Iosif Zhakevich

IOSIF J. ZHAKEVICH, PhD ’16, near eastern languages and civilizations, is an associate professor of Old Testament / Hebrew Bible at The Master’s Seminary. Leading up to his PhD, he received a BA with a double-major in English Literature and Russian Language and Literature at the University of California in Los Angeles, an MDiv and a ThM in Bible at The Master’s Seminary in Los Angeles, an MA in Bible and the Ancient Near East at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel, and an AM in Ancient Near East at Harvard University. His research focuses on the rabbinic interpretation of the Hebrew Bible, particularly as expressed in the Aramaic translations known as the Targumim. He regularly presents at the Society of Biblical Literature and has published a number of articles on issues related to Aramaic. Most recently he served on the translation committee of the Legacy Standard Bible. And currently, he is awaiting the publication of his first book A Targumist Interprets the Torah, in which he analyzes the principles of interpretation in a translation of the Torah from Hebrew to Aramaic.