Karl Paul Donfried is a graduate of Columbia and Harvard and earned his doctoral degree at the University of Heidelberg in Germany.

Donfried's research interests include Paul, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the relationship between early Christianity and the Judaisms of the Second Temple Period.

Donfried taught at Smith from 1968 to 2005 and has also served as visiting professor at Amherst College, Brown, Yale, the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and the Pontifical Biblical Institute, Rome, as well as universities in Berlin, Geneva and Hamburg.