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David Toshio Tsumura (津村 俊夫, Tsumura Toshio; born February 4, 1944) is a linguist, Old Testament scholar, dean of faculty, and professor of Old Testament professor at Japan Bible Seminary. His degrees are M.Div., M.A., Ph.D.[1] He is a chairman of the Tokyo Museum of Biblical Archaeology,[2] editor of Exegetica: Studies in Biblical Exegesis,[3][4] chairman of the New Japanese Bible（新改訳）Publishing Association, and author of the volume on 1 Samuel in the New International Commentary on the Old Testament series.
Tsumura was born in Kobe, Japan, in 1944. He graduated from Hitotsubashi University in 1966, where he majored in commerce before continuing his studies in the USA. While studying ethics, he became interested in the study of the Hebrew Bible. He applied to Asbury Theological Seminary to study for an M.Div., graduating in 1969. He then applied to Brandeis University for a research master's degree in Mediterranean Studies, which he completed in 1971. Tsumura's doctorate, also in Mediterranean Studies, was awarded by the same university in 1973 for his work on Ugarit.[6]
After graduating from Brandeis University in 1974, he returned to Japan where he became a lecturer, and later professor, in Old Testament at Japan Bible Seminary. From 1975 to 1990, he served as Associate Professor of Semitic Linguistics at the University of Tsukuba, teaching literature and linguistics. In 1990, he returned to Japan Bible Seminary.
He is recognized as a world-wide scholar, having been a visiting scholar at Harvard Divinity School (1973-1974), the University of Michigan (1979), and Harvard University in the department of Near Eastern Studies (1994).. He was a research fellow at Tyndale House (Cambridge) from 1986 to 1988.
He has taught Old Testament several times in Hong Kong at the China Graduate School of Theology.[7]