Maren R. Niehoff - Biography#

Born 1963 in Germany, Niehoff completed high school at Atlantic College, UK, with an international baccalaureate. Thereafter she turned to the Hebrew University in Israel, which would become her permanent academic home, to immerse herself in Jewish Studies, with an increasing focus on antiquity. Berlin became another formative station, initially as a BA student under Peter Schäfer (FU), and subsequently as a close collaborator of both Schäfer and Christoph Markschies (HU). At Oxford Niehoff became exposed to the Greco-Roman world and completed her MA and doctoral studies with Geza Vermes in comparative Bible exegesis, ranging from Hellenistic to rabbinic Judaism. Thereafter she spent two years as a post-doc at the Society of Fellows at Harvard University.

Since her arrival at the Hebrew University in 1991, Niehoff has developed the field of Hellenistic Judaism, Early Christianity and rabbinic literature, with emphasis on the amalgamation of exegetical, philosophical, cultural and political elements. In 2024 Niehoff was awarded an ERC advanced grant ROMANA, which seeks to document traces of engagement with Roman discourses among Jews, Pagans and Christians.

Niehoff enjoyed numerous fellowships throughout Europe, among them the Martin Hengel Fellowship at Tübingen, the Beaufort Fellowship at St. John's College, Cambridge, the Carl Friedrich von Siemens Fellowship at Munich and the Marko Feingold Distinguished Fellowship at the Paris Lodron University of Salzburg. She moreover delivered the inaugural lecture in a Series of Lectures in Memory of Gershom Scholem at LMU, Munich, and will give the Tria Corda Lecture at Jena University in the autumn of 2025.