Born in New Jersey in 1946 Professor of Talmudic studies at the University of California at Berkeley. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, international scientific society The Enoch Seminar: International Scholarship on Second Temple Judaism, Christian, Rabbinic, and Islamic Origins, responsible for the collection "Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion", which currently published by the University of Pennsylvania.

His publications include the following books: Carnal Israel: Reading Sex in Talmudic Culture (1993), A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity (1994), unheroic Conduct: The Rise of Heterosexuality and the Invention of the Jewish Man (1997), Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism (1998), Sparks of the Logos: Essays in Rabbinic Hermeneutics (2003), Socrates and the Fat Rabbis (2009) and The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ (2012).