Saul M. Olyan is Samuel Ungerleider Jr. Professor of Judaic Studies and Professor of Religious Studies at Brown University. He is author of Friendship in the Hebrew Bible (Yale University Press, 2017); Social Inequality in the World of the Text: The Significance of Ritual and Social Distinctions in the Hebrew Bible (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011); Disability in the Hebrew Bible: Interpreting Mental and Physical Differences (Cambridge University Press, 2008); Biblical Mourning: Ritual and Social Dimensions (Oxford University Press, 2004); Rites and Rank: Hierarchy in Biblical Representations of Cult (Princeton University Press, 2000); "A Thousand Thousands Served Him": Exegesis and the Naming of Angels in Ancient Judaism (J.C.B. Mohr/Paul Siebeck, 1993); and Asherah and the Cult of Yahweh in Israel (Scholars Press, 1988). He is editor or co-editor of eleven volumes, including Ritual Violence in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford University Press, 2015); Social Theory and the Study of Israelite Religion (SBL, 2012) and Household and Family Religion in Antiquity (Blackwell, 2008, with John Bodel), and the author of various journal articles, essays and reviews.
Articles and essays include "Jehoiakim's Dehumanizing Interment as a Ritual Act of Reclassification," Journal of Biblical Literature 133 (2014):271-79; "The Etymology of Hebrew and Aramaic ykl 'to be able,'" Journal of Semitic Studies 58 (2013):13-19 (with John Huehnergard); "Is Isaiah 40-55 Really Monotheistic?" Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions 12 (2012):190-201; "A Suggestion Regarding the Derivation of the Hebrew Noun mērēa'," Journal of Semitic Studies 56 (2011): 217-219; "Stigmatizing Associations: The Alien, Things Alien, and Practices Associated with Aliens in Biblical Classification Schemas" in The Foreigner and the Law: Perspectives from the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East (ed. R. Achenbach et al.; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2011),17-28; "What Do We Really Know about Women's Rites in the Israelite Family Context?" Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions 10 (2010) 55-67; "Unnoticed Resonances of Tomb Opening and Transportation of the Remains of the Dead in Ezekiel 37:12-14," Journal of Biblical Literature 128 (2009) 491-501; and "The Ascription of Physical Disability as a Stigmatizing Strategy in Biblical Iconic Polemics," Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 9 (2009) article 14:1-15.
Coordinating editor, Brown Judaic Studies, 2001-16; member, editorial board, Anchor Yale Bible series, 2008-; member, editorial board, Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, 2007-15; member, advisory board, Blackwell Encyclopedia of Ancient History, 2009-13; editor (Hebrew Bible), Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series, 1999-2002; member, Society of Biblical Literature Council, 1999-2002; member, editorial board, Journal of Biblical Literature, 1993-98; member, editorial board, Journal of the History of Sexuality, 1996-2000.
