Gary A. Rendsburg (born 1954) is a professor of biblical studies, Hebrew language, and ancient Judaism at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He holds the rank of Distinguished Professor and serves as the Blanche and Irving Laurie Chair of Jewish History at Rutgers University (2004–present), with positions in the Department of Jewish Studies and the Department of History.
Prior to teaching at Rutgers, Rendsburg taught for 18 years at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. (1986-2004) and for six years at Canisius College in Buffalo, N.Y. (1980-1986).
Rendsburg received his B.A. degree in English and Journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1975), and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Hebrew Studies from New York University (1977, 1980).
Rendsburg's main research interests are the literature of the Bible, the history of ancient Israel, the historical development of the Hebrew language, the relationship between ancient Egypt and ancient Israel, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and medieval Hebrew manuscripts. He also teaches courses and offers lectures on the whole breadth of Jewish history and religion, with a special focus on the development of Judaism in the post-biblical period.
Rendsburg is best known for his work on Israelian Hebrew, the dialect of ancient Hebrew used in the northern part of Israel (more or less contiguous with the territory of the kingdom of Israel, which existed 930-721 B.C.E.). The dialect stands in contrast to Judahite Hebrew, the dialect used in the southern part of the country (in Judah in general and in Jerusalem in particular), in which the vast majority of the biblical books are composed. While earlier scholars had postulated the existence of a northern Hebrew dialect, and had offered a few lexical and grammatical features as evidence thereto, Rendsburg greatly expanded our knowledge of Israelian Hebrew by identifying sections of the Bible written in the dialect and by creating a much longer list of linguistic traits specific to this dialect. He built his case based both on internal biblical evidence and on the fact that many Israelian Hebrew features occur in Phoenician, Moabite, and Aramaic, dialects and languages which border the territory of northern (and Transjordanian) Israel, but not Judah in the south.
Rendsburg further proposed that Mishnaic Hebrew, a Hebrew dialect used in post-biblical times, especially for the composition of early rabbinic texts, was also a northern dialect of ancient Hebrew. He noted that many Israelian Hebrew features continue in Mishnaic Hebrew; and he further observed that the Mishnah and related texts were compiled in Sepphoris or elsewhere in the Galilee, so that the geography makes sense as well.