A professor at the Collège de France since 2007, Thomas Römer spent four years as vice-president of the assembly and five years as director of the Institut des Civilisations before being appointed administrator of the Collège, effective September 1, 2019, by decree of the President of the Republic, following his election by the Assembly of the Collège de France.
Born in December 1955 in Mannheim (Germany), Thomas Römer began his career as a research assistant in Old Testament at the University of Geneva's Faculty of Theology, teaching Biblical Hebrew and Ugaritic (1984-1989). He was awarded a doctorate in theology, specializing in biblical philology (1988). Thomas Römer was then appointed lecturer (1989-1991) and assistant professor of biblical philology and biblical exegesis at the University of Geneva (1991-1993).
In 1993, Thomas Römer became full professor of Hebrew Bible at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies of the University of Lausanne, where he was Dean from 1999 to 2003. He has held visiting professorships at the theological faculties of Montpellier, Neuchâtel, Paris, Zurich and Mexico City, as well as at the Center for Theological and Social Studies in Managua, and was guest director of studies at theÉcole pratique des hautes études (5th section) in 1999-2000. Since 2007, Thomas Römer has been Professor of The Hebrew Bible and its Contexts at the Collège de France. He delivered his opening lecture "Les cornes de Moïse. Faire entrer la Bible dans l'histoire" on February 5, 2009.
Thomas Römer is the author of over three hundred and fifty scientific publications: articles, scholarly works, editions, etc., including La première histoire d'Israël: L'École deutéronomiste à l'œuvre (Labor et Fides, 2007), L'invention de Dieu (Seuil, 2014) and Aux origines de la Torah: nouvelles rencontres, nouvelles perspectives (Bayard, 2019), the latter in collaboration with Israel Finkelstein. He has also helped to disseminate his research to the general public, through the publication of books such as La Bible, quelles histoires! (Bayard, 2014) and Les 100 mots de la Bible (Que sais-je, PUF, 2016).
Since 2013, Thomas Römer has headed the joint research unit 7192 Proche-Orient-Caucase: langues, archéologie, cultures (CNRS/Collège de France/École pratique des hautes études). A member of the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres since 2016, as well as of numerous editorial boards of prestigious journals and scientific collections such as Ancient Israel and its Literature, Journal of Biblical Literature and Semitica, of which he is director, he has been distinguished on numerous occasions, he has received numerous awards, notably in France (Prix d'Histoire des Religions de la Fondation "Les Amis de Pierre-Antoine Bernheim"), South Africa (Professor Extraordinaire, Faculty of Religious Studies, University of Pretoria) and Israel (Honorary Doctorate, Tel Aviv University). Thomas Römer is a Chevalier de l'Ordre National de la Légion d'Honneur.
Thomas Römer 's research focuses on the birth of the Bible in the context of the ancient world. From a history of religion perspective, his approach is characterized by a philological and literary analysis of the texts, in dialogue with the history and archaeology of the ancient Near East. This approach highlights the function of texts in their original environments, responding to issues of identity, culture, society and politics. This is how he has been able to propose new historical syntheses, notably on the formation of the Pentateuch, biblical historiography, or the origins of the god and his cults in the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah.
