Jacob Milgrom, 87, bible scholar
By Raphael Ahren (Haaretz)
With the passing of Professor Jacob Milgrom on Saturday in Jerusalem, Israel has lost its second leading Bible scholar in three weeks. Both Milgrom, who immigrated in 1994, and Professor Moshe Greenberg, who died last month at 81, were American-born Conservative rabbis and academics recognized as preeminent authorities in their field. Milgrom was 87.
"He was a master in the understanding of biblical cult and ritual and became the paradigm of research in this field - his works are cited by everyone," said Professor Shalom Paul, a native Philadelphian and former chairman of Hebrew University's Bible department.
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Rabbi, biblical scholar Jacob Milgrom dies at 87His commentaries on Leviticus and Numbers are masterpieces.
by amanda pazornik, staff writer (Jweekly.com)
Historian Fred Rosenbaum will remember Jacob Milgrom — a rabbi, biblical scholar and professor emeritus of Near Eastern studies at U.C. Berkeley — not poring over biblical tomes, but opening the home he shared with his wife, Jo, and their children to students for Shabbat.
“Just to be invited to Shabbat dinner at the Milgrom home was a wonderful invitation,” said Rosenbaum, who was a graduate student in Jewish history at U.C. Berkeley when he first met Milgrom in the early 1970s. “People really treasured it, including me. I was personally touched by Jack, both by his intellect and his human sensitivity and caring about others.”
Milgrom died June 6 at Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem of a brain hemorrhage related to a fall. He was 87.
Best known for his comprehensive commentaries on Torah and his work on the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Conservative rabbi wrote a three-volume series on Leviticus, interpreting Jewish dietary and purification rituals as well as the Bible’s position on homosexuality. He concluded the ban on homosexuality applies only to Jewish men.
“Jacob Milgrom’s painstaking analysis of the priestly laws in the Bible gave these seemingly arcane and antiquated practices ethical urgency and philosophical meaning,” said David Biale, a former professor at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley who now teaches in the Jewish studies program at U.C. Davis.
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The AP also has a brief note of his passing here.
