David P. Wright

David Pearson Wright (born 1953) is an American theologian and the professor of Bible and the Ancient Near East at Brandeis University. He is a scholar in the field of the Hebrew Bible, especially the composition of the Pentateuch and inner-biblical exegesis, as well as Near Eastern and biblical ritual and law in comparative perspective.
Wright earned his doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley and is well known for his work "Inventing God's Law: How the Covenant Code of the Bible Used and Revised the Laws of Hammurabi" (Oxford University Press, 2009). He is also the author of "The Disposal of Impurity: Elimination Rites in the Bible and in Hittite and Mesopotamian Literature" (Scholars Press, 1987) and "Ritual in Narrative: The Dynamics of Feasting, Mourning, and Retaliation Rites in the Ugaritic Tale of Aqhat" (Eisenbrauns, 2001). He is currently working on a commentary on Leviticus in the Hermeneia series (Fortress Press, forthcoming).