Soundings in Kings: Perspectives and Methods in Contemporary Scholarship

Introduction

1 Introduction Mark Leuchter and Klaus-Peter Adam For many years, the book of Kings was taken to be a record of events in the life of ancient Israel during the period of the monarchy that revealed in an unencumbered way the deeds of the kings, the complaints of the prophets, and the intervention of divine forces into political affairs when punishment was due. In more recent times, though, researchers have approached the study of the book of Kings from a variety of perspectives that have moved beyond a basic reading of the text as a historical record. Structural , theological, linguistic, ethnoarchaeological, anthropological, and more methods and disciplines constantly appear to be added to the field.1 Part of this is doubtlessly the result of interdisciplinary dialogue that has led scholars to recognize the potential for tilling the common ground that has long gone uncultivated between traditions of study.2 But another reason why the plethora of approaches has grown so rapidly in the last few decades is because of a breakdown of certain assumptions regarding the literary place of Kings in the biblical canon that has grown increasingly clear in recent years. In this sense, the study of Kings has evolved in similar directions to other areas in biblical scholarship,such as pentateuchal studies.Just as that field of research has seen major challenges to long-enduring theories and perceptions, so too has the book of Kings been the subject of reevaluation and vastly different understandings of how it should (or for some, how it must) be read. 2 SOundIngS In kIngS kings and the Theory of the deuteronomistic History Martin Noth’s influential model of an exilic Deuteronomistic History (DH), that is, the historiographic work spanning Deuteronomy–Kings, became the essential point of departure for qualifying the composition of Kings in relation to the other narratives presenting the history of Israel, from the period of the “conquest” to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Babylonian exile.3 Since the middle of the twentieth century, the book of Kings was almost always viewed within the context of the larger DH, worked into its current place by a Judahite scribe residing as a captive in Babylon. For many, the idea of such a redaction taking place in the exile made—and continues to make— very good sense.4 The majority of the population deported to Babylon was composed of the socioeconomic and intellectual elite of Judahite society,precisely the people who would either have had genuine archival sources in their possession or have been well steeped in the contents of those sources upon being taken captive to Mesopotamia. Many arguments that support such a view can be adduced. For instance, a recent examination of scribal culture by David M. Carr makes clear that “education-enculturation” in ancient Israel (as elsewhere in the ancient world) would have led scribes in exile to be able to reproduce documents replete with historical information;5 the conditions of exile would have doubtlessly led those scribes to determine the causes of their recent experiences and read those causes back into their history. Asssuming five main sources of Kings (the Succession Narrative in 1 Kings 1–2*, the “books of the chronicles of the kings of Israel,” the “books of the chronicles of the kings Judah,” the “books of the acts of Solomon,” and prophetic traditions, namely the prophetic narratives6 ), Noth’s Deuteronomist edited these sources, shortened and/or enlarged them, and embedded his own speeches. From this perspective, there was no “book” of Kings beyond the context of the larger DH,as the major sources were combined into Kings at the same time as the sources in the other parts of the DH. A major stage in the development of Noth’s theory came at the hands of Frank M. Cross, who observed that the DH appeared in a penultimate form during the reign of King Josiah in the last quarter of the seventh century bce, concomitant with Josiah’s reported religious reform, itself apparently motivated by the discovery and influence of the book of Deuteronomy (2 Kgs 22:8—23:25). Only a fairly small amount of material was added during an exilic updating of the largely complete work.7 One of the core notions of Cross’s model is the integration of the genuinely pro-Davidic and prodynastic themes currently found in Deuteronomy–Kings (though there InTROduCTIOn 3 is little overt...