Naphtali Meshel studies the Hebrew Bible in its ancient Near Eastern contexts, and its early interpreters. Within the broader study of religion, he has a particular interest in Sanskrit literature, in ancient models for a “fundamental science” of ritual, and in the use of double entendre. In The ‘Grammar’ of Sacrifice (OUP 2014) and in Two Models of Biblical Purity (OUP 2025, forthcoming) he focuses on Biblical and early Jewish systems of ritual sacrifice and pollution, respectively, and examines the ancient intuition that rituals, like languages, are governed by “grammars.” He is currently Chair of the Department of Bible and a member of the Department of Comparative Religion at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He previously taught at Moscow State University for the Humanities and at Princeton University.