Timothy H. Lim is a British and Canadian scholar of the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Judaism, Professor Emeritus at the University of Edinburgh, and a specialist in the Dead Sea Scrolls and canon formation.^[1]

He is General Editor of the Oxford Commentary on the Dead Sea Scrolls published by Oxford University Press, co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the author of monographs including Holy Scripture in the Qumran Commentaries and Pauline Letters, Pesharim, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Very Short Introduction, The Formation of the Jewish Canon, and The Earliest Commentary on the Prophecy of Habakkuk.^{[2][3][4][5][6]}

Education

Lim earned a BA at the University of British Columbia in 1982. He earned an MCS at Regent College in 1985. He earned a Graduate Diploma in Ancient History at Macquarie University in 1986. He earned an MPhil in 1988 and a DPhil in 1991 at the Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford.^[7] Lim holds British and Canadian nationality and lists Chinese as his mother tongue.^[7]

Career

Following his DPhil, Lim held the Kennicott Hebrew Fellowship at the University of Oxford and a Junior Research Fellowship at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies with affiliation to St Hugh's College from 1991 to 1993. He joined the University of Edinburgh in 1994 as Lecturer in Dead Sea Scrolls and Christian Origins. He was promoted to Reader in Hebrew and Old Testament Studies in 1998 and to Professor of Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Judaism in 2005. He demitted his chair in September 2023 and was awarded the title Professor Emeritus.^[7][1][8]

Lim's research program spans textual criticism and reception history of authoritative scriptures in ancient Judaism and the Dead Sea Scrolls. His publications concentrate on canon formation and Qumran literature. His teaching portfolio has included the Pentateuch, Leviticus, Habakkuk, Song of Songs, Bible and Archaeology, Early Jewish texts, Advanced Hebrew, and Aramaic.^[1]

Lim serves as General Editor of the Oxford Commentary on the Dead Sea Scrolls. His Habakkuk volume inaugurated the series. The series publishes line by line commentaries with translation, textual notes, and thematic analysis based on the best digitized images.^[2][9]

Publications

Lim's publications include influential monographs, edited volumes, and critical editions on the Dead Sea Scrolls, canon formation, and Second Temple Judaism. Lim's contributions address the structure and hermeneutics of the Qumran pesharim, the textual diversity of biblical traditions in the late Second Temple period, and the emergence of authoritative scripture collections in Jewish communities. The Formation of the Jewish Canon presents a historical model in which communities configured plural collections prior to later rabbinic stabilization.^[4][1]

Lim's Very Short Introduction on the Dead Sea Scrolls has been translated into Bulgarian, Chinese, Arabic, Dutch, Korean, Portuguese, and Italian.^[1]

References

External links

• University profile and CV