- published: 10 Jun 2016
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David (/ˈdeɪvɪd/; Hebrew: דָּוִד, Modern David, Tiberian Dāwîḏ;ISO 259-3 Dawid; Arabic: داوُد Dāwūd; Syriac: ܕܘܝܕ Dawid; Ancient Greek: Δαυίδ; Latin: Davidus, David; Strong's: Daveed) was, according to the Books of Samuel, the second king of the United Kingdom of Israel, and according to the New Testament, an ancestor of Jesus. His life is conventionally dated to c. 1040 – 970 BCE, his reign over Judah c. 1010–970 BCE.
The Books of Samuel, 1 Kings, and 1 Chronicles are the only Old Testament sources of information on David, although the Tel Dan Stele (dated c. 850–835 BCE) contains the phrase בית דוד (bytdwd), read as "House of David", which many scholars confirm to be a likely plausible match to the existence in the mid-9th century BCE of a Judean royal dynasty called the House of David.
Depicted as a valorous warrior of great renown, and a poet and musician credited for composing much of the psalms contained in the Book of Psalms, King David is widely viewed as a righteous and effective king in battle and civil justice. He is described as a man after God's own heart in 1 Samuel 13:14 and Acts 13:22.
David Novak (born 1941 in Chicago, Illinois) is a Jewish theologian, ethicist, and scholar of Jewish philosophy and law (Halakha). He is an ordained Conservative rabbi and has also trained with Catholic moral theologians. Since 1997 he has taught religion and philosophy at the University of Toronto; his areas of interest are Jewish theology, ethics and biomedical ethics, political theory (with a special emphasis on natural law theory) and Jewish-Christian relations.
Novak has authored 16 books and more than 200 articles in scholarly journals. His book Covenantal Rights: A Study in Jewish Political Theory (Princeton University Press, 2000) was named best book in constructive religious thought by the American Academy of Religion in 2000. He is a regular contributor to ABC News' Religion and Ethics Portal. He frequently addresses interfaith conferences and contributes to books and journals published by Christian theologians.
Novak was born in 1941 in Chicago, Illinois. He received his bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago in 1961 and his master's degree in Hebrew literature in 1964. He earned his Ph.D. in philosophy at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., in 1971. (Later he remarked that he chose Georgetown in part because it was a Catholic university.) He received rabbinical ordination in 1966 from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, where he studied under Abraham Joshua Heschel.