Prof. Rebecca Scharbach Wollenberg

Prof. Rebecca Scharbach Wollenberg

University of Michigan

Prof. Rebecca Scharbach Wollenberg is Associate Professor in the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. She holds a Ph.D. in Jewish Studies from the University of Chicago and is the author of The Closed Book: How the Rabbis Taught the Jews (Not) to Read the Bible (Princeton, 2023) and The Abrahamic Vernacular (Cambridge, 2024).

Last Updated: April 17, 2026

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Did Ezra Reconstruct the Torah or Just Change the Script?

Did Ezra Reconstruct the Torah or Just Change the Script?

In the second century C.E., 4 Ezra and Irenaeus tell a story of how the Torah was burned by Nebuchadnezzar and reconstructed by Ezra through divine inspiration. Rabbinic texts know of this tradition, but in their version, Ezra’s contribution is changing the Torah into Aramaic writing, or even Aramaic language.