Peter Machinist is Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages at Harvard University, serving since 1991 both in the Dept. of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and in the Harvard Divinity School.  Earlier, he taught at Case Western Reserve University, the University of Arizona, and the University of Michigan; he also served as visiting lecturer and then Lady Davis Visiting Professor in Jewish History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and in 2013-2014 will be Visiting Professor at the University of Munich. He was a Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin and the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. The University of Zurich awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2009.  His work lies in the intellectual and cultural history of the ancient Near East, with particular attention to Israel and the Hebrew Bible, and Mesopotamia. Among his publications are: Letters from Priests to the Kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal (co-edited with Steven Cole; 1998); “The Voice of the Historian in the Ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean World” (2003); “Mesopotamian Imperialism and Israelite Religion: A Case Study from the Second Isaiah” (2003); “Kingship and Divinity in Imperial Assyria” (2006. 2011); and "How Gods Die, Biblically and Otherwise. A Problem of Cosmic Restructuring" (2011). Among his current projects is a volume of commentary on the prophetic book of Nahum.