The First Book of Samuel (review)

Hebrew Studies 49 (2008) 352 Reviews pages for results from the study is a rather meager haul for an entire book of 200 pages. The methodological questions relating to use of the data from Mesopotamian , Egyptian, and Greek temples should have been debated. The positions taken and interpretations offered should have had more discussion in many cases. Each individual chapter should have had a concluding synthesis of what the chapter had demonstrated, and the final conclusion could have been of sufficient length and detail that it was clear what had been demonstrated by the book as a whole. There are many useful data here, but readers will have to analyze it for themselves. Lester L. Grabbe University of Hull Hull, England l.l.grabbe@hull.ac.uk THE FIRST BOOK OF SAMUEL. By David Toshio Tsumura. NICOT. Pp. xxii + 698. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2007. Cloth, $50.00. David Tsumura has given us a modern philological and literary commentary which addresses a number of issues that are not normally part of scholarly discourse. A comprehensive introduction reviews modern theories of the history of the text (including the latest publications on the texts from the Judean Desert), recent literary-historical and literary-structural/semiotic (‘holistic’) scholarship, historiography, historical and religious background, and questions of grammar and syntax. The present reviewer was happy to note chapters on discourse analysis, including an expose of Longacre’s approach and a note of viewpoint (though not from a literary angle). A chapter on prose and poetry discusses the structure of parallelism, poetic prose, different forms of repetition and brachylogy. The keys include an index of Subjects, Modern Authors, Scriptural references, and Foreign words (Hebrew, Akkadian, Ugaritic, Phoenician/Punic, and other ancient languages). 1 Samuel is considered to serve two purposes: the establishment of the monarchy and the preparation of David for the role of the king, all through the prophetic authority of Samuel as God’s messenger. The author’s critical position is fairly (and rationally) conservative. The final redaction of the book of Samuel is attributed to the late tenth century, in view of the note on the Judean crown possession of Ziklag which seems to refer to the period before the campaign of Shishak, and in any case does not make sense after the Assyrian conquest of the entire Philistine area Hebrew Studies 49 (2008) 353 Reviews (1 Sam 27:6, pp. 11, 612). The author rejects the assumption of such blocks as a comprehensive “Ark Narrative” (1 Samuel 4–7; 2 Samuel 6) and the “History of David’s Rise” (1 Samuel 16–2 Samuel 5), and tends to prefer smaller frames, such as the “Ark Narrative” (1 Samuel 4–7only), embedded within the Samuel History (1 Samuel 1–7), followed by a “Story of Saul” (1 Sam 9:1–15:35), and a “Story of Saul and David” (1 Samuel 16–31). Of these blocks, the Ark Narrative is tentatively attributed to the pre-Davidic era, in view of the lack of allusions to a royal cult in Jerusalem (pp. 11–12). The Saul-David Story is considered to reflect the political tensions in the time of David’s rule, and is intrinsically linked to the “Story of King David” (2 Samuel 1–20), in particular by means of the report of Saul’s death and David’s elegy in the opening chapter (pp. 13–16). The framework of 2 Samuel 21–24 is viewed as an epilogue that provides a thematic closure for the David tales, and in which the tale of the offering at the threshing floor of Araunah marks the transition to the account of Solomon’s Temple building. The author regards Solomon’s accession narrative (1 Kings 1–2) as an interface of David and Solomon tales (pp. 67–68). In Tsumura’s view, the contrast between the alleged pro-monarchic and anti-monarchic passages has been exaggerated (pp. 11, 248), seeing that in biblical context the human king always is considered the regent/deputy of God, as the heavenly king (pp. 249, 275, 282; following to a certain extent M. Tsevat). Instead of an anti-monarchic division, the author locates the tale on the “Transition to...