David Bennett obtained his BA (Bachelor of Arts) from Reed College, Portland Oregon (1996), his Master of Arts in Philosophy from the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, Berkeley, California (2003) and his Master of Arts (2009) and Ph.D. (2011) in Near Eastern Languages and cultures from the University of California. His PhD dissertation was on Mu'tazilite thought.

From 2013-2014, Dr. David Bennett was a postdoctoral researcher at the Courant Research Centre EDRIS at the Georg-August University in Göttingen. He left EDRIS for the University of Gothemburg, Sweden.