BA
Max Benster is a second-year MPhil student and Ertegun Scholar, under the supervision of Professor Hindy Najman. In 2024 he completed his BA in Theology, receiving prizes for the top overall performance and the best performance in biblical Hebrew. His first-year MPhil thesis looked at Philo of Alexandria and the ways in which his cosmology and anthropology are connected.
His MPhil dissertation continues and expands his interests in anthropology and the possibilities of divine participation. The dissertation examines texts from Hellenistic Judaism alongside texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls, looking at the ways in which the human can probe, blur, and bridge the ontological chasm separating God and humankind. It concludes with a discussion of the utility of the category of deification in ancient Judaism.
More broadly, Max is interested in archaeology, rabbinic Judaism, mysticism, and the history and theology of the early Church.
Interests: Dead Sea Scrolls; Philo of Alexandria; mysticism