#  Harvard 

 



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I am an active member of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University, where I serve as core faculty in the [Ancient Near Eastern Studies subfield](https://nelc.fas.harvard.edu/ancient-near-eastern-studies-0).

I am also a member of the Standing Committee on the Study of Religion, where I serve as affiliate faculty in the [Hebrew Bible subfield](https://studyofreligion.fas.harvard.edu/academic-fields/hebrew-bible/). Beyond this, I serve as an executive committee member of the [Center for Jewish Studies](https://cjs.fas.harvard.edu/), a member of the Standing [Committee on Folklore and Mythology](https://folkmyth.fas.harvard.edu/), and a member of the [Australian Studies Committee](https://harvaus.fas.harvard.edu/) at Harvard University.

One of my primary aims is to create a diverse and inclusive program in Ancient Near East Studies that is capable of attracting and retaining students from a wide range of academic backgrounds and cultural contexts and that makes a positive impact on the academic field of biblical studies. During my time at Harvard, I have organized a series of public events to create a sense of community and intellectual belonging among students and faculty working in the areas of Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Judaism

   ![Antiochus III](/sites/g/files/omnuum4711/files/styles/hwp_1_1__720x720_scale/public/2025-05/Meir%20and%20Rhyder_Program_Poster.jpg?itok=nn2qZOJI) 

 

**Symposium: "****Antiochus III’s Edict(s) to Jerusalem: Between Imperial Stress and Local Agency"**

Co-organizers: Rotem Avneri Meir and Julia Rhyder

Sponsor: Center for Jewish Studies and Ancient Studies at Harvard

Harvard University, April 20–21, 2023

The first decades of Seleucid rule in Judea are strikingly quiet in comparison to the tumultuous events of the 160s BCE. Some suggest that, during these decades, antagonism towards foreign rule brewed, eventually leading to the Maccabean revolt. Alternatively, other scholars have suggested that the initial decades of the second century manifested fruitful cooperation with, and integration of local Judean elites within the imperial system, and that it was only with Antiochus IV that the relations between the Jews and Seleucids broke down.

This symposium engages with this debate by bringing together leading scholars in the study of Hellenistic Judea and the Seleucid world more broadly to review two key pieces of evidence that relate to the first decades of Seleucid rule in the southern Levant during the reign of king Antiochus III. These are two edicts issued by the Seleucid king regarding Jerusalem, and which are preserved in Josephus’s *Antiquities* book 12 (§§ 138–146). These two, likely authentic, documents originate in the aftermath of the fifth Syrian war that saw the Seleucids take over Coele Syria and Phoenicia, including Judea. In the decrees, the Seleucid king provides benefactions and ordinances for the city of Jerusalem, its inhabitants, its temple, and its staff. These decrees therefore provide a unique testimony for the political, social, economic, and cultic factors that shaped the beginning of Seleucid rule in Judea.

The symposium aimed (a) to map the topics arising from the decrees and needing attention, as well as those areas of agreement and disagreement between scholars engaged in the study of Seleucid Judea and Hellenistic Judaism; (b) to bridge the gap between the dichotomies of resistance to and cooperation with empire, or independence and subordination, in the array of possible Judean responses to Seleucid imperial rule; (c) to identify and discuss ways in which these documents may improve our understanding not only of Judean politics but also of economics and religion in the late third and early second century, and the “temple-centered” nature of the Judean polity in the Hellenistic era.

**Harvard-Münster Workshop “Text and Ritual in the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Judaism”**

Co-organizers: Christophe Nihan and Julia Rhyder

Harvard University, September 21-22, 2022

 ![Graduate workshop](/sites/g/files/omnuum4711/files/2025-05/Graduate%20workshop_0.jpeg)

 

This two-day international workshop brought together the graduate students in Hebrew Bible at Harvard with those of the University of Münster, Germany, to work collaboratively on a shared topic. Specifically, the workshop explored various aspects of ritual and ritualization and their role in the formation, transmission, and authority of Jewish scriptural traditions in the Second Temple period. From a methodological and theoretical perspective, some basic assumptions underlying the workshop can be summarized as follows: (1) much of what we call “religion” in antiquity is actually related to ritual and ritualization, whether performed or imagined, or a combination of both; (2) the complex interaction between “text” and “ritual” – texts shaping rituals and rituals shaping texts – while common to the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern world, plays a predominant role in the development of ancient Judaism; (3) researching the nexus between “text” and “ritual” in ancient Judaism in its ancient context(s) forces us to question and challenge not only our concepts of ritual but also our concepts of text inherited from 19th-century philology, and therefore has broader implications for the study of textualization and scripturalization in the Second Temple period.

Based on these assumptions, the general aim of the Workshop was to examine or reexamine key aspects of the relationship between text and ritual in the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple literature, by combining and contrasting (a) ancient Jewish sources on rituals and ritualization (mainly textual, but taking also into account archaeological evidence when relevant); (b) contemporary theories on ritual and ritualization; and (c) comparative evidence from ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern contexts.

The first workshop took place at Harvard on September 21-22, 2022, with the topic "Biblical sacrifices outside the Pentateuch (Prophets)"