Mira Balberg

Mira Balberg  is Professor of History and Endowed Chair in Ancient Jewish Civilization at the University of California, San Diego. She specializes in ancient Mediterranean Religions, with a focus on the emergence and development of Judaism in antiquity (200 BCE–500 CE). Balberg is the author of Gateway to Rabbinic Literature (The Open University of Israel Press, 2013), Purity, Body, and Self in Early Rabbinic Literature (University of California Press, 2014) and Blood for Thought: The Reinvention of Sacrifice in Early Rabbinic Literature (University of California Press, 2017). Other topics on which she has published include the human body and its changing cultural meanings in ancient Jewish texts, textual and material religion, and self and subjectivity in late antiquity. She is currently completing a book on aging in ancient Judaism.