Christine Hayes

Robert F. and Patricia R. Weis Professor of Religious Studies in Classical Judaica

Address:

320 York Street, Room 421, New Haven, CT 06511-3627

203-432-0833

B.A. summa cum laude Harvard University;
M.A. and Ph.D. U.C. Berkeley

Christine Hayes is Robert F. and Patricia R. Weis Professor of Religious Studies in Classical Judaica. Before joining the Yale faculty in 1996, she was Assistant Professor of Hebrew Studies in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University for three years. Her published works include several books and many articles in Vetus Testamentum, The Journal for the Study of Judaism, The Harvard Theological Review, and various scholarly anthologies. Her first book, entitled Between the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds (Oxford University Press, 1997) was honored with a Salo Baron prize for a first book in Jewish thought and literature, awarded by the American Academy for Jewish Research (1999).

Her second book, Gentile Impurities and Jewish Identities: Intermarriage and Conversion from the Bible to the Talmud (Oxford University Press, 2002) was a 2003 National Jewish Book Award finalist. Her textbook The Emergence of Judaism: Classical Traditions in Contemporary Perspectives, was published by Fortress Press in 2010 and her Introduction to the Bible was published in 2012 by Yale University Press as part of the Open Yale Courses publication series. With the support of a New Directions Fellowship from the Mellon Foundation, Hayes spent 2005-2006 at the Yale Law School and is currently completing a fifth book, entitled What’s so Divine about Divine Law?

Hayes is active in professional and academic organizations, currently serving as co-editor of the Association for Jewish Studies Review and as an editor of the Encyclopedia for the Bible and its Reception. A specialist in talmudic-midrashic studies, Hayes offers undergraduate courses on the literature and history of the biblical and talmudic periods (including Introduction to the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible and Introduction to Judaism) as well as advanced text courses and graduate-only seminars. In 2005, Hayes was awarded the Sidonie Miskimin Clauss Prize for Teaching Excellence in the Humanities. She has served as the Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Department of Religious Studies as well as for the Program in Judaic Studies. Recent university service includes the Committee on Yale College Education and the Committee on Majors. From 2004-2006, Hayes was a fellow of the Whitney Humanities Center.