Robert Eisenman | |
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| Born | 1937 (age 86–87) South Orange, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Cornell University (B.A., Physics and Philosophy, 1958) New York University (M.A., Hebrew and Near Eastern Studies, 1966) Columbia University (PhD, Middle East Languages and Cultures, 1971) |
| Occupation(s) | author, professor, biblical scholar |
| Known for | works on Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls |
| Relatives | Peter Eisenman (brother) |
| Website | roberteisenman |
Robert Eisenman (born 1937) is an American biblical scholar, historian, archaeologist, and poet. He is currently professor of Middle East religions, archaeology, and Islamic law and director of the Institute for the Study of Judaeo-Christian Origins at California State University Long Beach.
Eisenman led the campaign to free up access to the Dead Sea Scrolls in the 1980s and 90s, and, as a result of this campaign, is associated with the theory that combines Essenes with Palestinian messianism (or what some might refer to as "Palestinian Christianity") – a theory opposed to establishment or consensus scholarship.
Before this, Eisenman spent five years "on the road" in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East as far as India, encapsulating all these things in his poetic travel Diario (1959–62), published in 2007 by North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, California and called The New Jerusalem, in which he describes the San Francisco "Beat" scene in 1958–59, Paris when still a "moveable feast", working on kibbutzim in Israel, the Peace Corps, and several voyages on the overland route to India.