DAUBE, DAVID

DAUBE, DAVID (1909–1999), jurist and biblical scholar. Daube was born in Freiburg, Baden, and studied at the University of Goettingen and Cambridge and Oxford universities. From 1938–51 he was lecturer in law at Cambridge University, professor of jurisprudence at Aberdeen University, 1951–55, and Regius Professor of Civil Law at Oxford from 1955. From 1970 he was professor at the University of California at Berkeley. Daube was considered one of the world's leading authorities on Roman law, and he made important contributions to the understanding of the history of biblical and talmudic law. His published works included Studies in Biblical Law (1947), which compares Roman and Hebrew law; New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism (1956), which sheds light on many incidents and sayings in the New Testament with information from rabbinic and sectarian Jewish sources; Sin, Ignorance and Forgiveness in the Bible (1960), an examination of the plea of ignorance of the law as a defense; Exodus Pattern in the Bible (1963), analysis of the legal themes and terms used in the story of Exodus and other biblical tales of a similar pattern; The Sudden in the Scriptures (1964), which lists the terms for the sudden and the unexpected in both the Old and New Testaments with further elucidations drawn from rabbinic usage; Collaboration with Tyranny in Rabbinic Law (1965); and Roman Law (1969). -ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: ODNB online.