David Noel Freedman

Christian Century, May 20, 2008

David Noel Freedman, a versatile biblical scholar who oversaw the Anchor Bible Series and held long, overlapping faculty tenures at the University of Michigan and the University of California at San Diego, died April 8 in Petaluma, California. He was 85. A prodigy who graduated from UCLA at age 17, he studied under archaeologist William Albright at Johns Hopkins University and earned his Ph.D.

there by writing two dissertations jointly with a future archaeologist of note, Frank M. Cross. A seminary professor in his early career, Freedman also edited the Journal of Biblical Literature in the late 1950s and Biblical Archaeologist from 1976 to 1982. Often willing to make daring research conclusions, the unpretentious and tireless Freedman never retired. "There never was such an entrepreneur-facilitator-collaborator-disseminator of biblical scholarship," said UC San Diego colleague William Propp.