Research methods
Zohar Amar has been involved in various areas of research that link Torah and science, presenting a new examination of the classical Jewish sources and offering a different perspective on conventional thinking. His approach is to harness contemporary research techniques to scholarship in Jewish Studies. In his research he tries to apply almost every available piece of information, making extensive use of Hebrew literature and Arabic literature and the early, classical sources including ancient Greek, Latin, and Syriac literature. Special emphasis is placed on Jewish and Moslem sources which were written in Arabic in the Middle Ages, presenting their contribution to an understanding of the cultural and material flowering in the Islamic world. Many studies were devoted to understanding the realia embedded in the treatises written by R. Saadia Gaon and Maimonides.
Another of area of his research is related to an identification of the flora and fauna mentioned in the Scriptures and the rabbinical writings. In his recent works, Amar proposes a critical reappraisal of present identifications and a re-classification by levels of probability (i.e.: certain, doubtful). His approach gives the tradition of identification the highest rating of all measures that exist today in this field of scholarship. He also published, in collaboration with other scholars, a new proposal for identifying the ‘clean’ animals in the Torah in light of the archaeo-zoological findings uncovered in the Land of Israel and its environs. A considerable part of his work is devoted to the study of the plant life and agriculture mentioned in the Scriptures, Mishnah, and Talmud, which includes actually cultivating crops and reconstructing the manufacture of the products derived from them. Among others he has replicated the production of milkweed fabric, deciphered the inscription of "Šmn Rahus" mentioned on Samarian ostraca, proposed a recreation of the Temple showbread, initiated the restoration of the balsam plant to Israel, discovered the scarlet dye of the Torah (the Kermes oak coccid) and produced dye from it, replicated the purple dye [argaman], made an identification of dyes in ancient textiles and a historical and laboratory identification of the raw materials used in papermaking in the Middle Ages in light of scientific testing of documents from the Cairo Genizah.
History of medicine in the ancient world
A study of the history of medicine in the ancient world has become one of the most important fields of research in historical scholarship. Amar established, in collaboration with Professor Efraim Lev (of the University of Haifa), the “Unit on the History of Medicine in the Land of Israel”, one of the most important centers of academic research in Israel operating in this field. Research focuses on documenting the medical tradition from the ancient world until the present, especially Materia Medica, the spices used in the Temple incense and perfume, and it included a comprehensive ethnopharmacological survey conducted in marketplaces that specialize in selling traditional medicinal spices and herbs in Israel, Jordan, and Morocco. Recently he completed a comprehensive survey of Materia Medica used by the Ethiopian community in Israel (in collaboration with Dikla Danino). Another prominent study dealt with practical medicine in the Middle Ages in the Middle East according to medical prescriptions found in the Cairo Genizah.
Zohar Amar has published in collaboration with colleagues several ancient medical manuscripts, such as the treatise of the Jerusalem physician a-Tamimi (10th century), the Sori ha-Guf by R. Nathan ben Yoel Falaquera (13th century), Practical Medicine of Rabbi Hayyim Vital (16th century), and P’ri Megaddim by Rabbi David de Silva, Physician of Jerusalem (18th century).
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