JAMES KUGEL was born in New York. From 1982-2003 he was Starr Professor of Hebrew Literature at Harvard University. He retired from Harvard to become Director of the Institute for the History of the Jewish Bible at Bar Ilan University in Israel, where he also served as chairman of the Department of Bible.
A specialist in the Hebrew Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Kugel is the author of more than sixty research articles and twelve books, including The Idea of Biblical Poetry, In Potiphar's House, On Being a Jew, and The Bible As It Was (this last the winner of the Grawemeyer Prize in Religion in 2001). His more recent books include The God of Old , The Ladder of Jacob , How to Read the Bible , awarded the National Jewish Book Award for the best book of 2007, and In the Valley of the Shadow. He is a member of the American Academy for Jewish Research, the Association for Jewish Studies, and Editor in chief of Jewish Studies: an Internet Journal.