David Wright

DWright.jpg

David P. Wright is professor of Hebrew Bible and ancient Near East at Brandeis University. He is currently working on a book for Oxford University Press that demonstrates that the Torah law collection known as the Covenant Code (Exodus 20:23-23:19) is literarily dependent on the Laws of Hammurabi from ancient Mesopotamia. His preliminary conclusions have appeared in the journals Maarav (2003) and Zeitschrift für Altorientalische und Biblische Rechtsgeschichte (2004). Both the Covenant Code and the Laws of Hammurabi feature ideas about slavery and thus are foundational in understanding the practice and its ideology in antiquity. Wright's earlier work deals mainly with ritual in the ancient Near East. He has published two books in this area: The Disposal of Impurity (Scholars Press) and Ritual in Narrative (Eisenbrauns). He is the author of numerous other studies on the Hebrew Bible and ancient Near East and was a contributing editor to the recent Religions of the Ancient World: A Guide (Harvard University Press).