Katell Berthelot, born in Paris on 13 February 1972, is a French historian of religions, specializing in ancient Judaism and comparing the three monotheisms.
She changed the course of her career in the 1990s after traveling to Israel for two years and studying newly discovered texts of the Bible.
Her education included the history of religions at Paris Sorbonne-Paris IV University where she obtained a Diploma of Advanced Studies (DEA).
She spent the following years at the Orion Center for Qumran Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Her Sorbonne doctorate in 2001, directed by Mireille Hadas-Lebel, was on “Israel and Humanity in Jewish Thought in Hellenistic and Roman Times.” In 2002, Berthelot joined the CNRS, at the Center Paul-Albert Juillet in Aix-en-Provence as a researcher, and she was appointed a CNRS research director in October 2015.