Tessa Rajak
Retired professor of Classics at the University of Reading

Tessa Rajak, an expert in the social and cultural history of the Jews in Hellenistic and Roman periods and early Christianity, will offer a 3-day scholar in residence at UVA, March 30-April 2, 2016. She is a professor emerita of ancient history at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom, where she taught ancient history, and a senior research fellow at Somerville College, Oxford. Her publications includeThe Jewish Dialogue with Greece and Rome: Studies in Cultural and Social Interaction; Josephus: the Historian and His Society; and Translation and Survival: The Greek Bible and the Ancient Jewish Diaspora. Rajak received her B.A. and Ph.D. from Oxford University. During her residency, Prof. Rajak will offer a public lecture and a seminar on the general theme social contexts of scriptural transmission.Religious