Davies, W. D. (William David), 1911-2001

William David Davies (1911-2001) served as a Professor at Duke University Divinity School, from 1950 to 1955 and was George Washington Ivey Professor of Advanced Studies and Research in Christian Origins from 1966 to 1981.

W. D. (William David) Davies was born in Wales, United Kingdom, and educated at the University of Wales (B.A. 1934, B.D. 1938) and Cambridge University (B.A. 1940, M.A. 1942). Davies received his doctorate (D.D. operis causa 1948) from the University of Wales.

In 1941, Davies was ordained into the Congregational Church at Fowlmere, England. He taught at Yorkshire United College, Bradford, from 1946 to 1950 before moving to Duke for five years as a professor of Biblical theology (1950 to 1955). From 1955 through 1959 he was professor of religion at Princeton University, leaving to become Edward Robinson Professor of Biblical Theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York, as well as adjunct professor at Columbia University. He rejoined the Duke faculty in 1966 as George Washington Ivey Professor of Advanced Studies and Research in Christian Origins. He stayed until his retirement in 1981. He then became the Bradford Professor at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas and in 1986-87 he was a Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge, UK. He also taught at the University of California at Berkeley and at the University of Strasboroug, France.

Davies held numerous fellowships and received several awards and honors. He was a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, (from which he also received the Burkitt Medal in Biblical Studies), an Honorary Fellow of Cambridge University's Fitzwilliam College, a Fellow of the Bellagio Center, Italy, and Fellow of the American Academy of Jewish Research. He was a recipient of two Guggenheim Fellowships and received honorary doctoral degrees from the University of St. Andrews, the Pacific School of Religion, Uppsala University and the University of Wales. Davies also served as honorary president of the Society for Biblical Literature and President of the Society of New Testament Studies (1976). He was a member of the executive committee of the World Congress of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem (1965).

Some of his published works include Paul and Rabbinic Judaism (1948), The Setting of the Sermon on the Mount (1966), and The Gospel and the Land: Early Christianity and Jewish Territorial Doctrine (1974). His popular Invitation to the New Testament (1966) was a Religion section of Book of the Month Club. He was also co-editor of the Cambridge History of Judaism and along with a former student published an International Critical Commentary on Matthew (3 vols).