Shemaryahu Talmon (Hebrew: שמריהו טלמון) (born Shemaryahu Zelmanowicz, 1920, Skierniewice, Poland) was J. L. Magnes Professor of Bible at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He died the morning of December 15, 2010.
He was educated at the Jüdisches Reform-Real Gymnasium in Breslau, Germany. He was interned for three months in Buchenwald concentration camp in 1939, but then managed to emigrate to Palestine.
He obtained a PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1956. His thesis was on the text and versions of the Tanach, especially "double meanings" in Biblical texts. He has subsequently extended and refined his thesis, and has contributed to many areas of biblical study. He worked with Moshe Goshen-Gottstein and Chaim Rabin on the Hebrew University Bible Project, and since their deaths has served as its editor in chief. He has also done work in the area of sociology. His work has helped to advance the understanding of the biblical text, especially the Dead Sea Scrolls. He combined his interest in the scrolls and sociology to study the nature and history of the "community of the renewed covenant."
In interfaith activities he has been a leader in international Jewish-Christian dialogue, working with the World Council of Churches and the Vatican. In the area of Biblical education, he was director for educational institutions in the Immigration Camps in Cyprus (1947–48). He has taught at the major Israeli universities and been a visiting professor at many institutions throughout the world. He was the rector of the University of Haifa and of the Institute of Judaic Studies at the College of Jewish Studies at Heidelberg, dean of the Faculty of Humanities at the Hebrew University.
His publications include "Qumran and the History of the Biblical Text" (1975), "King, Cult, and Calendar" (1986), "Gesellschaft und Literatur in der Hebräischen Bibel" (1988), "The World of Qumran from Within" (1989) and hundreds of articles in scholarly journals.
In December 2008, Talmon donated a library of 10,000 volumes, mostly in Biblical studies, to the Shalom Hartman Institute.[1]
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In 1997, Talmon was awarded the Israel Prize, for Biblical studies.[2]