Hila Dayfani wrote her Ph.D. dissertation at Bar-Ilan University under the supervision of Prof. Nili Samet and Prof. Emanuel Tov from the Hebrew University (2020). After completing her dissertation, she was a postdoctoral fellow at Tel Aviv University as part of the SQE research project and at the Centre for the Study of the Bible at the University of Oxford. Dr. Dayfani’s research focuses on biblical studies, Second Temple literature, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Her first monograph, The Transmission of the Pentateuch (De Gruyter 2023), combines tools from the field of textual criticism and paleography to trace the activity of the ancient scribes in Judah and Samaria who copied and transmitted the Pentateuch and examine the scope of the transmission process in the last centuries BCE. Her current project at Mandel Scholion deals with the conception of the Torah as a unified literary work and the relationship between its five books in the Second Temple period.

Select Publications:

“The Relationship between Paleography and Textual Criticism: Textual Variants Due to Graphic Similarity between the Masoretic Text and the Samaritan Pentateuch as a Test Case.” Textus 27 (2018): 3–21.

“Rethinking the Textual Value of 4Q11 (4QpaleoGen-Exodl).” Textus 30 (2021): 105–129.

 “The Scope of the Transmission of the Pentateuch in the Second Temple Period.” Journal of Ancient Judaism 13 (2022): 1–29.

“QpaleoExodm and the Gerizim Composition.” Journal of Biblical Literature 141 (2022): 673–698.

“Material Reconstruction of 4Q22 in Aid of Literary Criticism of the Book of Exodus.” Advances in Ancient Biblical and Near Eastern Research (2023).