Prof. Dr. Konrad Schmid

Senior Fellow (Heinz-Heinen-Fellowship)

Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies
January 2025–February 2025

University of Zurich, Switzerland
konrad.schmid@uzh.ch

Title of current research project: "How Kings and Slaves Became Humans: The Historical Origins of an Egalitarian Anthropology in the Ancient World (Mesopotamia, Egypt, Israel, Greece)" 

Konrad Schmid
© Konrad Schmid

Academic Profile

My project looks back into some of the earliest written accounts of and on human beings in the 3rd, 2nd and 1st millennium BCE to investigate on the one hand the ideological conceptualizations of these classes (or statuses) and on the other hand the earliest critiques and refutations of these classes (statuses), i.e. the emergence of the idea of human beings as a unified class of equal social and political standing that seemed to have taken place in the middle of the 1st millennium BCE in ancient Israel and in ancient Greece.

The topic of asymmetric dependencies and slavery obviously plays a major role in this project, I am basically interested in the anthropological, legal, and social status of "slaves" in the ancient world of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Israel and Greece.

since 2017
Member des Forschungsrats des Schweizerischen Nationalfonds (SNF)

since 2002
Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Judaism, Faculty of Theology, Faculty of Theology, University of Zurich

2022
Lady Davis Visiting Professor, Hebrew University, Jerusalem

2020–2021
Fellow, Institute of Advanced Studies, Berlin

2019
ERC Advanced Grant "How God Became a Lawgiver: The Place of the Torah in Ancient Near Eastern Legal History"

2018
Humboldt Research Award, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation

2017
Member, Expert Group for the evaluation of the Bible and Talmud in Israel (Beersheva, Bar Ilan, Haifa, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv), Council of Higher Education (המועצה להשכלה גבוהה), Israel

2017
Member, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton

2016–2018
Co-Director of the Sinergia Project "The History of the Pentateuch: Combining Literary and Archaeological Approaches" (SNF)

2012–2013
Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies, Hebrew University, Jerusalem and Co-Director of the Research Group "Convergence and Divergence in Pentateuchal Studies: Bridging the Academic Cultures of Israel, North America, and Europe"

2008–2010
Dean, Faculty of Theology, University of Zurich

2006–2007
Member in Residence, Center for Theological Inquiry (CTI), Princeton

1999–2002
Professor, Old Testament Studies, Faculty of Theology, Ruprecht-Karls-University Heidelberg

1998
Habilitation, University of Zurich

1996
PhD in Theology (summa cum laude), University of Zurich

1985–1990
Studies in Theology, Universities of Zurich, Greifswald and Munich

  • 2023. Exodus heute lesen. Zürich.
  • 2023. The Scribes of the Torah. The Formation of the Torah in its Literary and Historical Contexts. SBL.AIL 45. Atlanta.
  • 2019. With J. Schröter. Die Entstehung der Bibel. Von den ersten Texten zu den heiligen Schriften. München. [Translated into English, French, and Italian].
  • 2019. Theologie des Alten Testaments. NThG. Tübingen. [Translated into English, Japanese, and Italian].
  • 2016. Die Theologische Fakultät der Universität Zürich. Ihre Geschichte von 1833 bis 2015. Zürich.
  • 2013. Gibt es Theologie im Alten Testament? Zum Theologiebegriff in der alttestamentlichen Wissenschaft. ThSt(B) N.F. 7. Zürich. [English translation: Is There Theology in the Hebrew Bible? CSHB 5. Winona Lake, 2015].
  • 2011. Jesaja 1–23. ZBK 19/1. Zürich.
  • 2011. Schriftgelehrte Traditionsliteratur. Fallstudien zur innerbiblischen Schriftauslegung im Alten Testament. FAT 77. Tübingen. [As students' edition, 2016].
  • 2010. Hiob als biblisches und antikes Buch. Historische und intellektuelle Kontexte seiner Theologie. SBS 219. Stuttgart.
  • 2008. Literaturgeschichte des Alten Testaments. Eine Einführung. Darmstadt. [2nd edition as students' edition, 2014. Translated into English, Portuguese, Japanese, Spanish, Korean, and  Chinese].
  • 1999. Erzväter und Exodus. Untersuchungen zur doppelten Begründung der Ursprünge Israels in den Geschichtsbüchern des Alten Testaments. WMANT 81. Neukirchen-Vluyn. [English translation: Genesis and the Moses Story. Israel's Dual Origins in the Hebrew Bible. Winona Lake, 2010].
  • 1996. Buchgestalten des Jeremiabuches. Untersuchungen zur Redaktions- und Rezeptionsgeschichte von Jer 30-33 im Kontext des Buches. WMANT 72. Neukirchen-Vluyn.