The Trouble with Kings: The Composition of the Book of Kings in the Deuteronomistic History (review)

Hebrew Studies 34 (1993) 165 Reviews realities that influence human lives. For the Elohist Speaker, God is revealed "where the heart is tom in our deepest inter-personal relationships." As a result, readers of the Yahwist are led to "recover their authentic selves by accepting the constraints of historical origins and by fighting evil in the pursuit of prosperity." The Elohist teaches readers to "trust in God's direct care during storms of personal grief." Comparable ideas are developed in chapters on the Priestly narrative writer and the Deuteronomist. The entire discussion is marked by more critical interest and nuance than can be illustrated here. A concluding chapter explains how Lonergan's theological hermeneutics should apply to biblical reading, with a focus on the reader's dialectical handling of Lonergan's operations of research, interpretation, and history on the one hand and doctrines, systematics, and communications (the last counteracts the personalizing tendency of this book) on the other. As a mature treatment of a fundamental problem, this book offers much that illumines, intrigues, and excites. Naturally it is not always possible to agree entirely with the author's literary and historical understanding, but the theme of the book is worth consideration and the undertaking as a whole, which involves all teachers of Scripture, commendable. Robert B. Coote San Francisco Theological Seminary San Anselmo. CA 94960 THE TROUBLE WITH KINGS: THE COMPOSITION OF THE BOOK OF KINGS IN THE DEUTERONOMISTIC HISTORY. By Steven L. McKenzie. Vetus Testamentum Supplements 42. Pp. xii + 186. New York: EJ. Brill, 1991. Cloth, $54.44. This book developed out of the author's doctoral dissertation "The Chronicler's Use of the Deuteronomistic History" which was published in the Harvard Semitic Monograph series in 1985. McKenzie does not claim a great deal of originality in this work, only a new way of linking parts of the Deuteronomistic material together. He reviews past approaches to the Deuteronomistic History (DH): Noth's understanding of the DH as a continuous unit by an exilic author/editor; Nicholson's two stage (preexilic and exilic) process by a school of tradents; Hebrew Studies 34 (1993) 166 Reviews and Cross' two redactor approach. He examines the theories of those who find multiple redactional levels, those who identify pre-deuteronomistic prophetic sources, and those who distinguish between the work of an author and an editor. In order to find out which of these reconstructions most adequately explains the complex material in Kings, McKenzie analyzes a series of key texts. He begins by looking at the LXX addition to 3 Kgdms 12:24a-z, a text which J. Trebolle considers pre-deuteronomistic. McKenzie skillfully shows that the supplement presupposes and abbreviates the MT, borrows motifs from other prophetic stories to supplement the account, and fails to order events in a logical way. Therefore, it is not a pre-deuteronomistic text. His analysis of the Jeroboam cycle in 1 Kings 11-14 explains some supposed redactional work through textual criticism (11 :34-35; 12:2-3) but attributes some Davidic comments before the end of the monarchy to a Deuteronomistic writer (11 :29-39). He does not see 1 Kings 13 as Deuteronomistic (contra W. E. Lemke in Magnalia Dei, The Mighty Acts of God [1976] pp. 301-326) but contends that it is a prophetic legend similar to the Elisha cycle. Because evidence of a pre-deuteronomistic prophetic account in the Jeroboam material is minimal, McKenzie doubts the independent existence of such a work. He finds no pre-deuteronomistic version of the oracles against the dynasty in 1 Kings 14-2 Kings 10 as suggested by Campbell and O'Brien. The DH used individual prophetic stories in a few cases but there was no connected edition of these events. When McKenzie evaluates the prophetic texts, he, like H. Stipp (Elischa-Propheten-Gottesmannen [1987]), rejects Fohrer's conclusion that 1 Kings 17-19 was deuteronomistic; instead he sees these as postexilic insertions. 1 Kings 20 and 22 are postdeuteronomistic additions that were not originally about Ahab, and 2 Kgs 2; 3:4-27; 4:1-8:15 and 13:14-21 show no sign of deuteronomistic editing. This means that the DH was fairly short, emphasizing...