Research Bio

Jonathan Sheehan is a European intellectual and cultural historian whose work focuses on the history of Christianity, the history of knowledge, and the history of secular modernity.  His most influential book *The Enlightenment Bible: Translation, Scholarship, Culture* shows how the Enlightenment transformed, rather than rejected, the Bible, turning it from a sacred text into a work of culture. His most recent book On the Altar: A History of Sacrifice from the Sacred to the Secular (forthcoming in early 2026) explores the long history of Christian sacrifice from the ancient world to the nineteenth century. Across his research, Sheehan explores the the history of the human sciences, the rise of modern disciplines, and most broadly, the importance of religion in the making of the secular world. 

He is the Sidney Hellman Ehrman Professor of European History at UC Berkeley and former Director of the Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion. His scholarship has been published in Past and Present, *Journal of the History of Ideas*, *Modern Intellectual History*, and other leading journals. Sheehan has received fellowships from the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.  At Berkeley, he teaches courses in European intellectual history, the history of religion, and modern European history.

Research Expertise and Interest

intellectual history, religion, Christianity, Europe, history of science, secularism, Secularization