A professor at the Collège de France since 2007, Thomas Römer served for four years as vice president of the Assembly and for five years as director of the Institute of Civilizations before being appointed Chairman of the Collège de France, effective September 1st, 2019, by decree of the President of the Republic, following his election by the Assembly of the Collège de France. Reappointed in September 2022, and then re-elected by his colleagues at the Collège de France Assembly in June 2025, he began a third three-year term on September 1, 2025.
After serving as an associate professor at the Faculty of Theology at the University of Geneva, Thomas Römer became, in 1993, a full professor of Hebrew Bible at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Lausanne, where he served as dean from 1999 to 2003. He has served as a visiting professor at the faculties of theology in Montpellier, Neuchâtel, Paris, Zurich, and Mexico City, as well as at the Center for Theological and Social Studies in Managua, and as a visiting director of studies at the École pratique des hautes études (Section V) in 1999–2000. Since 2007, Thomas Römer has been a professor at the Collège de France, holding the chair in The Hebrew Bible and its Contexts. He delivered his opening lecture, “The Horns of Moses: Bringing the Bible into History,” on February 5, 2009.
Thomas Römer is the author of more than four hundred scholarly publications—including articles, academic books, and edited volumes—among which the following stand out : *The First History of Israel: The Deuteronomistic School at Work* (Labor et Fides, 2007), *The Invention of God* (Seuil, 2014), and *The Origins of the Torah: New Encounters, New Perspectives* (Bayard, 2019)—the latter co-authored with Israel Finkelstein. He published a commentary on the story of Abraham in 2023: *Genesis 11:27–25:18. The Story of Abraham (Labor et Fides). He has also helped make his research accessible to the general public through books such as *The Obscure God* (Labor et Fides, 2024, 4th ed.) , *The Bible: What Stories!* (Bayard, 2014), *The 100 Words of the Bible* (Que sais-je, PUF, 2024, 3rd ed.), and *The Old Testament* (Que sais-je, PUF, 2024, 2nd ed.).
Thomas Römer co-directed, with Israel Finkelstein, the excavations at Qiryat Yearim in 2017 and 2019, which attracted widespread public interest, as demonstrated , among other things , by the documentary *The Ark of the Covenant: The Origins of th e Bibl e *, produced for the ARTE network and the Israeli channel KAN.
From 2013 to 2024, Thomas Römer directed Joint Research Unit 7192 “Near East–Caucasus: Languages, Archaeology, 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 scholarly journals and series such as *Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception* , *Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft: Ancient Israel and Its Literature* , *Journal of Biblical Literature* , and *Semitica* —of which he is the editor-in-chief. He has received numerous honors, notably in France (the Prize for the History of Religions from the “Les amis de Pierre-Antoine Bernheim” Foundation, an honorary doctorate from the Catholic University of Lyon), in South Africa (Distinguished Professor in the Faculty of Religious Studies at the University of Pretoria), in Switzerland (the Leenaards Foundation Cultural Prize and the University of Lausanne Prize), and in Israel (an honorary doctorate from Tel Aviv University). Thomas Römer is a Knight of the National Order of the Legion of Honor and a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters
Thomas Römer’s research focuses on the origins of the Bible within the context of the ancient world. From a history of religions 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 the texts within their original contexts, addressing issues of identity, culture, society, and politics. This has enabled him to propose new historical syntheses, particularly regarding the formation of the Pentateuch, biblical historiography, and the origins of God and His cults in the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah.
