Prior Publications
Books
The Hebrew Bible: A Contemporary Introduction to the Christian Old Testament and Jewish Tanakh. Briefer version published in Colleen Conway and David Carr, A Contemporary Introduction to the Bible: Sacred Texts and Imperial Contexts. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2021. To purchase, click here (Amazon) or here (Barnes and Noble).
Genesis 1-11. International Exegetical Commentary on the Old Testament. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2021. To purchase, click here (Amazon) or here (Barnes and Noble).
The Formation of Genesis 1-11: Biblical and Other Precursors. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020. To purchase, click here (Amazon) or here (Barnes and Noble).
The Formation of the Hebrew Bible: A New Reconstruction. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2011. To purchase, click here (Amazon) or here (Barnes and Noble).
Writing on the Tablet of the Heart: Origins of Scripture and Literature. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2005. To purchase click here (Amazon) or here (Barnes and Noble).
The Erotic Word: Sexuality, Spirituality and the Bible. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2003. To purchase click here (Amazon) or here (Barnes and Noble)
Reading the Fractures of Genesis: Historical and Literary Approaches. Louisville, KT:
Westminster/John Knox Press, 1996. To purchase click here (Amazon).
A Gift of God in Due Season: Essays on Scripture and Community in Honor of James A.
Sanders. Eds. R. Weis and D. Carr. JSOT Supplement Series 225. Sheffield: Sheffield
Academic Press, 1996.
From D to Q: A Study of Early Jewish Interpretations of Solomon’s Dream at Gibeon. SBL
Monograph Series 44; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991.
The Hebrew Bible: A Contemporary Introduction to the Christian Old Testament and Jewish Tanakh. Briefer version published in Colleen Conway and David Carr, A Contemporary Introduction to the Bible: Sacred Texts and Imperial Contexts. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2021. To purchase, click here (Amazon) or here (Barnes and Noble).
- This introduction to the Hebrew Bible is unique in introducing students to how the Bible was formed amidst experiences of communal trauma. Students learn the story of Judah and Israel and read texts of the Bible that relate to each period. It also surveys the diverse methods used to read the Bible today, including important newer perspectives from ecological, postcolonial, womanist, and African American scholars.
Genesis 1-11. International Exegetical Commentary on the Old Testament. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2021. To purchase, click here (Amazon) or here (Barnes and Noble).
- This commentary offers a new translation of Genesis 1-11 and a detailed commentary on the shape and background of influential biblical stories of creation, murder, and flood.
The Formation of Genesis 1-11: Biblical and Other Precursors. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020. To purchase, click here (Amazon) or here (Barnes and Noble).
- Written for specialists and advanced students, this book surveys the sources of Genesis 1-11, both Ancient Near Eastern traditions of creation and flood and ancient Israelite oral and written traditions.
The Formation of the Hebrew Bible: A New Reconstruction. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2011. To purchase, click here (Amazon) or here (Barnes and Noble).
- Written for specialists and advanced students, this is three books in one: a discussion of methodology in study of the formation of the Hebrew Bible, a survey of the Bible's formation from latest (more reconstructable) layers to earlier (more hypothetical) stages, and a discussion of whether the Hebrew Bible contains remnants of early literature preceding the time of Assyrian domination.
Writing on the Tablet of the Heart: Origins of Scripture and Literature. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2005. To purchase click here (Amazon) or here (Barnes and Noble).
- This monograph argues that the Hebrew Bible and other major ancient texts, such as Gilgamesh and Greek literature, were written down as part of an ancient process of education that focused on memorization. Ancient readers were meant to use such written copies to write these holy literary texts on the "tablet of their heart."
The Erotic Word: Sexuality, Spirituality and the Bible. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2003. To purchase click here (Amazon) or here (Barnes and Noble)
- This book looks at how texts in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament, particularly garden texts like the Eden story of Genesis 2-3 or the Song of Songs, can be used to think in new positive ways about the relationship of erotic passion and spirituality.
Reading the Fractures of Genesis: Historical and Literary Approaches. Louisville, KT:
Westminster/John Knox Press, 1996. To purchase click here (Amazon).
- Where some have seen literary and source-critical studies as contradictory, Reading the Fractures shows how careful study of the formation of a biblical book, Genesis, can deepen appreciation of its present literary form.
A Gift of God in Due Season: Essays on Scripture and Community in Honor of James A.
Sanders. Eds. R. Weis and D. Carr. JSOT Supplement Series 225. Sheffield: Sheffield
Academic Press, 1996.
- This collection of essays is a tribute to David's Carr's teacher, James A. Sanders, and it includes an extended essay by Carr on the formation of the Hebrew canon.
From D to Q: A Study of Early Jewish Interpretations of Solomon’s Dream at Gibeon. SBL
Monograph Series 44; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991.
- A published form of Carr's dissertation which compares interpretation implicit in the formation of 1 Kings 3:2-15 (the story of Solomon's dream at Gibeon) with early Jewish interpretations of the story up through the gospel source, Q, and Jewish historian Josephus.