Professor Michael L. Satlow specializes in Early Judaism, with a particular interest in social history.  He has written extensively on issues of gender, sexuality, and marriage among Jews in antiquity.  He also has broader research interests in Jewish history, methodology and theory in religious studies, and Late Antiquity generally.  His latest book is entitled How the Bible Became Holy.

My primary research interests are the history of Jews in antiquity and digital humanities.  I am now completing a book on "lived religion" in Late Antiquity and have been working with teams to explore the applicability of AI to both the study of Jews and Judaism and ancient texts.

2016-2024  Funding for Inscriptions of Israel/Palestine from the Goldhirsh-Yellin Foundation

2007-8 Co-recipient (with John Bodel) of Salomon Faculty Research Grant for development of a Center of Digital Epigraphy

2005-6 Recipient of Salomon Faculty Research Grant for work on "Inscriptions from the Land of Israel"

2003-4 Recipient of a Scholarly Technology Group grant for work on "Inscriptions from the Land of Israel"

1998- Corresponding Fellow, Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies, Bar-Ilan University, Israel

Books

Strength to Strength: Essays in Honor of Shaye J. D. Cohen (editor; Brown Judaic Studies, 2018)

Judaism and the Economy: A Sourcebook (editor; Routledge, 2018)

How the Bible Became Holy (Yale University Press, 2014; also translated in French and Italian)

The Gift in Antiquity (editor; Wiley-Blackwell, 2013)

Creating Judaism: History, Religion, Practice (Columbia University Press, 2006)

Religion and the Self in Antiquity (co-editor; Indiana University Press)

Jewish Marriage in Antiquity (Princeton University Press, 2001)

Tasting the Dish: Rabbinic Rhetorics of Sexuality (Brown Judaic Studies, 1995)

Selected Recent Essays

“Social Network Analysis of the Babylonian Talmud,” with Michael Sperling, Digital Scholarship in the Humanities 39 (2024): 968-983

“Machine Learning Techniques for Analyzing Inscriptions from Israel,” with D. Tagami, DHQ: Digital Humanities Quarterly 17.2 (2023)

“Structures of rac-2,4:3,5-dimethylene Xylitol Derivatives,” with Paul Williard, Acta Crystallographica Section E 79.9 (2023)

“The Skinny on Recommendation Letters,” Inside Higher Ed, January 11, 2022: https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2022/01/11/what-professor-considers-when-reading-recommendation-letters-opinion

“Family/Fragments,” The Reform Jewish Quarterly 49:4 (2022): 16-23

“The Rabbinic Citation Network,” with Michael Sperling, AJS Review 46 (2022): 291-319

“Inscriptions of Israel/Palestine,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 29 (2022): 349-369

"Josephus's Knowledge of Scripture," Journal of Ancient Judaism 11 (2020): 385-417

"Ben Sira" (commentary), in Jonathan Klawans and Lawrence Wills, The Jewish Annotated Apocrypha (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020)

“Jewish Time in Early Nineteenth Century America: A Study of Moses Lopez’s Calendar,” American Jewish Archives Journal 65 (2013):1-29

1997-98: American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship

2007: John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship

2007: Cogut Faculty Fellowship

2012-13:  Fulbright Senior Scholar

2012-13: Seymour Gitin Distinguished Professorship, W. F. Albright Institute

2020-21:  Cogut Faculty Fellowship

2020-21:  NEH Public Scholars Fellowship

I teach both graduate and undergraduate students in a wide range of topics in early Judaism, Judaism, comparative religions and history, and digital humanities. I am involved directly in graduate advising and training. I also regularly teach adult education classes.