A native of South Dakota, Oden earned a bachelor's degree magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard College. He attended Cambridge University as a Marshall Scholar, earning a second bachelor's degree and a master's degree before returning to Harvard to complete a master's of theology and a Ph.D. in Near Eastern languages and literatures.

From 1972 to 1989, he was a member of the religion faculty at Dartmouth College, and was the recipient of Dartmouth's first Distinguished Teaching Prize. Oden has focused his research on Biblical literature, the ancient Near East and comparative religions. He is a widely-published author of articles and books, and has lectured at educational and academic institutions and academic meetings across the country and abroad.

Oden served as headmaster of The Hotchkiss School, a private secondary school, from 1989 to 1995, when he was appointed president at Kenyon. At Kenyon, Oden led a highly-successful capital campaign, raising over $100 million. He also led a successful faculty review of the curriculum, worked to diversify the faculty and enhance and preserve the beauty of Kenyon's campus, established a Board of Trustees and endowment to ensure the future of the school's journal, Kenyon Review, and encouraged the purchase of hundreds of acres around Gambier to preserve the college's rural character.

Oden has been a member of the Boards of the Columbus Academy in Columbus, Ohio, the Great Lakes Colleges Association, the North Coast Athletic Conference and The Ohio Five. He has been a trustee of The American University in Cairo, Egypt, since 1990.

Oden and his wife, Teresa, have two grown children, Robert and Katharine. He enjoys fly fishing (and has published several articles on the topic), running, reading, and travel, particularly to the Middle East.