Herbert Basser

Herbert W. Basser (born 1942) is a Canadian scholar of religion and a Jewish theologian known for his work Studies in Exegesis: Christian Critiques of Jewish Law (Boston, 2000).

Biography

In 1963, he graduated from Yeshiva University with a Bachelor of Arts in French literature. After several years as a mathematics teacher, he continued his studies at the University of Toronto in Toronto, Ontario, Canada earning a Master of Arts in 1979 and a Ph.D. in 1983.

Basser has held the Harvard Starr Fellowship at Harvard University, taught at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the University of Toronto, and the University of California, Berkeley. He has been teaching religious studies at Queen's University in Canada since 1980.

Thought

Basser is perhaps best known for his view that scholars of early Christianity have not given sufficient study to rabbinic writings of the time, therefore resulting in a limited understanding how Christianity developed from the Jewish religious tradition.