It is being reported in the biblioblogosphere that David Noel Freedman has died.1 Freedman was a giant in the field. He was a Johns Hopkins University graduate, and his fellow student Frank Moore Cross was the Doktorvater of my professor P. Kyle McCarter when I was at Hopkins, so naturally we read a lot of Freedman’s books and articles. And if I ever have to be trapped on a deserted island with only one book (in addition to the Bible), that book would be the Anchor Bible Dictionary, which Freedman edited.2

I don’t believe I ever met Freedman, unless it was in passing at a Johns Hopkins reception at the SBL. I do have a small connection with him, however. My first publication was a seventy-five word entry on the Egyptian city of Hanes in the Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, edited by David Noel Freedman et al. It earned me the first $3.25 I ever made as a scholar.

As I was searching for his official obituary on the web, I came across an article about his father, David Freedman. He was a comedy writer in the early days of radio, and also produced some works for stage and screen. He wrote a biography that was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Another biography about Florenz Ziegfeld was later the basis for the movie The Ziegfeld Follies. He also wrote the script for Blue Blazes, a short comedy film starting Buster Keaton as a bumbling firefighter.  David Noel Freedman wrote an article about his father entitled “David Freedman: Captain of Comedy”.


  1. Jim West appears to have been the first to report this. I have not been able to find an official announcement. [back]
  2. I am hoping that whoever makes up the rules for being trapped on a deserted island will let the six volumes of the ABD count as one book. [back]
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