Foreign Secretary, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences

Observer, IAC Board

Born in Haarlem (1944), Ed Noort was educated at the universities of Amsterdam, Kampen and Göttingen where he studied Science of Religion, Semitic languages and Archaeology of the Near East. After professorships at the Reformed Theological Seminary of Kampen (1979) and the University of Hamburg (1989), he holds since 1993- the chair of Ancient Hebrew Literature, the History of Religion and Material Culture of Palestine at the University of Groningen. He served as a dean of the faculty and as prorector of the University. From 1993-2008 he was director of research of his faculty. He was a Visiting Professor in Bangalore/ India, Princeton/ NJ, a Research Fellow of the CTI (Princeton/NJ) and Professor Extraordinaire of the University of Stellenbosch/SA. Prof Noort is a past President of the Old Testament Society in the Netherlands and Belgium, of the Committee of Dutch and Eastern Europe Theological Faculties and Institutes and of the European Association for Biblical Studies. He is President- elect of the Colloquium Biblicum Lovaniense. He published widely on the fields of Archaeology of Palestine and the literary traditions, the book of Joshua en the history of reception, hermeneutics and historiography.

Ed Noort is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) since 1998 and served on its board of the Humanities and Social Sciences Division from 2002-2008 as an assessor and vice-chair. He was appointed as the Foreign Secretary of the KNAW and a member of the Executive Board in 2008. He is chair of the CO-REACH Board and the KNAW China-Committee.