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Alan F. Segal


Alan F. Segal (August 2, 1945 – February 13, 2011) was a scholar of ancient religions, specializing in Judaism's relationship to Christianity. Segal was a distinguished scholar, author, and speaker, self-described as a "believing Jew and twentieth-century humanist." Segal was one of the first modern scholars to write extensively on the influences of Judaism (including Second Temple Rabbinic texts, Merkabah mysticism, and Jewish apocalypticism) on Paul of Damascus.

Segal was born in Worcester, Massachusetts. He attended Amherst College (B.A., 1967), Brandeis University (M.A., 1969), Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (Bachelor of Hebrew Letters, 1971), and Yale University (M.A., 1971; M.Phil., 1973; and Ph.D., 1975). At the time of his retirement, Segal was Professor Emeritus of Religion and Ingeborg Rennert Professor Emeritus of Judaic Studies at Barnard College and held a concurrent appointment as Adjunct Professor of Scripture at Union Theological Seminary. He had also taught at Princeton University and the University of Toronto.

Segal was an expert in the field of history and religious traditions of Judaism and Christianity of the Roman period, and on the Semitic languages in use in Israel in that period. His scholarly reputation commenced with his landmark book, Two Powers in Heaven: Early Rabbinic Reports About Christianity and Gnosticism (1977), in which he explored early references in rabbinic texts that he proposed were directed against beliefs of Jewish Christians and gnostics. His 1986 book, Rebecca's Children, was a sensitive study showing that rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity were sibling developments from the parent biblical tradition. His award-winning book, Paul the Convert (1990) was Editor's Choice and main selection of the History Book Club's summer 1990 list, and a selection of the Book of the Month Club. The 368 page text is a collection of studies that interprets Paul within the context of Jewish mysticism and history, providing unique depth and insight for Biblical exegetes and Jewish historians. His last book, Life After Death: A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion (2004) was a massive study of beliefs spanning from ancient near-eastern civilizations to the present and across various religious traditions. Life After Death is "considered one of the definitive treatments of that weighty subject — and was weighty in its own right, at 731 pages." It was a selection of the History Book Club, the Book of the Month Club, and the Behaviorial Science Book Club. It also featured on the Leonard Lopate Show, Talk of the Nation, and was the cover story of the Globe and Mail Book Review Supplement (Toronto). In addition, he wrote numbers articles and chapters in scholarly books.


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