Norbert M. Samuelson is the Grossman Chair of Jewish Studies at Arizona State University in the Department of Religious Studies.  He is an internationally renowned scholar of Jewish philosophy, who is the author of twelve books and over 200 articles.  He is the founder and secretary of the Academy of Jewish Philosophy.

Prof. Samuelson's scholarship focuses on Jewish philosophy and theology.  In the early part of his career, he wrote primarily on medieval Jewish philosophy.  His pioneer work on a fourteenth century Jewish philosopher, Levi Ben Gershom (Gersonides) -- Gersonides on God's knowledge   (1977) -- propelled the hitherto little known thinker to the forefront of modern English language scholarship on medieval Jewish philosophy.

Going beyond the history of Jewish philosophy, Prof. Samuelson authored three major constructive philosophic-theological works:  The First Seven Days: A Philosophical Commentary on the Creation of Genesis  (1992), Judaism and the Doctrine of Creation (1994), and Revelation and the God of Israel (2002).  These works brought Jewish thinkers to focus on the interplay between science and religion and showed how the biblical text could be better understood in the light of contemporary physics and the life sciences.

Professor Samuelson has published two new books in Jewish philosophy.  The first is A Users' Guide to Franz Rosenzweig's Star of Redemption (1999), which attempts to make the rather difficult text of Rosenzweig accessible to contemporary readers in the English-speaking world.   The second is Jewish philosophy, an historical introduction (2003), which is a textbook designed for university undergraduates with minimal background in philosophy, in history, and in Judaism. At present Prof. Samuelson is involved with two major research and writing projects:  An intellectual history of the developing concepts of light in physics and enlightenment in the Abrahamic religions, and a close philosophical commentary on the traditional rabbinic prayer book.

Professor Samuelson has been active in the American Academy of Religion, the Association of Jewish Studies, the American Theological Society, the American Philosophical Association, the British Society for the History of Science, the International Society for Science and Religion, the Franz Rosenzweig Gesellschaft and the Hermann Cohen Gesellschaft.  In these organizations he has articulated a distinctly Jewish way of doing philosophy and demonstrated how to think creatively and precisely about the interface of reason and faith.

In May of 2007, Dr. Samuelson was elected to be the Metanexus Institute's Senior Fellow for 2007-2008, a position created "as an important endeavor to promote interdisciplinary scholarship and engage a broader audience in the Metanexus vision." He will be delivering a set of public and university lectures in the Philadelphia area around the subject of "Light and Enlightenment."

Revelation and the God of Israel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

“The Death and Revival of Jewish Philosophy,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion. 70:1 (March 2002): 117-134.

“Rethinking Ethics in the Light of Jewish Thought and the Life Sciences.” Journal of Religious Ethics. 29:9 (Summer 2001): 209-233.

“A Critique of Borowitz’s Postmodern Jewish Theology,” in Renewing the Covenant: Eugene B. Borowitz and the Postmodern Renewal of Jewish Theology. Edited by petere Ochs. Albany: SUNY, 2000.

A User's Guide to Rosenzweig's Star of Redemption. London: Horizon Press, 1999.

Judaism and the Doctrine of Creation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

The First Seven Days: A Philosopher's Commentary of the Creation of Genesis. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992.

An Introduction to Modern Jewish Philosophy (Suny Series in Jewish Philosophy) Albany: SUNY Press. 1989.

Studies in Jewish Philosophy: Collected Essays of the Academy for Jewish Philosophy, 1980-1985. Univ. Press of America. 1987.

with Gershom Weiss. The Exalted Faith: Abraham Ibn Daud. Fairleigh Dickenson Univ. Press. 1987.

with David Novak. Creation and the End of Days : Judaism and Scientific Cosmology: Proceedings of the 1984 Meeting of the Academy for Jewish Philosophy. Univ. Press of America. 1986.

Gersonides Wars of the Lord Treatise Three: On God's Knowledge. Toronto. 1977.