Steven Weitzman will present “King Solomon’s Mines Revisited: A Misadventure Story,” the Arizona Center for Judaic Studies 2014 Marcus Breger Memorial Lecture, on Tuesday, Jan. 21. Weitzman, the Daniel E. Koshland Professor of Jewish Culture and Religion at Stanford University, will speak at noon at the University of Arizona Hillel Foundation, 1245 E. 2nd St.
Archaeologists recently claimed to have found the possible source of King Solomon’s fabled wealth in copper mines in southern Jordan. Weitzman’s lecture will detail a story that spans more than five centuries, revealing unexpected insights into the Bible and the history of its interpretation. Weitzman is a scholar of the Hebrew Bible and early Jewish texts. He is also the director of Stanford’s Taube Center for Jewish Studies.
Weitzman’s forthcoming book, “Rethinking the Messianic Idea in Judaism: Philosophical, Historical and Literary Perspectives” (co-edited with Michael Morgan: Indiana University Press), will be published in 2014. His first book, “Song and Story in Biblical Narrative,” was the winner of the Gustave O. Arlt Prize for Outstanding Scholarship in the Humanities. His other books include “Solomon: the Lure of Wisdom” (Yale University Press, 2011). Weitzman is currently working on a study revisiting where Jews originated. He is also working on a special edition of the Journal of Human Biology, co-edited with geneticist Noah Rosenberg, which will bring recent research on the genetics of Jewish populations into dialogue with the fields of history, anthropology and archaeology.
For more information, contact Jeanne E. Davenport at davenpoj@email.arizona.edu or 626-5658.
