Education information

Description of research and teaching

Dr. Jason Silverman (PhD, Trinity College Dublin) is leader of Team 2 "Social Scientific Theory and Applications" in the Centre of Excellence in Ancient Near Eastern Empires, and has docentship in Hebrew Bible from the University of Helsinki and the Cultural History of Ancient Persia from the University of Turku. He is also the PI of the ERC Advanced Grant project "Work without End: Informal Taxation and Forced Labor within Persian Southern Levantine Temple Economy and Society (WORK-IT)."

Silverman's expertise lies in the impact of the Persian Empire on Judaean communities (i.e., inhabitants of Judah in modern southern Israel/Palestine). Since receiving his PhD, Silverman has held postdoctoral fellowships at Leiden University and the University of Helsinki. He is the author of two well-received monograph, Persepolis and Jerusalem, on Iranian influence on apocalypticism (2012, Bloomsbury) and Persian Royal--Judaean Elite Engagements on early Judaean reactions to the Persian Empire (2019, Bloomsbury). He has edited or co-edited four volumes related to Persian period Judaism. Currently, he is co-chair of the research group "Literature and History of the Persian Period" in SBL and the PERSIAS group in the European Association of Biblical Studies.

Silverman has researched the social and religious impact of the Persian Empire upon the development of Judaean populations by utilizing insights from the sociology of religion, orality studies, and the sociologies of migration and forced labor. He brings a robust history of interdisciplinary research on the Persian empire to ANEE, having collaborated with communications scholars, Assyriologists, and archaeologists in the past.

Silverman will be leading team 2 to provide useful questions and theoretical approaches for ANEE's four work packages. His own research will focus on social structures, social authority, labor and migration, as these are impacted by the first millennium empires.