Milgrom, Jacob, 1923-2010

Jacob Milgrom (February 1, 1923 – June 5, 2010) was a prominent American Jewish Bible scholar and Conservative rabbi. Milgrom's major contribution to biblical research was in the field of cult and worship. Although he accepted the documentary hypothesis, contrary to the classical bible critics, he traced a direct line of development from the Priestly Code (P), to the Holiness Code (H), to the cultic innovations of Ezekiel, to the cultic writings of the Dead Sea sect and finally to Jewish law (halacha) of the Mishnah and Talmud.[2] Best known for his comprehensive Torah commentaries and work on the Dead Sea Scrolls,[3] he also published extensively on the Book of Ezekiel.

Biography
Jacob Milgrom was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1923. He studied at Brooklyn College and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York City. In 1948, he married Jo Berman, also a biblical scholar. They had four children.[4]

Academic career
Jacob Milgrom spent most of his career at the University of California, Berkeley, where he headed the Department of Near Eastern Studies. He was known for his research on Biblical purity laws and on the book of Leviticus.[5]

After retiring in 1994, Milgrom and his wife Jo immigrated to Israel. He died in Jerusalem in June 2010.[6]

Rabbi, author, and University of California at Berkeley Professor Emeritus Biblical Studies Jacob Milgrom was born in Brooklyn, New York on February 1, 1923. He studied at Brooklyn College before earning advanced degrees from the Jewish Theological Seminary. In 1948 he married Jo Milgrom (nee Berman), a biblical scholar in her own right; they have four children. Jacob Milgrom's research interests include Leviticus, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Tannaitic literature; over the course of his distinguished career he published five books and more than two hundred articles. He was named a fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation, a fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Jerusalem, and a senior fellow of the Algright Institute of Archaelogical Research. Rabbi Milgrom retired in 1992. He and his wife now reside in Jerusalem, Israel.