Carl S. Ehrlich received his B.A. magna cum laude (1976) in Judaic Studies/Honors from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and his M.A. (1984) and Ph.D. (1991) in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University. He is currently Professor of Hebrew Bible in the Department of Humanities at York University (Toronto), where he has also served as Coordinator of Religious Studies. During the 2009/10 academic year he has served as Chair of the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies Council as well as Associate Director of the Centre for Jewish Studies. The other institutions at which he has taught include Oberlin College and Vassar College in the United States, in addition to the following ones in Germany: the Hochschule für Jüdische Studien (Heidelberg), the Kirchliche Hochschule Wupppertal/Bethel (Wuppertal), the Humboldt University (Berlin), and the University of Kassel. During 2010/11 Professor Ehrlich will be on leave from York University while serving in the Fall Term as a guest professor in Judaic Studies at the University of California at San Diego and in the Spring Term as the Sigi-Feigel Guest Professor at the University of Zurich, Switzerland.

Professor Ehrlich has authored The Philistines in Transition: A History from ca. 1000-730 B.C.E. (1996), Understanding Judaism (2004, republished: 2010), and Bibel und Judentum: Beiträge aus dem christlich-jüdischen Gespräch (2004), as well as numerous articles and chapters in the Journal of Biblical Literature, the Zeitschrift des deutschen Palästina-Vereins, European Judaism, Trumah, Foi et vie, the Anchor Bible Dictionary, the Oxford Companion to the Bible, the New Interpreters’ Dictionary of the Bible, and many others. He has also edited Saul in Story and Tradition (2006) and From an Antique Land: An Introduction to Ancient Near Eastern Literature (2009).

His current projects include (1) a cultural history of Moses (for Eerdmans Publishing Company), (2) a new annotated translation of the Hebrew Bible into German to be published in five volumes by the Insel-Suhrkamp Verlag/Verlag der Weltreligionen (co-edited with Christoph Levin of the University of Munich), (3) a commentary on Chronicles (for Das Alte Testament Deutsch published by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht), and (4) a collection of essays on purity and holiness in ancient Israel, Judaism, and Christianity (co-edited with Anders Runesson and Eileen Schuller of McMaster University).

From 1998-2001 Professor Ehrlich served as associate director of the Tell es-Safi/Gath Archaeological Project. He lives in a suburb of Toronto with his wife, Rabbi Michal Shekel. They have two sons, both of whom are pursuing university studies. Professor Ehrlich is an opera buff and a die-hard Red Sox fan and is often to be found perusing works of art.