Dr. Rebekah Haigh is a scholar of ancient Judaism and Christianity, whose research and teaching situate the New Testament within the vibrant landscape of Second Temple Judaism. She specializes in apocalyptic literature, women and gender in the ancient Mediterranean, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the New Testament, and issues of religion, sectarianism, and violence. 

Dr. Haigh earned her Ph.D. in Religions of Mediterranean Antiquity from Princeton University, following a B.S. from Rochester University and M.T.S. and Th.M. from Emory University. She was a 2017–18 Fulbright Fellow affiliated with the Hebrew University and the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Her current book project, Warring with Words: Scripting Militant Devotion in the War Scroll and the Book of Revelation, offers a comparative analysis of the War Scroll—a martial liturgy from the community that produced the Qumran Scrolls—and Revelation, an apocalypse produced within the early Jesus movement. Drawing on sociology, ritual studies, and Greek and Roman ritual practices, Dr. Haigh interrogates the meaning of “religious violence,” reframing it not solely as acts of physical aggression in the name of a god but also as ritual practices involving writing, reading, and praying about violence.  

Dr. Haigh’s scholarship has appeared in Biblical Interpretation and Dead Sea Discoveries. 

A committed advocate for publicly engaged scholarship, Dr. Haigh co-authored a recent essay in Ancient Jew Review titled “Possibilities in the Past: The Challenges and Payoffs of Public Scholarship.” She is also the executive editor and co-producer of the podcast Women Who Went Before, which highlights the lives and legacies of ancient women across the Mediterranean. Feedspot named Women Who Went Before as one of the 15 Best Women’s History Podcasts for 2025.