Niels Peter Lemche (Dr.theol., University of Copenhagen) is professor of theology at the University of Copenhagen. He studied theology and oriental languages at the University of Copenhagen and went on to teach as an assistant professor at the University of Aarhus. He finished his doctoral thesis on early Israel in 1984 and moved back to Copenhagen as a professor of theology in 1987. He has also taught at the Universities of Hamburg and Stellenbosch. His research revolves around historical and socioanthropological subjects, and he has published several monographs and more than a hundred articles dealing with ancient Israel and the ancient Near East. Dr. Lemche has received many grants and was head of the Copenhagen Dead Sea Scrolls Initiative between 1996 and 1999. At present he is director of the Ph.D. program of the School in Religious Studies at the University of Copenhagen.