Daniel R. Schwartz was born in the US in 1952 and moved to Israel in 1971. After completing his studies at the Hebrew University with a 1979 doctoral dissertation on ancient Jewish attitudes to the Temple cult and the priesthood, he began teaching in Hebrew University’s Dept. of the History of the Jewish People. His research focused first on the first century (culminating in books on Agrippa I and on the Jewish background of Christianity) and then on the Hasmonean period; his Hebrew commentary on II Maccabees appeared in 2004 and the English version is now in print. Currently he is back working on the first century, preparing a translation and commentary of the last three books of Josephus' Antiquities. He has taught at numerous universities abroad and is currently a guest professor at the University of Toronto for the winter semester of 2010.