Burkitt Medal for Biblical Studies

Professor George J. Brooke is awarded the 2024 Burkitt Medal.

His field of expertise spans early Judaism and early Christianity, with particular specialism in the Dead Sea Scrolls and their significance for biblical studies.

In this respect, he has been at the forefront of recent advances in stretching the boundaries of ‘biblical studies’ and in giving as much scholarly attention to the texts of early Judaism as to those traditionally studied by biblical scholars.

Professor Brooke has been a member of the international team of editors of the 'Dead Sea Scrolls' since 1992, and in 1993 was a founding editor of the premier journal in his field, 'Dead Sea Discoveries'.

The depth and rigour of his work are outstanding, while his collaborative leadership in his field and his popular dissemination of scholarly results have been exceptionally fruitful.

Professor Brooke was President of the British Association of Jewish Studies in 1999 and was made a Doctor of Divinity by Oxford University in 2010. He also gave the British Academy Schweich Lectures in 2019.

George J. Brooke is Rylands Professor Emeritus of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at the University of Manchester where he taught Biblical Studies and Early Judaism from 1984 until 2016. Before taking up a lectureship at Manchester, he was in turn Junior Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew and Jewish Studies and then Lecturer in New Testament at Salisbury and Wells Theological College.

He completed a BA in 1973 at St Peter’s College, Oxford, a PGCE in 1974 at St John’s College, Cambridge, and a PhD in Biblical Studies (as a Fulbright Scholar) in 1978 at Claremont Graduate School, California.

He was awarded a DD from Oxford in 2010 and has an honorary doctorate from the University of Lausanne (2018).

In 1999, he was the President of the British Association for Jewish Studies. In 2012, he was President of the Society for Old Testament Study.

He completed a three-year term as President of the European Association of Biblical Studies in 2024.

He is a Visiting Professor of Biblical Studies at the University of Chester. In 2018, he gave the Smilde Lectures at the University of Groningen; in 2019, he presented the Schweich Lectures at the British Academy. He was presented with a collection of essays to mark his 65th birthday: 'Is There a Text in This Cave? Studies in the Textuality of the Dead Sea Scrolls in Honour of George J. Brooke' (ed. A. Feldman, M. Cioată, C. Hempel; STDJ 119; Leiden: Brill, 2017).

Alongside being a founding editor of the journal 'Dead Sea Discoveries' (Brill, 1993–2003), he has co-edited the 'Journal of Semitic Studies' for nearly 30 years.

Among his publications are 'Exegesis at Qumran' (1985; reprinted, 2006), 'The Allegro Qumran Collection' (1996), 'The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament' (2005), 'Qumran and the Jewish Jesus' (2005), 'Reading the Dead Sea Scrolls: Essays in Method' (2013), and 'The Dead Sea Scrolls and German Scholarship' (2018).

He has also edited more than 20 books including most recently the 'T&T Clark Companion to the Dead Sea Scrolls' (with Charlotte Hempel, 2019). His popular book, 'The Complete World of the Dead Sea Scrolls' (co-authored with Philip Davies and Phillip Callaway, 2002) has sold several thousand copies in English, German, Spanish, Dutch, Hungarian and Japanese and has been released in a revised paperback form (2011).

"I am greatly surprised and honoured to be awarded the British Academy’s Burkitt Medal for 2024. It is a great joy to me that those who nominated me and who ratified the nomination have so strongly affirmed that an academic career spent mostly with the Dead Sea Scrolls and other Jewish literature of the Second Temple period is of major significance for the study of the New Testament and related texts. Indeed, here is an indication that the New Testament must itself be considered in many fundamental respects as Jewish literature. I am enormously grateful to the Academy for bestowing this significant, internationally-renowned award on me."

- Professor George J. Brooke, August 2024

2023 Professor Sara Japhet, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

2022 Emeritus Professor Richard B. Hays, Duke Divinity School

2021 Professor Rainer Albertz, University of Münster

2020 Professor Beverly Gaventa, Baylor University

2019 Professor John J. Collins, Yale Divinity School

2018 Professor Christopher Rowland, University of Oxford

2017 Professor Takamitsu Muraoka, University of Leiden

2016  Professor Dr Dr h.c. Barbara Aland, University of Münster

2015  Professor David J A Clines, University of Sheffield

2014  Professor N Thomas Wright, University of St Andrews 

2013  Professor Ronald Ernest Clements DD, King's College London

2012  Professor Christopher Tuckett, University of Oxford

2011  Professor Andrew Mayes, formerly Erasmus Smith Professor of Hebrew, Trinity College, Dublin

2010  Professor Ulrich Luz, Emeritus Professor of New Testament Studies, University of Bern

2009  Revd Professor Ernest Nicholson FBA, formerly Provost of Oriel College, Oxford

2008  Professor Richard Bauckham FBA, FRSE, Professor of New Testament Studies and Bishop Wardlaw Professor, University of St Andrews

2007  Professor Jan Alberto Soggin

2006  Professor Graham Stanton

2005  Revd Professor Pierre-Maurice Bogaert, OSB

2004  Professor Morna D Hooker

2003  Professor Bertil Albrektson

2002  Professor Gerd Theissen

2001  Professor Rudolf Smend FBA

Download PDF of Burkitt Medal Winners 1925 - 2000

In 2026, eligible nominations are for contributions to New Testament studies.

Nominations for the prize are open from 1 December to 31 January and may only be made by Fellows of the British Academy.

Entries should be submitted electronically via this submissions form.

The deadline for submissions is 31 January each year. Nominations will be reviewed, and the winner selected, by the relevant panel.

If you have any queries submitting a nomination please email [email protected].