Michael Coogan

Michael D. Coogan is Lecturer on Hebrew Bible/Old Testament at Harvard Divinity School, Director of Publications for the Harvard Semitic Museum, and Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at Stonehill College. He has also taught at Fordham University, Boston College, Wellesley College, and the University of Waterloo (Ontario). One of the leading biblical scholars in the United States, he is the author of The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures, editor of The New Oxford Annotated Bible, The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Books of the Bible, and Oxford Biblical Studies Online, and a contributor to such standard reference works as The Encyclopedia of Religion, HarperCollins Bible Dictionary, and The New Jerome Biblical Commentary. Coogan has also participated in and directed archaeological excavations in Israel, Jordan, Cyprus, and Egypt, and has lectured widely. Other projects that he conceived, edited and collaborated on include The Oxford Companion to the Bible, The Illustrated Guide to World Religions, and The Oxford History of the Biblical World. His most recent work is God and Sex: What the Bible Really Says, published in 2010. Mr. Coogan is also obviously a devout atheist. He frequently refers to any event involving the direct participation of the deity of the Bible as a myth. In a textbook he authored, The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures, he uses a translation of the Bible that he edited as an authoritative source for all of the information he teaches in this text book.

For a complete list of his books, see http://www.amazon.com/Michael-D.-Coogan/e/B000APPZKA/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1326029177&sr=1-1

Education

Coogan holds a doctorate in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from Harvard University.

Honors

In 2000, he received Stonehill's Distinguished Faculty Award in recognition of his scholarship and teaching.

Appearances

• Coogan was featured in The Bible's Buried Secrets from PBS's NOVA series. The documentary, premiered on Tuesday, November 18, 2008 at 8 p.m., and investigated the origins of the ancient Israelites, the evolution of their belief in one God, and the creation of the Bible.