About Me
I'm Benjamin Kantor. I'm a Hebrew Scholar.
My name is Benjamin Kantor and I currently work as a Lecturer (aka Assistant Professor) in Hebrew and the Jews of the Mediaeval Middle East in the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (FAMES) at the University of Cambridge. Prior to this role, I worked on a team project led by Prof. Geoffrey Khan to produce a new reference grammar of Biblical Hebrew. I received my Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible from the University of Texas at Austin and my B.A. in Classical Studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
While I love writing and research, I also have a passion for teaching Biblical Hebrew as a real and living language.
Curriculum Vitae.
Education
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2017, Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin
Hebrew Bible with a Minor in Arabic
Thesis: “The Second Column (Secunda) of Origen’s Hexapla in Light of Greek Pronunciation,” Supervisor: John Huehnergard -
2012, B.A, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Classical Studies
Academic Appointments
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2024–present, Lecturer (aka Assistant Professor) in Hebrew and the Jews of the Mediaeval Middle East
Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
University of Cambridge -
2020–2024, Research Associate in Biblical Hebrew Philology
Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
University of Cambridge -
2017–2020, Research Associate in Biblical Hebrew Philology
Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
University of Cambridge
Books and Monographs
- 2023. The Standard Language Ideology of the Hebrew and Arabic Grammarians of the ʿAbbasid Period. Cambridge Semitic Languages and Cultures 21. Cambridge: University of Cambridge and Open Book Publishers.
- 2023. The Linguistic Classification of the Reading Traditions of Biblical Hebrew: A Phyla-and-Waves Model. Cambridge Semitic Languages and Cultures 19. Cambridge: University of Cambridge and Open Book Publishers.
- 2023. The Pronunciation of New Testament Greek: Judeo-Palestinian Greek Phonology and Orthography from Alexander to Islam. Grand Rapids, MI.: Eerdmans.
- 2023. A Short Guide to the Pronunciation of New Testament Greek. Grand Rapids, MI.: Eerdmans.
Books and Monographs (in preparation)
- Forthcoming. co-authored with Geoffrey Khan, et al. The Oxford Grammar of Biblical Hebrew (Based on Gesenius’s Hebrew Grammar). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Forthcoming. A Grammar of Secunda Hebrew: The Biblical Hebrew Tradition Reflected in the Greek Transcriptions of the Second Column (Secunda) of Origen’s Hexapla. Cambridge: University of Cambridge and Open Book Publishers.
- Forthcoming. TO HEBRAIKON: A Critical Edition of the Second Column (Secunda) of Origen’s Hexapla. Origen’s Hexapla: A Critical Edition of the Extant Fragments. Edited by Peter J. Gentry, Alison Salvesen, and Bas ter Haar Romeny. Louvain: Peeters.
Journal Articles
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2024. and James Clackson. “The Use of ει to Represent Etymologically Long ῑ: A Greek Imitation and/or Adoption of a Roman Scribal Practice.” Glotta 100.
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2023. “‘Untying the Knots of the Yoke’: Yom Kippur and an Agricultural Allusion to Jubilee in Isaiah 58:6.” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 85 (4): 666–685.
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2023. “The LXX and Historical Greek Phonology: Phonology, Orthography, and Transcriptions.” Journal for the Study of Judaism 54 (4–5): 494–526. Special Issue: The Septuagint within the History of Greek. Edited by James K. Aitken† and Marieke Dhont.
- 2022. and Geoffrey Khan. “Waw to Vav: Greek and Aramaic Contact as an Explanation for the Development of the Labio-dental [v] from the Labio-velar [w] in Biblical Hebrew.” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 172 (1): 27–55.
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2022. “Recitation and Performance in Late Antique Hebrew: Linguistic Hints of a Performance Register in Greek and Latin Transcriptions of Biblical Hebrew from Late Antiquity.” Dead Sea Discoveries 29 (3): 342–365. Special Issue: Performance of Sacred Semitic Texts. Edited by Geoffrey Khan and Hindy Najman.
- 2022. “‘shewa’ + Secondary Gemination in Late Antique Hebrew as seen in Greek and Latin Transcriptions of Hebrew and in Samaritan.” Journal for Semitics 31 (1).
- 2021. “Reconstructing the Second Column in the Cairo Genizah Hexapla Palimpsest: A Proposed Restoration of the Second Column (Secunda) of Origen’s Hexapla as Attested in the Hexapla Fragment T-S 12.182 (Rahlfs 2005).” Maarav 25 (1–2): 113–151. Special Issue: Zimrat JAH: A Tribute to Jo Ann Hackett. Edited by Jonathan Kaplan and Na'ama Pat-El.
- 2020. Masoret ha-ʿivrit šel yehude ʾiṭalya ba-meʾa ha-šloš ʿesre le-fi taʿatiqim yevaniyim le-milim ʿivriyot ba-diʾalog ‘diyun neged ha-yehudim’ (διάλεξις κατὰ ἰουδαίων) me-ʾet niqolaʾos min ʾoṭranṭo (The Hebrew Tradition of the Jews of Southern Italy in the 13th Century according to Greek Transcriptions of Hebrew Words in the Dialogue ‘Disputation against the Jews’ by Nikolaos of Otranto)” (in Hebrew). Leshonenu 82: 148–184.
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2019. “Where Does ʔayyē Come From? Proclisis and Affix Pleonasm in the Biblical Hebrew Interrogatives ʔē and ʔayyē.” Journal of Semitic Studies 64 (2): 377–399.
Book Chapters
- forthcoming/in prep. “‘And in His Company, We Are Healed’: Isaiah 53.5 and Dagesh Mavḥin ‘Dagesh to Distinguish Meaning’.”
- forthcoming. “Jewish Multilingualism in the Hellenistic Era.” In The T&T Clark Handbook to Hellenistic Jewish Literature in Greek, edited by Marieke Dhont and Sean Adams. London: Bloomsbury/T&T Clark.
- forthcoming. “The Pre-Secunda: A Bi-Columnar Transcription Text of the Jews of Caesarea.” In The Forerunners and Heirs of Origen’s Hexapla, edited by John Meade and Peter Gurry. De Septuaginta Investigationes 19. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
- 2023. “Discovering the Secunda: Insights from Preparing a New Critical Edition of the Second Column of Origen’s Hexapla.” In Editing the Septuagint: The Unfinished Task: Papers presented at the 50th anniversary of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies, edited by Felix Albrecht and Frank Feder, 155–192. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
- 2020. “The Development of the Wayyiqṭol (‘Waw Consecutive’) Verbal Form in Light of Greek and Latin Transcriptions of Hebrew.” In Studies in Semitic Vocalisation and Reading Traditions, edited by Geoffrey Khan and Aaron Hornkohl, 55–132. Cambridge: University of Cambridge and Open Book Publishers.
- 2019. and Philip Zhakevich. “Modern Hebrew.” In The Semitic Languages: Second Edition, edited by John Huehnergard and Na'ama Pat-El, 571–610. London and New York: Routledge.
Book Reviews
- 2020. Review of The Reconfiguration of Hebrew in the Hellenistic Period: Proceedings of the Seventh International Symposium on the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Ben Sira at Strasbourg University, June 2014, edited by Jan Joosten, Daniel Machiela, and Jean-Sébastien Rey. Revue de Qumrân 32 (1): 149–164.
- 2018. Review of The Verb in Archaic Biblical Poetry: A Discursive, Typological, and Historical Investigation of the Tense System, by Tania Notarius. Journal of the American Oriental Society 138 (2): 413–415.