Geza Vermes

Géza Vermes (Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈɡeːzɒ ˈvɛrmɛʃ]; 22 June 1924 – 8 May 2013) was a British scholar of Jewish Hungarian origin—one who also served as a Catholic priest in his youth—and writer on religious history, particularly Jewish and Christian. He wrote about the Dead Sea Scrolls and ancient works in Aramaic such as the Targums, and on the life and religion of Jesus. He was one of the most important voices in contemporary Jesus research, and he has been described as the greatest Jesus scholar of his time. Vermes' written work on Jesus focuses principally on Jesus the Jew, as seen in the broader context of the narrative scope of Jewish history and theology, while questioning the basis of some Christian teachings on Jesus.

Vermes was born in Makó, Hungary, in 1924 to parents of Jewish descent, schoolteacher Terézia (Riesz) and liberal journalist Ernő Vermes, (His family, however, had not practised Judaism since the early 19th century.) All three were baptised as Roman Catholics when he was seven. His mother and father died in the Holocaust.

Vermes attended a Catholic seminary. When he was eligible for college, in 1942, Jews were not accepted into Hungarian universities.

After the Second World War, he became a Roman Catholic priest, but was not admitted into the Jesuit or Dominican orders because of his Jewish ancestry. Vermes was accepted into the Order of the Fathers of Notre-Dame de Sion, a French/Belgian order founded by Jewish converts which prayed for Jews.

He studied first in Budapest and then at the College St Albert and the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, where he read Oriental history and languages. In 1953 obtained a doctorate in theology with the first dissertation written on the Dead Sea Scrolls and its historical framework.

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