of Prof. Stephen S. Kayser, edited by S. Fine, W. Kramer, S. Sabar, Berkeley: Magnes Museum Press and Jerusalem: Gefen, 2000.

  • Liturgy in the Life of the Synagogue: Studies in the History of Jewish Public Prayer, edited by Steven Fine and Ruth Langer. Duke Judaic Studies Series. Series editor, E. M. Meyers. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2005.

  • The Temple of Jerusalem: From Moses to the Messiah: In Honor of Professor Louis H. Feldman.' Boston: Brill Academic Press, 2011.

  • Ve’Zot Rachel: A Festschrift for Rachel Hachlili, eds. A. Killebrew, A. Segel and S. Fine, contracted with E. J. Brill, in preparation.

  • Puzzling Out the Past: Studies in Near Eastern Epigraphy and Archaeology in Honor of Bruce Zuckerman. Eds. S. Fine, M. Lundberg, D. Pardee, Boston: Brill Academic Press, 2011.

Editorships

  • Editor, with V. Mann and M. Olin, Images: A Journal of Jewish Art and Visual Culture, Leiden: E. J. Brill. Issue 1: November, 2007; Issue 2, January, 2009, issue 3 (Vivian Mann Festschrift), January 2010 (responsible for managing issues 2, 3).

  • Section Editor, The Jews Under Greece, Rome and Persia Center for Online Judaic Studies, COJS.org, 2004-2008.

  • Founding Editor, AJS Perspectives: The Newsletter of the Association for Jewish Studies, four year term, 1999-2003.

Published Lecture

  • Art and Identity in Latter Second Temple Period Judaea: The Hasmonean Royal Tombs at Modi‘in, The Twenty-fourth Annual Rabbi Louis Feinberg Memorial Lecture in Judaic Studies. Cincinnati: University of Cincinnati, Department of Judaic Studies, 2002. http://cojs.org/stevenfine/articles_files/Feinberg-Fine.pdf

External links

  • Steven Fine's website contains his full curriculum vitae, articles, links and videos http://www.cojs.org/stevenfine/
  • Yeshiva University Center for Israel Studies: http://www.yu.edu/cis/
  • Yeshiva College, Department of Jewish History: http://www.yu.edu/yeshivacollege/departments/jewishhistory/
  • Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies: http://www.yu.edu/revel/
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