David M. Carr is Professor of Hebrew Bible at Union Theological Seminary in New York. Over his decades-long academic career, he has become an international authority on the formation of the Bible, ancient scribal culture, and issues of the Bible and sexuality.
Decades into a career as a biblical scholar, he suffered a life-threatening bicycle accident that changed his view of the scriptures he had devoted his life to studying. As he grappled with his own individual trauma and survival of it, he became interested in how the collective trauma of Israel and the early church had shaped the Bible. He saw that these holy texts are defined by survival of communal catastrophe. This is part of what makes them special, what made them last. The result of this basic insight is Carr's work, Holy Resilience: The Bible's Traumatic Origins (Yale University Press, Fall 2014) and he has written an introduction to the Hebrew Bible from that perspective, The Hebrew Bible: A Contemporary Introduction to the Christian Old Testament and Jewish Tanakh (Wiley Blackwell 2021), also published in abbreviated form as part of Colleen Conway and David Carr, A Contemporary Introduction to the Bible: Sacred Texts and Imperial Contexts (Wiley Blackwell 2021).
His academic journey to the point of writing Holy Resilience started with dropping out of high school at age sixteen to attend college full-time and completing a BA in Philosophy at Carleton College at age eighteen in 1980. Eight years later, in 1988, he finished his Ph.D. with a focus on the Old Testament and Early Judaism at Claremont Graduate University.
Since then he has taught full time for over thirty years, first at Methodist Theological School in Delaware, Ohio (1988-1999) and the last fifteen years at Union Theological Seminary in New York City (1999-present). Some of his publications have been directed to fellow specialists on the Bible, such as Reading the Fractures of Genesis (Westminster John Knox Press, 1996), Writing on the Tablet of the Heart: Origins of Scripture and Literature (Oxford University Press, 2005), The Formation of the Hebrew Bible: A New Reconstruction (Oxford University Press, 2011), The Formation of Genesis 1-11: Biblical and Other Precursors (Oxford University Press, 2020), and Genesis 1-11, International Exegetical Commentary on the Old Testament (Kohlhammer, 2021). Other publications have been directed to a broader audience of students and the general public such as Carr's The Erotic Word: Sexuality, Spirituality and the Bible (Oxford University Press, 2001).
A father/stepfather of four, Carr lives, rides his bicycle and plays funk-blues organ in New York City with his wife and fellow biblical scholar, Colleen Conway.
Decades into a career as a biblical scholar, he suffered a life-threatening bicycle accident that changed his view of the scriptures he had devoted his life to studying. As he grappled with his own individual trauma and survival of it, he became interested in how the collective trauma of Israel and the early church had shaped the Bible. He saw that these holy texts are defined by survival of communal catastrophe. This is part of what makes them special, what made them last. The result of this basic insight is Carr's work, Holy Resilience: The Bible's Traumatic Origins (Yale University Press, Fall 2014) and he has written an introduction to the Hebrew Bible from that perspective, The Hebrew Bible: A Contemporary Introduction to the Christian Old Testament and Jewish Tanakh (Wiley Blackwell 2021), also published in abbreviated form as part of Colleen Conway and David Carr, A Contemporary Introduction to the Bible: Sacred Texts and Imperial Contexts (Wiley Blackwell 2021).
His academic journey to the point of writing Holy Resilience started with dropping out of high school at age sixteen to attend college full-time and completing a BA in Philosophy at Carleton College at age eighteen in 1980. Eight years later, in 1988, he finished his Ph.D. with a focus on the Old Testament and Early Judaism at Claremont Graduate University.
Since then he has taught full time for over thirty years, first at Methodist Theological School in Delaware, Ohio (1988-1999) and the last fifteen years at Union Theological Seminary in New York City (1999-present). Some of his publications have been directed to fellow specialists on the Bible, such as Reading the Fractures of Genesis (Westminster John Knox Press, 1996), Writing on the Tablet of the Heart: Origins of Scripture and Literature (Oxford University Press, 2005), The Formation of the Hebrew Bible: A New Reconstruction (Oxford University Press, 2011), The Formation of Genesis 1-11: Biblical and Other Precursors (Oxford University Press, 2020), and Genesis 1-11, International Exegetical Commentary on the Old Testament (Kohlhammer, 2021). Other publications have been directed to a broader audience of students and the general public such as Carr's The Erotic Word: Sexuality, Spirituality and the Bible (Oxford University Press, 2001).
A father/stepfather of four, Carr lives, rides his bicycle and plays funk-blues organ in New York City with his wife and fellow biblical scholar, Colleen Conway.