Background

Paula Fredriksen was born on January 6, 1951, in North Kingston, Rhode Island, United States, to John Wilhelm and Erselia Lucy Fredriksen.

Education

In 1973, Paula received a Bachelor in History and Religion from Massachusetts Wellesley College. She also has a Diploma in Theology from Oxford University in England in 1974, and a Doctor of Philosophy in History of Religions from Princeton University, New Jersey, in 1979.

Career

In 1978, Fredriksen began her career in the Department of Religion of Princeton University as a lecturer. From 1979 to 1980 she was the Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Religious Studies at Stanford University. Later, she relocated to the University of California, Berkeley, where from 1980 to 1986 she was an assistant professor in the Department of History. Then, from 1986 to 1989, Paula worked as an associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies, of Pittsburgh University.

Later, from 1990 to 2010, Fredriksen held the position of William Goodwin Aurelio Professor of the Appreciation of Scripture at Boston University. She also was a Lady Davis Professor at Lady Davis Foundation. Currently, Paula is the William Goodwin Aurelio Chair Emerita of the Appreciation of Scripture at Boston University and Distinguished Visiting Professor of Comparative Religion at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

Paula Fredriksen has published widely on the social and intellectual history of ancient Christianity, and on pagan-Jewish-Christian relations in the Roman Empire. Author of Augustine on Romans (1982) and From Jesus to Christ (1988; 2000), her Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, won a 1999 National Jewish Book Award.

More recently, she has explored the development of Christian anti-Judaism, and Augustine’s singular response to it, in Augustine and the Jews: A Christian Defense of Jews and Judaism (2010); and has investigated the shifting conceptions of God and of humanity in Sin: The Early History of an Idea (2012). Her latest study, Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle (2017), places Paul’s Jewish messianic message to gentiles within the wider world of ancient Mediterranean culture.

Achievements

• Paula Fredriksen is known as a prolific author who specializes in the social and intellectual history of ancient Christianity, from the late Second Temple period to the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and of pagan-Jewish-Christian relations in the Roman Empire.
  
  In 1999, Paula received a National Jewish Book Award for Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews: A Jewish Life and the Emergence of Christianity.

Works

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  • From Jesus to Christ: The Origins of the New Testament Images of Jesus

    (In this exciting book, Paula Fredriksen explains the vari...)

    1988
  • Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews: A Jewish Life and the Emergence of Christianity

    (Paula Fredriksen, renowned historian and author of From C...)

    2000
  • Augustine and the Jews: A Christian Defense of Jews and Judaism

    (Augustine and the Jews sheds new light on the origins of ...)

    2008
  • Sin: The Early History of an Idea

    (Ancient Christians invoked sin to account for an astonish...)

    2012
  • When Christians Were Jews: The First Generation

    (In this electrifying social and intellectual history, Pau...)

    2018
  • Paul: The Pagan's Apostle

    (A groundbreaking new portrait of the apostle Paul, from o...)

    2017

Religion

Paula was a Roman Catholic, but she later converted to Judaism.

Membership

Paula Fredriksen is a member of the North American Patristic Society, Society of Biblical Literature, American Academy of Religion, Boston Theological Institute, Institute of Christian and Jewish Studies, and Phi Beta Kappa.

Connections

Fredriksen is married to Alfred I. Tauber, professor of philosophy emeritus and Zoltan Kohn Professor of Medicine emeritus at Boston University. They have three children: Aliza Rachel, Noa Miriam and Hannah Daniella.

Father:

John Wilhelm Fredriksen

Mother:

Erselia Lucy Fredriksen

Spouse:

Alfred I. Tauber

Born in 1947

Alfred I. Tauber is an American philosopher and historian of science, who, from 1993 to 2010, served as Director of the Boston University Center for Philosophy and History of Science at Boston University.

child:

Aliza Rachel Fredriksen

child:

Hannah Daniella Fredriksen

child:

Noa Miriam Fredriksen

References

• Contemporary Authors New Revision Series: A Bio-Bibliographical Guide to Current Writers in Fiction, General Non-Fiction, Poetry, Journalism, Drama, Motion Pictures, Television, and Other Fields In response to the escalating need for up-to-date information on writers, Contemporary Authors New Revision Series brings researchers the most recent data on the worlds most-popular authors.