Matthias Henze

Matthias Henze

Rice University

Prof. Matthias Henze is the Isla Carroll and Percy E. Turner Professor of Hebrew Bible and Early Judaism at Rice University. He holds a M.Div. in Protestant Theology from the University of Heidelberg and a Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible and Early Judaism from Harvard’s Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. He is the director of Rice's Jewish Studies program, which he founded, and has won multiple prizes for teaching excellence. Henze is the author of a number of books such as, Mind the Gap: How the Jewish Writings between the Old and New Testament Help Us Understand Jesus (Fortress 2017) and Jewish Apocalypticism in Late First Century Israel: Reading Second Baruch in Context (Mohr Siebeck, 2011), and is the editor-in-chief of the Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha.

Last Updated: April 17, 2026

Articles by Author

God Shelters the Faithful: The Prayer of Psalm 91

God Shelters the Faithful: The Prayer of Psalm 91

Psalm 91 expresses confidence that God will protect the righteous from plagues, demons, and wild animals, while allowing the wicked to perish. How are we to understand this psalm when pandemics and other disasters often hit the weakest and most vulnerable the hardest?