David Pearson Wright (born 1953) is an American theologian and the professor of Bible and the Ancient Near East at

Brandeis University , mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = NECHE , president = Ronald D. Liebowitz , pro ...

. He is a scholar in the field of the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. Hebrew: ''Tān ...

, especially the composition of the

Pentateuch The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the sa ...

and inner-biblical exegesis, as well as Near Eastern and biblical ritual and law in comparative perspective. Wright earned his doctorate from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

and is well known for his work ''Inventing God's Law: How the Covenant Code of the Bible Used and Revised the Laws of Hammurabi'' (Oxford University Press, 2009). He is also the author of ''The Disposal of Impurity: Elimination Rites in the Bible and in Hittite and Mesopotamian Literature'' (Scholars Press, 1987) and ''Ritual in Narrative: The Dynamics of Feasting, Mourning, and Retaliation Rites in the Ugaritic Tale of Aqhat'' (Eisenbrauns, 2001). He is currently working on a commentary on Leviticus in the Hermeneia series (Fortress Press, forthcoming).

References

Faculty page at Brandeis University
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wright, David P. 21st-century American theologians 20th-century American theologians Brandeis University faculty University of California, Berkeley alumni 1953 births Living people