Honorary Member
Professor Thomas Römer
Professor, Chair and President of the Collège de France
Professor Römer is also Professor Emeritus of the University of Lausanne, where he taught from 1993- 2020. He holds a Doctorate honoris causa of the University of Tel Aviv (2015) and is Associate Professor of the University of Pretoria. In 2018 he was made Chevalier de la Legion d’honneur.
His current research covers the formation of the Torah, the question of the so-called Deuteronomistic History and its social and historical setting, and the relation between the literary and archaeological approaches to the Hebrew Bible. He is co-director with Israel Finkelstein and Christophe Nicolle of the excavation in Kiriath Jearim (Israel). He is one of the main editors of the Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception and chief editor of Ancient Israel and Its Literature (SBL, Atlanta) and has produced over 20 single-authored works, 30 edited books and some 100 articles. In 2026 the University of Pretoria SA conferred on him an Honorary Doctorate in Divinity.
Select publications
- Römer, T., Dieu obscure. La sexe, la cruauté et la violence dans l’Ancient Testament (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1996). 3rd ed. 2009, translated into Spanish, Italian, Czech, Korean, English, and Japanese (in preparation). 4th ed. 2024 and now considered a ‘classic’.
- Römer, T., The So-Called Deuteronomistic History: A Sociological, Historical and Literary Introduction (London and New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2005). Translated into French, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, and Korean.
- Römer, T., L’invention de Dieu, Les livres du nouveau monde (Paris: Seuil, 2014). Translated into English, Portuguese, Romanian, German, Italian and Korean (in preparation)
- Römer, T. and I. Finkelstein (eds.), Aux origines de la Torah. Nouvelles rencontres, nouvelles perspectives (Paris: Bayard, 2019).
- Römer, T. and J. Chabbi, (eds.), Dieu de la Bible, Dieu du Coran. Entretiens avec Jean-Louis Schlegel (Paris: Seuil, 2020).
- Römer, T., Genèse 11,27–25,18. L’histoire d’Abraham, CAT IB (Genève: Labor et Fides, 2023. English edition to be published in Hermeneia Series.
- Römer, T., A. Bühler, G. Yoffe, N. Dershowitz, E. Piasetzky, and I. Finkelstein (eds.), ‘Exploring the Stylistic Uniqueness of the Priestly Source in Genesis and Exodus through a Statistical / Computational Lens’, ZAW 136 (2) 2024: 165-190. (Using algorithms and AI to gain a more precise diachronical approach to the formation of biblical texts.)
- Römer, T. La Bible. Qu’est-ce que ça change? Livres édités 28 (Genève: Labor et Fides, 2025).