Moshe Greenberg, one of Judaism’s pre-eminent biblical scholars, has died.

Greenberg, 81, died Saturday at his home in Jerusalem, one of his three sons told the Associated Press.

Greenberg was the first recipient of the Israel Prize for biblical studies, in 1994. The Israel Prize, the nation’s highest civilian award, covers various fields and is awarded annually on Israel’s Independence Day.

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His work includes a two-volume commentary on the Book of Ezekiel that describes “how the prohibition of murder became an unbreakable taboo with Abrahamic religions because of the rise of a belief in man’s connection to God,” Greenberg’s colleague, Israel Kohl, told the Associated Press.

Greenberg, a Philadelphia native, studied Bible and assyriology at the University of Pennsylvania, and earned his doctorate there in 1954. He simultaneously studied post-biblical Judaica at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, from where he was ordained.

Greenberg returned to Penn to teach Bible and Judaica from 1964 to 1970, the year he immigrated to Israel. He taught in the Jewish studies department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

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