Dr. Howard S. Cohen was born and raised in New York City. He received a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Queens College of the University of the City of New York in 1963, and Doctor of Dental Surgery degree from New York University College of Dentistry in 1967.

From 1967 to1969 he served as a Captain in the United States Army Dental Corps. From 1969 to the present he has been in private dental practice in Plano, Texas. In 1993, after accumulating over 700 hours in post-doctoral training, he became a Fellow of the Academy of General Dentistry.

After studying religious history on and off for 20 years, he acquired a Master of Liberal Arts Degree from Southern Methodist University in 1993.

Dr. Cohen belongs to Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Congregations in Dallas Texas and has served on numerous community boards that included the Jewish Welfare Federation of Dallas, Jewish Family Service, Akiba Academy (an Orthodox Jewish parochial school), Congregation Shearith Israel, and the Jewish Community Relations Council.

Dr. Howard Cohen is a student of his own tradition and history, a student of the early Church, how it emerged from and related to its Jewish background, and the history that surrounded the writing of the Gospels. Dr. Cohen has been studying history and religion at SMU’s department of religion for over 30 years, and has been teaching Judaism to Christians and Christianity to Jews since 1975.

Presently, he teaches adult, Sunday school classes at Churches of many denominations throughout the Dallas/Ft. Worth metropolitan area. He also teaches Jewish history in the Melton School of Dallas, which is a community based program from Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Over the course of 5 semesters, he takes his students at the Melton school from the biblical narratives to the 20th century.