William David Davies

Background

William Davies was born on December 9, 1911, in Glanaman, Wales in a family of miners.

Education

William D. Davies received his Bachelor of Divinity degree from the University of Wales in 1934. He continued his studies there, receiving two more degrees, and got his master’s degree from Cambridge University. Theological studies were completed at Memorial College at Brecon. William was granted the degree of a Doctor of Divinity by the University of Wales in 1948.

Career

In 1941 Davies was ordained into the Congregational Church and began to work as a pastor in Cambridgeshire. In 1942 he obtained the master of arts at the University of Cambridge and began to work part-time with the university, continuing to carry out the religious ministry. Four years later William became a New Testament professor at Yorkshire United College in Bradford. In 1948 he published the book Paul and Rabbinic Judaism, which made him known internationally.

In 1950 Davies moved to the USA and became a professor of Biblical Theology at Duke Divinity School in Durham. In five years William Davies became a professor of religion at Princeton University. Between 1959 and 1966 he was a professor at the Union Seminary in New York and at the same time held the position of an associate professor at Columbia University. In 1966 he returned to Duke University, where he taught Advanced Studies and Researches of the Origins of Christianity. In 1981 he accepted a position at Texas Christian University in Abilene and in 1985 retired from teaching and settled in Durham, where he died.

Achievements

• Davies was a two-time Guggenheim fellow. Among his published works are The Paul and Rabbinic Judaism, The Setting of the Sermon on the Mount, and The Gospel and the Land: Early Christianity and Jewish Territorial Doctrine. His popular book the Invitation to the New Testament was a selection of the Book of the Month Club.

Works

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• book

  • A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew

    (This volume which completes the internationally acclaimed...)

    2000
  • Commentary on Matthew VIII-XVIII: A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew

    (The three volumes stand as one of the major commentaries ...)

    2000
  • The Territorial Dimension of Judaism

    (Davies explains that the belief in the special relationsh...)

    1982
  • Invitation to the New Testament: A Guide to its Main Witnesses

    (The publication of this fulfills a long cherished desire ...)

    1966
  • Christian Engagements with Judaism

    (This volume gathers together studies on various "engageme...)

    1999
  • Paul and Rabbinic Judaism: Some Rabbinic Elements in Pauline Theology 1970
  • The Cambridge History of Judaism: The Persian Period 1984
  • The Gospel and the Land 1974
  • Jewish and Pauline studies 1984
  • The Sermon on the Mount 1966
  • Torah in the Messianic Age: And/or the Age to Come 1952
  • Paul and Rabbinic Judaism 1970
  • Christian origins and Judaism 1962

Religion

Davies believed that Christianity had to be viewed as an offshoot of Judaism, although the two religions have enormous differences.

Views

Quotations: “The very matrix of Christianity is Judaism: Christianity is the very bone of Judaism.”

Connections

William Davies married Eurwen Llewelyn in 1942 in Wales. The couple had one daughter, Rachel M. Davies.

child:

Rachel M. Davies

Wife:

Eurwen Llewelyn