David Noel Freedman (12 May 1922 – 8 April 2008) was an American biblical scholar, author, editor, archaeologist, and, after his conversion from Judaism, a Presbyterian minister.

The elder Freedman died in 1936 and Noel adopted his name as a mark of respect.

The New York Times misidentified Noel as a girl in David Freedman's obituary.

In 1947, while he was still a graduate student, the excavation of caves near the Dead Sea was just beginning to unearth thousands of fragments of texts.

He became one of the first American scholars to get access and spent twenty years painstakingly studying and translating a scroll of Leviticus, one of the books of the Torah.