Dr. Susan Niditch is the Samuel Green Professor of Religion at Amherst College, where she has taught since 1978. She earned her Ph.D. from Harvard University’s Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations in 1977. Her scholarship focuses on ancient Israelite literature and early Judaism, with particular interests in oral traditions, folklore, gender and sexuality, material religion, and comparative religious ethics. Dr. Niditch's notable publications include Underdogs and Tricksters: A Prelude to Biblical Folklore, War in the Hebrew Bible: A Study in the Ethics of Violence, Oral World and Written Word: Ancient Israelite Literature, My Brother Esau Is a Hairy Man: Hair and Identity in Ancient Israel, and The Responsive Self: Personal Religion in Biblical Literature of the Neo-Babylonian and Persian Periods. Her recent works are a commentary on Jonah in the Hermeneia Series (2023) and Ethics in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond (Oxford University Press, 2024).Dr. Niditch's interdisciplinary approach has significantly influenced the study of the Hebrew Bible, particularly in understanding the interplay between oral and written traditions and the ethical dimensions of biblical narratives.
