Career
In the late 90s, he was the Company-Director for the Centre for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls. He was also Publisher and Editorial director of Sheffield Academic Press. He is the author of numerous books and articles on ancient Israelite history and religion, including Scribes and Schools (1998) in the Library of Ancient Israel.
Davies played a major role in introducing the study of cultural memory. to the analysis of biblical narrative.
He and David Clines, initially with David Gunn, founded and edited the Journal for the study of the Old Testament and its Supplement Series. Davies is closely associated with The Copenhagen School dubbed biblical minimalism by detractors (other major figures include Niels Peter Lemche, Keith Whitelam, and Thomas L Thompson), a loosely knit group of scholars who hold that the Bible"s version of history is widely unsupported by archaeological evidence so far unearthed, indeed often undermined by it, and that it therefore cannot be trusted as history.
Davies has also made major contributions to Dead Sea Scrolls research, with monographs on the War Scroll and the Damascus Document. His book Whose Bible Is lieutenant Anyway initiated an ongoing challenge to the prevailing religious or theological perspective of biblical studies, suggesting the outlines of a consciously secular approach.
He has also been President of the Society for Old Testament Study and the European Association of Biblical Studies, and Chair of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
In 2012, Davies weighed in on the Christ Myth Theory debate in the article Does Jesus Exist? at bibleinterp.com. He applauded the book Is This Not the Carpenter?: The Question of the Historicity of the Figure of Jesus edited by Thomas L. Thompson writing "the rather fragile historical evidence for Jesus of Nazareth should be tested to see what weight it can bear," criticizing scholars like Baronet Ehrman who write with certainty about Jesus" existence, and concluding that "recognition that his existence is not entirely certain would nudge Jesus scholarship towards academic respectability.".
