Christine Hayes
Sterling Professor of Religious Studies
Christine Hayes, B.A. Harvard University, Ph.D. University of California at Berkeley, faculty member at Yale since 1996: You are a distinguished scholar of Judaica, whose books, articles, and edited works place you at the head of your field.
Every major work you have written has received praiseworthy notice—not surprising, given your commanding understanding of your field and your meticulous scholarship. Your dissertation so electrified a field that a leading scholar published an entire volume arguing against your claims. You then defended these claims in your first book, Between the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds, which scholars termed “incisive, well argued, and elegant.” It received the 1997 Salo Baron Prize for a first book on Jewish thought and literature and became the accepted interpretation of the divergences between the two Talmuds.
Your second book, Gentile Impurities and Jewish Identities: Intermarriage and Conversion from the Bible to the Talmud, was a National Book Award finalist. Your latest monograph, What’s Divine about Divine Law? Early Perspectives, published in 2015, untangles the classical and biblical roots of the Western idea of divine law. It swept the field of awards—the National Jewish Book Award, the Jordan Schnizter Award from the Association for Jewish Studies, and the PROSE award in Theology and Religious Studies, presented by the Association of American Publishers.
Given your excellence as a teacher, it is no surprise that you have made major contributions to a broader public understanding of the Hebrew Bible. Your Yale Open Course covering the development of Judaism from 1300 BCE to the post-exilic prophets, has received rave reviews from scholars and the public alike.
Comments, such as “If you are looking for a good, comprehensive, scholarly and engaging introduction to the Old Testament you will be hard pushed to do better than this book,” “the best introduction to the Old Testament that I have ever read,” and “the clear lectures were so interesting I wanted to read the book” convey the high regard scholars in your field and the wider public hold for you. Your anthologies, translations, and podcasts confirm your ability and desire to make your field accessible to a general audience.
Beyond Yale, you were a member of editorial boards for several major journals in Judaic Studies, setting the agenda for the field. You speak often at peer universities and have held fellowships and visiting positions around the world. At Yale, you have been an exemplary citizen—a director of graduate studies and department chair in Religious Studies, a member of key university committees, and a devoted teacher.
With gratitude for the depth and rigor of your scholarship, for your many contributions to knowledge, for your impeccable citizenship, and for your exceptional teaching, your university thanks you and wishes you Mazel Tov.