Freedman, David Noel, 1922-2008

Biblical scholar, professor of Near Eastern Studies, and director of the Program on Studies in Religion at the University of Michigan.

Papers of David Noel Freedman, biblical scholar, professor, author, editor, archaeologis, and ordained Presbyterian minister.

David Noel Freedman is a member of the generation of Biblical scholars influenced by the teachings of William F. Albright, professor of Semitic languages at Johns Hopkins University. Their work has been characterized by the application of linguistic and archeological evidence to Biblical texts.

Freedman was born in 1922 in New York City to Jewish parents, David and Beatrice Freedman. After attending classes at City College of New York from 1935-1938, Freedman continued his studies and received his B.A. from U.C.L.A. in 1939. He then entered the Princeton Theological Seminary and was ordained a Presbyterian minister in 1944. For one year, between 1944-1945, he served as pastor at Acme and Deming in Washington. In 1945, he returned to school, earning his PhD from Johns Hopkins University in 1948. It was while a student at Johns Hopkins that Freedman met F.W. Albright. This marked the start of a friendship and a professional relationship which would continue until Albright's death in 1971, and which would have an important influence on Freedman's development as a scholar.

Upon receiving his doctorate in 1948, Freedman was appointed professor of Hebrew and Old Testament Literature at Western Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh. In 1960, he joined the faculty of the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, where he taught until 1964. In that year, he moved to the San Francisco Bay area, where he served on the faculty of two institutions. He was professor of the Old Testament at the Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley from 1964-1971. During the same period, he taught courses in the Old Testament and Hebrew exegesis at the San Francisco Theological Seminary, where he also served as Dean of the Faculty from 1966 to 1970, and as Acting Dean of the Seminary in 1970-1971. In 1971, the University of Michigan secured his services as professor of Near Eastern Studies, and as director of the Program on Studies in Religion.

Freedman has been active in a number of organizations. He is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature, a past president of that body (1975-1976) and editor of their Journal of Biblical Literature from 1952 to 1959. He served as director of the Albright Institute for Archaeological Research in Jerusalem in 1969-1970 and 1976-1978. His role in the American Schools of Oriental Research has been especially active. He served as vice-president from 1970-1982, and as director of publications from 1974-1982. This organization sponsors a number of publications, including the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, of which Freedman was editor from 1974-1978 and the Biblical Archeologist of which he was editor from 1976-1982.

Perhaps his most ambitious project has been the ongoing editorship of the Anchor Bible, which he assumed in 1956. This publication is made up of translations, with extensive commentary, of various books of the Bible. It represents a collaboration of Catholic, Protestant and Jewish scholars and is unique for its nonsectarian and scholarly analysis of Biblical texts.

David Noel Freedman died April 8, 2008.