David McLain Carr is Professor of Old Testament at the

Union Theological Seminary Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York (shortened to UTS or Union) is a Private college, private ecumenical liberal Christian seminary in Morningside Heights, Manhattan, affiliated with Columbia University since 1928. Presently, Co ...

in New York City. He is a leading scholar of the textual formation of the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Carleton College Carleton College ( ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota, United States. Founded in 1866, the main campus is between Northfield and the approximately Carleton ...

in 1980, his M.T.S., from the

Candler School of Theology Candler School of Theology is one of seven graduate schools at Emory University, located in Atlanta metropolitan area, metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. A university-based school of theology, Candler educates Minister (Christi ...

Emory University Emory University is a private university, private research university in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It was founded in 1836 as Emory College by the Methodist Episcopal Church and named in honor of Methodist bishop John Emory. Its main campu ...

in 1983, and his Ph.D. from

Claremont Graduate School The Claremont Graduate University (CGU) is a private, all-graduate research university in Claremont, California, United States. Founded in 1925, CGU is a member of the Claremont Colleges consortium which includes five undergraduate and two grad ...

in 1988.

Joshua Berman Joshua Berman (born February 29, 1964) is an Orthodox rabbi and professor of bible at Bar-Ilan University. He is known for his views on the history of Jewish belief, and on biblical source criticism, arguing that "knowledge of the cultural conte ...

describes Carr's ''The Formation of the Hebrew Bible: A New Reconstruction'' as a "convention-smashing" book in its use of epigraphic evidence to demonstrate that "many of the forms of editing routinely hypothesized by source critics of the Torah were not employed anywhere else in the ancient Near East." ''Formation'' is considered a significant contribution to the empirical side of biblical source criticism. In ''Holy Resilience: The Bible’s Traumatic Origins'' Carr, a

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...

and a committed

pacifist Pacifism is the opposition to war or violence. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaigner Émile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress in Glasgow in 1901. A related term is ''a ...

, argues that the

Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...

was composed by the Jews in exile in Babylon and reflects their suffering as an exiled and oppressed minority group; and the Christian Bible was likewise shaped by the unspeakable shame of having a crucified savior. The book has received positive blurbs from biblical scholars like

Israel Finkelstein Israel Finkelstein (; born March 29, 1949) is an Israelis, Israeli archaeologist, professor emeritus at Tel Aviv University and the head of the School of Archaeology and Maritime Cultures at the University of Haifa. Finkelstein is active in the a ...

, Daniel L. Smith-Christopher and

Walter Brueggemann Walter Albert Brueggemann (March 11, 1933 – June 5, 2025) was an American Christian scholar and theologian who is widely considered an influential Old Testament scholar. His work often focused on the Hebrew prophetic tradition and the sociop ...

, however, Carr's argument has been criticized for ignoring the consensus among Biblical

linguists Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds and equivalent gestures ...

that the Hebrew Bible was written in pre-exilic Hebrew that would have been impossible for scribes in the period of the Babylonian exile to replicate.

Works

Thesis

Books

* - thoroughly revised version of Ph.D. Thesis * * * * * * * *

Papers

*"Narrative and the real world: An argument for continuity", ''History and Theory'' (1986), pp. 117–131 *"Torah on the Heart: Literary Jewish Textuality Within Its Ancient Near Eastern Context" Oral Tradition (2010), pp.

Chapters

* *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Carr, David M. Living people Old Testament scholars Union Theological Seminary faculty Place of birth missing (living people) Year of birth missing (living people) Emory University alumni Carleton College alumni Candler School of Theology alumni Claremont Graduate University alumni American Christian writers 20th-century Quakers 21st-century Quakers Quaker writers