Prof. Gertz’s main areas of research and teaching include the literary history of the Old Testament, Pentateuch criticism, Deuteronomy research, and ancient Near Eastern and biblical legal history. He was a DFG Heisenberg Fellow and serves on the DFG Review Board on Theology. From 2006–2010 he was director of the International Forum of Science at Heidelberg University (IWH). In 2012–2013, he was a fellow at the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University Jerusalem. He is co-editor of the Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (ZAW) and of Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments (FRLANT). Before moving to Heidelberg in 2004, he was Professor of Old Testament at the Department of Protestant Theology at the University of Mainz from 2000.

Among his publications are: Die Gerichtsorganisation Israels im deuteronomischen Gesetz (1994); Tradition und Redaktion in der Exoduserzählung. Untersuchungen zur Endredaktion des Pentateuch (2000); Abschied vom Jahwisten. Die Komposition des Hexateuch in der jüngsten Diskussion (ed., with K. Schmid, M. Witte (2002); Grundinformation Altes Testament (ed., with A. Berlejung, K. Schmid, M. Witte (6th ed. 2019); T&T Clark Handbook of the Old Testament. An Introduction to the Literature, Religion and History of the Old Testament (ed., with A. Berlejung, K. Schmid and M. Witte (2012); The Formation of the Pentateuch. Bridging the Academic Cultures of Europe, Israel, and North America (ed., with B.M. Levinson, D. Rom-Shiloni, K. Schmid (2016); The First Book of Moses (Genesis). The prehistory Gen 1–11 (2018).

Work Areas:

III. Theology and jurisprudence

VI. Theology and archaeology

Projects:

• Theology and Archaeology: The Place Indications in the Book of Genesis