Beverly Mortensen

Who is Beverly Mortensen?

Beverly P. Mortensen is a musician, composer, and scholar of ancient Jewish religion at Northwestern University. In 2006, she published the book The Priesthood in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: Renewing the Profession, in which she strongly argues her thesis, that Targum Pseudo-Jonathan is a late 4th-century CE work and is meant as a manual for kohanim, Jewish priests.

A scholar of ancient Judaism, the Hebrew Bible, and contemporary religious thought, Mortensen has also published a book Oh Priests, showing the priest-centered authorship and readership of Targum Pseudo-Jonathan. She will also soon publish Examining Your Childhood Religion, a comparison of biblical religions with the Bible, and identification of their dissonance with the modern world. Published articles concern Targums, Aramaic translations of the Hebrew Bible.

Specific teaching interests include Temple cult and Hebrew Bible, Dead Sea Scrolls and New Age thought. Her courses include Finding God, Dead Sea Scrolls, Moses and David: Tabernacle and Temple, and Wisdom Literature. She is director of the Village Singers, a choral group in Glencoe, Illinois.