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  • Jeroboam’s Royal Drama by Keith Bodner
  • K. L. Noll
Jeroboam’s Royal Drama. By Keith Bodner. Biblical Refigurations. Pp. x + 167. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Paper, $27.95.

This book delivers some of what it promises, but leaves the careful reader dissatisfied. Bodner applies the tools of synchronic narrative criticism to the tale of King Jeroboam in 1 Kings 11–14. The book presents a competent summary of mainstream synchronic scholarship, especially theologically oriented synchronic scholarship, but does not break new ground.

Bodner suggests that Jeroboam is a fully rounded character who exhibits virtues and flaws. The man has talent that is recognized by his lord, King Solomon, but eventually uses his talent to defy both Solomon and the story-world patron god, Yahweh. Along the way, Bodner provides a variety of incidental observations about the narrative’s quality as literature. For example, Bodner notes that the narrator of 1 Kings can be unreliable (p. 28); he stresses the irony that Solomon, like King Saul before him, has inadvertently promoted and equipped the man who is destined to replace him (p. 45); he notes various kinds of wordplay, such as the identity between the unpointed Hebrew words for “garment” and “Solomon,” so that Ahijah’s ripping of the garment in 1 Kings 11 seems to be also a ripping of Solomon (p. 52). Bodner lingers lovingly over portions of the text that present human anxiety or anguish, such as Jeroboam’s soliloquy in 1 Kgs 12:26–27 (pp. 84–89), and the tragic scene involving the wife of the king in 1 Kings 14 (pp. 128–139).

Unfortunately, there is much to dislike in this book. First, Bodner fails to clarify what text he thinks he is reading. He chooses to ignore all textual difficulties and focus on the Masoretic Text (p. 7, n. 7). Yet, he also treats 1 Kings 11–14 as part of a hypothetical Deuteronomistic History, which he calls “DH” and assigns to the sixth century b.c.e. (pp. 11–12). The Masoretic Text did not yet exist at that early date, and most researchers will not treat narratives from Genesis and Exodus as part of their hypothetical Deuteronomistic History, as Bodner does frequently (e.g., pp. 36, 50, 63). [End Page 419] Bodner even appeals to passages from the Former Prophets that are often excluded from the Deuteronomistic History hypothesis, such as Masoretic Text 1 Kgs 6:11–13, omitted in Old Greek (p. 46); Joshua 24 (p. 60); Masoretic Text 1 Kgs 15:5, which differs in Old Greek (p. 83); and 1 Kings 13 (pp. 97–119).

Second, while it is possible for a synchronic study to remain ahistorical, as is Bodner’s stated goal, it is not acceptable when a synchronic study ignores basic historical research. Frequently, Bodner fuses his own hypothetical, but implausible, ancient past with the fictional biblical narrative (e.g., pp. 91–93). In other cases, his assertions boldly ignore decades of research: “The division of the kingdom at Shechem represents the greatest political implosion in Israel’s history as a people” (p. 58). Perhaps an early-twentieth-century historian such as Albright or Noth could make a naïve assertion of this kind, but researchers today realize that the data for the tenth-century render such statements problematic. Even if one accepts a hypothesis of a “kingdom” at that early date, Bodner has no evidence that it split at Shechem and is not able to say that an entity called “Israel” existed “as a people” in the Iron Age IIA. Many similar assertions in this book suggest that Bodner maintains a quaint view of the ancient past. For example, readers are assured that one of “Israel’s historic traditions” is “monotheism” (p. 34). Not so. Deuteronomy and Isaiah express an intolerant henotheism or monolatry, not monotheism (e.g., Deut. 4:35; 5:7–10; 10:17; Isa. 45:6b–7a), and portions of the Bible are cheerfully polytheistic (e.g., Gen 3:24; Judg 11:24; Ps 29:1). Archaeological and textual data suggest that a systematic monotheism emerged among Jews no earlier than Greco-Roman times.

Third, Bodner fails to evaluate...

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