Michael Lesley, M.A.

Research profile:

- Jewish and Christian intellectual history
- Enlightenment and the history of religion
- History of anti-Judaism and antisemitism
- Liberalism and political thought
- History of theology and scholarship
- Jewish–Christian relations
- Dead Sea Scrolls and Second Temple Judaism
 

Curriculum Vitae:

Doctoral Candidate, Harvard Divinity School

2008  
M.A. Jewish Studies, University of Maryland, College Park

2004–2005  
University of Vienna (Study Abroad)

2006  
B.A. Jewish Studies, University of Maryland, College Park
 

Talks

2023

“Anti-Judaism and the Nature of Modern Religion: Semler to Schleiermacher.” Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion.

2017

“Debating Circumcision, Religion, and Human Rights in the Once (and Future?) Christian Europe.” Conference on Public Life and Religious Diversity, University of Oxford.

“The Christian Politics of the Jewish Religion before 1815.” Theology and Politics in the German Imagination, 1789–1848, University of Cambridge.
 

Publications

2026

“Why Judaism Became Religion: Mendelssohn, Semler, and ‘Universal Human Religion.’” In Europäische Aufklärung und „rassistische“ Abwertung: Analysen und Reaktionen jüdischer Denker:innen, edited by Ottfried Fraisse and Jacob Ole Lenz. Halle: Mitteldeutscher Verlag.

2019

“Wiles of the Wicked Woman.” In Companion to the Dead Sea Scrolls, edited by Charlotte Hempel et al. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark.

2014

“Illusions of Grandeur: The Instruments of Daniel 3 Reconsidered.” In Music in Antiquity: The Near East and the Mediterranean, edited by Joan Goodnick Westenholz et al. Berlin: De Gruyter.

2012

“Exegetical Wiles: 4Q184 as Scriptural Interpretation.” In The Scrolls and Biblical Traditions: Proceedings of the Seventh Meeting of the IOQS in Helsinki, edited by George Brooke et al. Leiden: Brill.