David Daube (1909 1999) was an eminent authority on Talmudic, Roman and ancient law, who taught legal history and jurisprudence at Cambridge, Aberdeen, Oxford and Berkeley. He was also in the vanguard of scholars who established the importance of Jewish and Talmudic perspectives to the understanding of the New Testament. This book, first published in 1947 and now reissued, contains five ground-breaking essays on the legal issues present in a number of Old Testament narratives including the story of Joseph and his brothers. Among the topics discussed are theft, deception, evidence, liability and punishment. These are set in the wider context of the growth of codes in the Pentateuch, Rabbinic interpretations of the Torah, and Roman sources including Macrobius and Gaius. Daube's book will resonate afresh in the scholarly climate of the twenty-first century, where the relationships between law and religion and between Judaism and Christianity are again the subject of lively debate.

Selections from the Roman Law writings of David Daube, foremost humanist of the law. Like Montaigne, Daube possessed the capacity to be "a contemporary for all times." No matter what period of history Daube inquired into he had an uncanny instinct for uncovering unexpected insights that root us in that time and have universal application.

"That over forty years after they were delivered these famous but unavailable Gifford Lectures should be published is occasion for celebration. Once again we hear Daube's voice, patient and probing, as he turns over, tests, pushes fresh inquiries, and finds new insights. No man has had such a subtle sense of scriptural texts matched by such a supple sense of the practices and peculiarities of human beings engaged in the legal process. "Law and Wisdom in the Bible" is classic Daube." mdash;John T. Noonan Jr., United States Circuit Judge

David Daube (1909-99) was known for his unique and sophisticated research on Roman law, biblical law, Jewish Law, and medical ethics. In "Law and Wisdom in the Bible," the first published collection of his 1964 Gifford Lectures, Daube derives from his complex understanding of biblical texts both ancient and contemporary notions about wisdom, justice, and education.

In addressing these and other profound issues, Daube crosses traditional disciplinary boundaries and bridges the
gap between humanism and religion, especially with regard to Christianity and Judaism. With his sophisticated understanding of Talmudic law and literature, his thinking, which is on full display in these lectures, revolutionized prevailing perceptions about the New Testament.