Shawn Zelig Aster is a husband and father of three, and lives in Be’er-sheva. In his academic life, he works as Senior Lecturer in the Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology at Bar Ilan University, and also teaches in the university’s Department of Bible. He was formerly a faculty member at Yeshiva University. His fields of research include Bible, Biblical History, Assyriology and Semitics, and focus on the literary contacts between Israelite society in the Biblical period and the other societies of the Near East. His current research explores how Biblical prophetic literature responds to the literature, ideology, and political culture of the Neo-Assyrian empire, and he is the author of numerous articles on these topics, as well as a forthcoming book studying reactions to Assyrian claims of empire in Isaiah 1-39. He has also prepared a comprehensive online curriculum on teaching the book of Isaiah for use in Jewish schools in the English-speaking world (www.teachtorah.org) , and has presented several webinars for Jewish educators.
