Emanuel Tov

Prof. Emanuel Tov is the second Salo W. and Jeannette M. Baron Award for Scholarly Excellence in Research on the Jewish Experience senior laureate.

Born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Emanuel Tov emigrated to Israel in 1961. He studied Bible and Greek literature at the Hebrew University and continued his studies at the Dept. of Near Eastern Languages and Literatures at Harvard University between 1967 and 1969. He obtained his Ph.D. degree at the Hebrew University in 1973.

Since 1986 Emanuel Tov has been a professor in the Dept. of Bible of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (since 1990 he holds the J. L. Magnes chair), from which he retired in 2009. He has been a guest professor at various Universities in Europe, the USA, Japan, Australia, and South Africa. He received several research awards, among them the Humboldt Research Prize, Germany and the Emet Prize in Biblical Research (2004) and the Israel Prize (2009). In 2006 he was appointed Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy and in 2012 he was appointed member of the Israel Academy of Sciences. In 2010 he received the Samaritan Medal for Humanitarian Achievement from the High Priest on Mt. Gerizim. In 2017 he was appointed member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Emanuel Tov has specialized in various aspects of the textual criticism of Hebrew and Greek Scripture as well as in the Qumran Scrolls. He has written and edited numerous books and articles, among them two text books. One of them, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, now in its third edition (2012), was awarded the Prize for the Best Book Relating to the Old Testament by the Biblical Archaeological Society in Washington (1992).

Prof. Tov is involved in several research projects, but since 1990, most of his energy is invested in directing the Dead Sea Scrolls Publication Project. Under his guidance thirty-three volumes appeared in 1992-2010 in the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert series, including two overall concordances.

Like Salo W. Baron, Emanuel Tov is one of the few scholars who contributed to a new field of research but also to the organisation of research and science.