Academic Programs

Faculty

 

Jodi Magness

Jodi Magness holds a senior endowed chair in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: the Kenan Distinguished Professor for Teaching Excellence in Early Judaism. From 1992-2002, she was Associate/Assistant Professor of Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology in the Departments of Classics and Art History at Tufts University, Medford, MA. She received her B.A. in Archaeology and History from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1977), and her Ph.D. in Classical Archaeology from the University of Pennsylvania (1989). From 1990-92, Magness was Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow in Syro- Palestinian Archaeology at the Center for Old World Archaeology and Art at Brown University.

Magness is the author of numerous books. The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002) won the 2003 Biblical Archaeology Society’s Award for Best Popular Book in Archaeology in 2001-02 and was selected as an “Outstanding
Academic Book for 2003” by Choice Magazine. The Archaeology of the Early Islamic Settlement in Palestine (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2003) was awarded the 2006 Irene Levi- Sala Book Prize in the category of non-fiction on the archaeology of Israel. Magness’ most recent book is Stone and Dung, Oil and Spit: Jewish Daily Life in the Time of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans; 2011). Her other books include “Follow the Wise”: Studies in Jewish History and Culture in Honor of Lee I. Levine (co-edited with Z. Weiss, O. Irshai, and S. Schwartz; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2010); Debating Qumran: Collected Essays on Its
Archaeology (Leuven: Peeters, 2004); Hesed ve-Emet, Studies in Honor of Ernest S. Frerichs (co-edited with S. Gitin; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998); and Jerusalem Ceramic Chronology circa 200-800 C.E. (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1993). The Archaeology of the Holy Land
586 B.C.E. – 640 C.E., is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press (anticipated publication: fall 2012), and “Go Out and Study the Land” (Judges 18:2): Archaeological, Historical, and Textual Studies in Honor of Hanan Eshel (co-edited with A. Maeir and L. H. Schiffman; Leiden:
Brill), is due to appear in November 2011. In addition, Magness has published numerous articles in journals and edited volumes. Her research interests, which focus on Palestine in the Roman,
Byzantine, and early Islamic periods, and Diaspora Judaism in the Roman world, include ancient pottery, ancient synagogues, Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Roman army in the East.

Magness has participated on 20 different excavations in Israel and Greece, including co-directing the 1995 excavations in the Roman siege works at Masada. From 2003-07 she co-directed excavations in the late Roman fort at Yotvata, Israel. Since 2011, Magness has directed an
excavation project at Huqoq in Galilee.

In 1997-98, Magness was awarded a fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies and a fellowship in Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C. for research on The Archaeology of the Early Islamic Settlement in Palestine. In 2000-2001, Magness was
awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Fellowship for College Teachers and a Skirball Visiting Fellowship at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies for research on The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls. In spring 2005 Magness received a
Fulbright Lecturing Award through the United States-Israel Educational Foundation to teach two courses at the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 2007-08, Magness was awarded a fellowship at the School for Historical Studies at the Institute for
Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ for research on Jewish Daily Life. For 2010-2011, Magness received a Chapman Family Faculty Fellowship at the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, for work on The Archaeology of the Holy Land.
In 2008 Magness received a national teaching honor: the Archaeological Institute of America’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. She has produced a 36-lecture course on“The Holy Land Revealed” with The Teaching Company’s Great Courses (released in December 2010).

Magness is a member of the Managing Committee of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens and the Program Committee of the Society of Biblical Literature. She has also been a member of the Board of Trustees of the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in
Jerusalem (and past Vice-President), the Governing Board of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA), and the Board of Trustees of the American Schools of Oriental Research. She served as President of the North Carolina Society of the AIA and the Boston Society of the AIA.