Deed and the Doer in the Bible

David Daube (1909–1999) was a world-renowned biblical law scholar. He was a fellow at All Souls College at Oxford, an emeritus professor of law at Oxford, and an emeritus professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley. Scholars have hailed his essential research on Roman law, biblical law, Hebraic Law, and ethics throughout his life and today.

Daube produced dozens of books and published over 150 articles in scholarly journals. Now, for the first time, his twenty Gifford Lectures, delivered in 1962 and 1964, will be available to the public. His first ten Gifford Lectures have been collected in The Deed and the Doer in the Bible: David Daube's Gifford Lectures, Volume 1.

The theme of Daube's Gifford Lectures is law and wisdom in the Bible. His wide-ranging deliberations reveal how complicated and profound the biblical text is. He analyzes deeds described in the Bible and considers, for example, what causes people to act in a certain way, the role of intent, why unintended deeds are sometimes punishable, and how the origin of a deed is determined. His lectures are aimed at professionals in biblical criticism, biblical history, ethics, and the history of law concerning its roots in Old Testament traditions. Daube is a recognized master in these fields, and there are substantial applications to current ethical and legal issues.

Calum Carmichael is a professor of comparative literature and adjunct professor of law at Cornell University. He has degrees in science, historical theology, and law from the Universities of Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Oxford. He is the author of fifteen books that focus primarily on biblical law; the editor of Studies in Comparative Legal History. a five-volume series devoted to the work of David Daube, who was his tutor at Oxford (University of California Press, 2001); and the author of a memoir, Ideas and the Man: Remembering David Daube (The Max Planck Institute for European Legal History, 2004).