The Faith, Values, and the Rule of Law Program Lecture Series at Seton Hall Law School
is pleased to host Professor Hadar Aviram on Thursday, November 12, 2026, for a lecture
discussion of her recently published book titled Behind Ancient Bars: Narratives of Incarceration in the Hebrew Bible. A reception will follow the lecture.
Seton Hall Law School
One Newark Center, Newark, NJ 07102
The event will take place in the Paula A. Franzese Faculty Library on the 5th floor.
The best address to use for GPS is 1109 Raymond Blvd., Newark, NJ 07102. Please refer to the Directions and Hotel Accommodations button below for directions and hotel information.
Hadar Aviram is the Thomas Miller ’73 Professor at University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, and a rabbinic student at Hebrew Union College. She is the author of five books on punishment and incarceration and has published extensively about correctional policy, prison conditions, parole and release, and forgiveness. The former President of the Western Society of Criminology, Aviram is a frequent speaker on matters of prison conditions, and as part of her pro-bono work was part of the legal team who litigated on behalf of San Quentin prisoners during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her fourth book recounting that experience, FESTER (with Chad Goerzen), won the American Society of Criminology book award in 2025. Behind Ancient Bars is her fifth book, a synergy between her decades of experience in prison scholarship and her newer research interests in antiquity, biblical literature, and Jewish studies.
In Behind Ancient Bars, Aviram challenges the conventional assumption that incarceration is an artifact of modernity by looking back to depictions of detention and confinement in the Hebrew Bible. Aviram takes readers on a journey through the Hebrew Bible’s carceral landscape through creative rereadings of five stories: Joseph in Egypt, Esther in Persia, Daniel in Babylonia, Samson in Gaza, and Jeremiah in Jerusalem. Drawing on her experience as a leading voice against mass incarceration, she finds connections between antiquity and the contemporary understanding of incarceration that encompasses not just the prison itself but also pretrial/immigration detention, bail, electronic monitoring, parole, and postrelease supervision. Infusing ancient biblical stories with fresh life through modern punishment theories, Aviram shows how incarceration has much to teach us about government, the experience of people in confinement, and the strength and resilience of the human spirit across millennia.
Please visit the below Directions and Hotel Accommodations button for more information about directions to Seton Hall Law School, including parking instructions, and nearby hotels.
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