Personal information

Hebrew, Aramaic, Talmud, History of writing, Alphabet, Mishnah, Hebrew Bible, Rabbinic literature, Semitic linguistics

Biography

Aaron Koller is professor of Near Eastern Studies at Yeshiva University. He is currently working on a cultural history of the alphabet from its invention through its conquest of most of the world. He is the author of Esther in Ancient Jewish Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2014) and Unbinding Isaac: The Akedah for Modern Jewish Thought (JPS/University of Nebraska Press, 2020), among other books, and the editor or co-editor of five more. Aaron has previously served as a visiting professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and a visiting fellow at the Albright Institute for Archaeological Research in East Jerusalem, the Hartman Institute in West Jerusalem, Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, and the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. He lives in Queens, NY with his partner, Shira Hecht-Koller, and their children.

Activities

Employment (1)

Yeshiva University: New York, NY, US

2009-09-01 to present | Professor (Near Eastern Studies)
Employment
Source: Self-asserted source
Aaron Koller

Works (35)

[REVIEW] Shaye J.D. Cohen, Robert Goldenberg, and Hayim Lapin (eds), The Oxford Annotated Mishnah. ISBN: 9780192846143.

2024-01-22 | Other
Contributors: Aaron Koller
Source: check_circle
Crossref

Reptiles, Insects, and other Creepy Crawly Things: Folk Categories and the Ancient Hebrew Lexeme שרץ

The Shamir, the Letters, the Writing, and the Tablets (Mishnah Avot 5:6): Studies in Honor of Professor Shamir Yona (ed. Mayer I. Gruber, Jonathan Yogev, Daniel Sivan, Loren T. Stuckenbruck, and Eliyahu Assis; Jerusalem: Ostracon)
2023 | Book chapter
Contributors: Aaron Koller
Source: Self-asserted source
Aaron Koller

The Prayer of Nabonidus and Lost Books: Reconstructing the Aramaic Library of the Persian Period

Mallephana Rabba: Aramaic Studies in Honor of Edward M. Cook (ed. Stephen M. Coleman, Andrew D. Gross & Andrew W. Litke; Perspectives on Linguistics and Ancient Languages 15; Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias)
2023 | Book chapter
Contributors: Aaron Koller
Source: Self-asserted source
Aaron Koller

The Akedah in a Different Voice

Linguistic and Philological Studies of the Hebrew Bible and its Manuscripts
2023-06-29 | Book chapter
Part of ISBN: 9789004544840
Part of ISBN: 9789004544857
Contributors: Aaron Koller
Source: Self-asserted source
Aaron Koller

The Alphabetic Revolution, Writing Systems, and Scribal Training in Ancient Israel

Semitic Languages and Cultures
2021-04-06 | Book chapter
Part of ISBN: 9781800641648
Part of ISBN: 9781800641655
Part of ISBN: 9781800641662
Part of ISSN: 2632-6906
Part of ISSN: 2632-6914
Contributors: Aaron Koller
Source: Self-asserted source
Aaron Koller

Hebrew and Aramaic in Contact

A Companion to Ancient Near Eastern Languages (ed. Rebecca Hasselbach-Andee; Blackwell)
2020 | Book chapter
Contributors: Aaron Koller
Source: Self-asserted source
Aaron Koller

Richard Steiner: An Appreciation

Semitic, Biblical, and Jewish Studies: Festschrift for Richard Steiner (ed. Mordechai Z. Cohen, Aaron Koller, and Adina Moshavi; Bialik and Yeshiva University Press)
2020 | Book chapter
Contributors: Aaron Koller
Source: Self-asserted source
Aaron Koller

Semitic, Biblical, and Jewish Studies: Festschrift for Richard Steiner (with Mordechai Z. Cohen and Adina Moshavi)

Jerusalem and New York: Bialik and Yeshiva University Press
2020 | Edited book
Contributors: Aaron Koller
Source: Self-asserted source
Aaron Koller

Thrones and Crowns: on the Regalia of the West Semitic Monarchy

The Throne in Art and Archaeology from the Dawn of the Ancient Near East until the Late Medieval Period (ed. Liat Naeh and Dana Brostowsky Gilboa; Vienna: Institute for Oriental and European Archaeology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences)
2020 | Book chapter
Contributors: Aaron Koller
Source: Self-asserted source
Aaron Koller

Tree and Wood, Polysemy and Vagueness: Detangling the branches of the Hebrew word עץ

Semitic, Biblical, and Jewish Studies: Festschrift for Richard Steiner (ed. Mordechai Z. Cohen, Aaron Koller, and Adina Moshavi; Bialik and Yeshiva University Press
2020 | Book chapter
Contributors: Aaron Koller
Source: Self-asserted source
Aaron Koller

Unbinding Isaac

JPS/University of Nebraska Press
2020-07-01 | Book
Contributors: Aaron Koller
Source: Self-asserted source
Aaron Koller

Hebrew and Aramaic in Contact

A Companion to Ancient Near Eastern Languages
2020-02-28 | Book chapter
Part of ISBN: 9781119193296
Part of ISBN: 9781119193814
Contributors: Aaron Koller
Source: Self-asserted source
Aaron Koller

Iran and Israel: From Cyrus the Great to the Islamic Republic (with Daniel Tsadik)

Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock
2019 | Edited book
Contributors: Aaron Koller
Source: Self-asserted source
Aaron Koller

Negotiating empire: Jewish life and Jewish theology under the Achaemenids

Iran and Israel: From Cyrus the Great to the Islamic Republic (ed. Daniel Tsadik and Aaron Koller; YU Center for Israel Studies; Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock)
2019 | Book chapter
Contributors: Aaron Koller
Source: Self-asserted source
Aaron Koller

The Diffusion of the Alphabet in the Second Millennium BCE: On the Movements of Scribal Ideas from Egypt to the Levant, Mesopotamia, and Yemen

Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections
2018 | Journal article
Contributors: Aaron Koller
Source: Self-asserted source
Aaron Koller

Pornography or Theology? The Legal Background, Psychological Realism, and Theological Import of Ezekiel 16

The Catholic Biblical Quarterly
2017 | Journal article
Part of ISSN: 2163-2529
Contributors: Aaron Koller
Source: Self-asserted source
Aaron Koller

Studies in Mishnaic Hebrew and Related Dialects: Proceedings of the Yale Symposium, May 2014 (ed. Elitzur Bar-Asher Siegal and Aaron Koller)

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem in collaboration with The Program in Judaic Studies, Yale University
2017 | Edited book
Contributors: Aaron Koller
Source: Self-asserted source
Aaron Koller

The Self-Referential Coda in the Mishnah and the Egyptian-Israelite Literary Tradition of Wisdom

Journal of Ancient Judaism
2017 | Journal article
Contributors: Aaron Koller
Source: Self-asserted source
Aaron Koller

The Social and Geographic Origins of Mishnaic Hebrew

Studies in Mishnaic Hebrew and Related Dialects: Proceedings of the Yale Symposium, May 2014 (ed. Elitzur Bar-Asher Siegal and Aaron Koller; The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Yale University
2017 | Book chapter
Contributors: Aaron Koller
Source: Self-asserted source
Aaron Koller

On Texts, Contexts, and Countertexts

Prooftexts
2015 | Journal article
Part of ISSN: 0272-9601
Contributors: Aaron Koller
Source: Self-asserted source
Aaron Koller

Esther in Ancient Jewish Thought

Cambridge University Press
2014 | Book
Contributors: Aaron Koller
Source: Self-asserted source
Aaron Koller

Talmuda de-Eretz Israel: Archaeology and the Rabbis in Late Antique Palestine (ed. Steven Fine and Aaron Koller)

Berlin: De Gruyter
2014 | Edited book
Contributors: Aaron Koller
Source: Self-asserted source
Aaron Koller

Affrication

Leiden: Brill
2013 | Encyclopedia entry
Contributors: Aaron Koller
Source: Self-asserted source
Aaron Koller

Attenuation

Leiden: Brill
2013 | Encyclopedia entry
Contributors: Aaron Koller
Source: Self-asserted source
Aaron Koller

Moshe Bar-Asher, Studies in Classical Hebrew (trans. and ed. Aaron Koller)

Berlin: De Gruyter
2013 | Edited book
Contributors: Aaron Koller
Source: Self-asserted source
Aaron Koller

לבוא ולהיכנס: Synchronic and Diachronic Aspects of the Semantics of ‘Coming’ and ‘Going’ in Ancient Hebrew,

Lešonénu
2013 | Journal article
Contributors: Aaron Koller
Source: Self-asserted source
Aaron Koller

Ancient Hebrew מעצד and עצד in the Gezer Calendar

Journal of Near Eastern Studies
2013-10 | Journal article
Part of ISSN: 0022-2968
Part of ISSN: 1545-6978
Contributors: Aaron Koller
Source: Self-asserted source
Aaron Koller

Diachronic change and synchronic readings: Midrashim on stative verbs and participles

Journal of Semitic Studies
2012 | Journal article
Contributors: Aaron Koller
Source: Self-asserted source
Aaron Koller

The Ancient Hebrew Semantic Field of Cutting Tools: A Philological, Archaeological, and Semantic Study

Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America
2012 | Book
Contributors: Aaron Koller
Source: Self-asserted source
Aaron Koller

The Aramaic texts and Hebrew and Aramaic languages at Qumran: the North American contributions (co-authored with Moshe J. Bernstein)

The Dead Sea Scrolls in Scholarly Perspective: A History of Its Research (ed. Devorah Dimant with the assistance of Ingo Kottsieper; STDJ 99)
2012 | Book chapter
Contributors: Aaron Koller; Moshe J. Bernstein
Source: Self-asserted source
Aaron Koller

The Exile of Kish: Syntax and History in Esther 2:5-6

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament
2012 | Journal article
Contributors: Aaron Koller
Source: Self-asserted source
Aaron Koller

The kos in the Levant: Thoughts on its distribution, function, and spread from the Late Bronze through to the Iron Age II

The Ancient Near East in the 12th-10th Centuries BCE, Culture and History (ed. Gershon Galil, Ayelet Gilboa, Aren M. Maeir, and Dan’el Kahn; Alter Orient und Altes Testament 392)
2012 | Book chapter
Contributors: Aaron Koller
Source: Self-asserted source
Aaron Koller

What can be learned from ‘taggin’? On Persian words for ‘crown’ in Jewish Aramaic

Shoshanat Yaakov: Ancient Jewish and Iranian Studies in Honor of Professor Yaakov Elman (ed. Shai Secunda and Steven Fine; Leiden: Brill, 2012)
2012 | Book chapter
Contributors: Aaron Koller
Source: Self-asserted source
Aaron Koller

Four Dimensions of Linguistic Variation: Aramaic Dialects in and Around Qumran

The Dead Sea Scrolls in Context (ed. Armin Lange, Emanuel Tov, and Matthias Weigold; Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 140)
2010 | Book chapter
Contributors: Aaron Koller
Source: Self-asserted source
Aaron Koller

Sex or power? The crime of the single girl in Deuteronomy 22

Zeitschrift für altorientalische und biblische Rechtsgeschichte
2010 | Journal article
Contributors: Aaron Koller
Source: Self-asserted source
Aaron Koller